Sermons for the Times Part 7

But what use of many words? It is absurd to believe anything else; absurd to believe that man was meant to live like the b.u.t.terfly, flitting without care from flower to flower, and, like the b.u.t.terfly, die helpless at the first shower or the first winter's frost. Whatever the text means, it cannot mean that.

And it does not mean that. I suppose, that three hundred years ago (when the Bible was translated out of the Greek tongue, in which the Apostles wrote, into English), 'taking thought' meant something different from what it does now: but the plain meaning of the text, if it be put into such English as we talk now, is, 'Do not _fret_ about the morrow. Be not anxious about the morrow.' There is no doubt at all, as any scholar can tell you, that that is the plain meaning of the word in our modern English, and that our Lord is not telling us to be imprudent or idle, but not to be anxious and fretful about the morrow.

And more, I think if we look carefully at these words, we shall find that they tell us the very reason why we are to work, and to look forward, and to believe that G.o.d will bless our labour.

And what is this reason? It is this, that we have a _Father_ in heaven; not a mere Maker, not a mere Master, but a _Father_. All turns on that one Gospel of all Gospels, _your Father in heaven_.

For our Lord seems to me to say, 'Be not anxious for your life, what ye shall eat, or drink, or wear. Is not the life more than meat?

Has not your Heavenly Father given you a higher life than the mere life which must be kept up by food, which He has given to the animals? He has made you reasonable souls; He has given to you wisdom from His own wisdom, and a share of the Light which lights every man who comes into the world, the Light of Christ His Son; He has created you in His own likeness, that like Him you may make things, be makers and inventors, each in his place and calling, each according to his talents and powers, even as your Heavenly Father, the Maker and Creator of all things. And if He has given you all these wonderful powers of mind and soul, surely He has given you the less blessing, the mere power to earn your own food? If He has made you so much wiser than the beasts, surely He has made you as wise as the beasts.' 'And is not the body more than raiment?' Has He not given you bodies which can speak, write, build, work, plant, in a thousand cunning and wonderful ways; bodies which can do a thousand n.o.bler things than merely keep themselves warm, as the beasts do?

Then be sure, if He has given you the greater power, He has given you the less also. And as for fine clothes and rich ornaments, 'Is not the body more than raiment?' Is not your body a far more beautiful and n.o.bler thing than all the gay clothes with which you can bedizen it? If your bodies be fair, strong, healthy, useful, it matters little what clothes you put upon them. Why will you not have faith in your Heavenly Father? Why will you not have faith in the great honour which He put on you when He said at first, 'Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and let him have dominion over all things on the earth'? Be sure, that G.o.d would not have made man, and given him all these powers, and sent him upon this earth, unless this earth had been a right good and fit place for him. Be sure that if you obey the laws of this earth where G.o.d has put you, you will never need to be anxious or fret; but you will prosper right well, you and your children after you. For 'Consider the fowls of the air, they neither sow, nor reap, and gather into barns, and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them; and are ye not much better than they?' Surely you are, for you _can_ sow, and reap, and gather into barns. And if G.o.d makes the earth work so well that it feeds the fowls who cannot help themselves, how much more will the earth feed you who _can_ help yourselves, because G.o.d has given you understanding and prudence? But as for anxiety, fretting, repining, complaining to G.o.d, 'Why hast Thou made me thus?' what use in that?

'Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit to his stature?'

Will all the fretting and anxiety in the world make you one foot or one inch taller than you are? Will it make you stronger, wiser, more able to help yourself? You are what you are: you can do what G.o.d has given you power to do. Trust Him that He has made you strong enough and wise enough to earn your daily bread, and to prosper right well, if you will, upon this earth which He has made.

And why be anxious about clothing? 'Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin; and yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.' But man _can_ toil, man _can_ spin; your Heavenly Father has given to man the power of providing clothes for himself, and not for himself only, but for others; so that while the man who tills the soil feeds the man who spins and weaves, the man who spins and weaves shall clothe the man who tills the soil; and the town shall work for the country, while the country feeds the town; and every man, if he does but labour where G.o.d has put him, shall produce comforts for human beings whom he never saw, who live perhaps in foreign lands across the sea. For the Heavenly Father has knit together the great family of man in one blessed bond of mutual need and mutual usefulness all over the world; so that no member of it can do without the other, and each member of it--each individual man--let him work at what thing he will, can make many times more of that thing than he needs for himself, and so help others while he earns his own living; and so wealth and comfort ought to increase year by year among the whole family of men, ay, and would increase, if it were not for sin. Yes, my friends, if it were not for that same _sin_--if it were not that men do not seek first the kingdom of G.o.d and His righteousness, there would be no end, no bound to the wealth, the comfort, the happiness of the children of men. Even as it is, in spite of all man's sin, the world does prosper marvellously, miraculously; in spite of all the waste, destruction, idleness, ignorance, injustice, and folly which goes on in the world, mankind increases and replenishes the earth, and improves in comfort and in happiness; in spite of all, G.o.d is stronger than the Devil, life stronger than death, wisdom stronger than folly, order stronger than disorder, fruitfulness stronger than destruction; and they will be so, more and more, till the last great day, when Christ shall have put all enemies under His feet, and death is swallowed up in victory, and all mankind is one fold under one Shepherd, Jesus Christ, the righteous King of all.

But some may ask, What does our Lord mean when He says, 'That if we sought first the kingdom of G.o.d and His righteousness, all these things should be added to us?'

I cannot tell you altogether, my friends; for eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive what G.o.d has prepared for those who love Him. But this I can tell you, that these things are taken _from_ men, instead of being added to them, by their not seeking first G.o.d's kingdom and His righteousness. I can tell you, as the Prophet does, that it is the sins of man which withhold good things from him; because though, as the Prophet says in the same place, G.o.d sends the good things, and the former and latter rain in their season, and reserves to men still the appointed weeks of harvest, yet men will not fear that same Lord their G.o.d; and therefore those good things are wasted, and mankind remains too often miserable in spite of G.o.d's goodness, and starving in the midst of G.o.d's plenty.

If you wish to know what I mean, look but once at this present war.

I do not complain of the war. I honour the war. I thank G.o.d from the bottom of my heart for this great and glorious victory, and I call on you to thank Him, too, for it. I am none of those who think war sinful. I cannot do so, for I swore at my baptism to fight manfully under Christ's banner against the world, the flesh, and the Devil; and if we cannot reach the Devil and his works by any other means, we must reach them as we are doing now, by sharp shot and cold steel, and we must hold it an honourable thing, and few things more honourable on earth, for a man to die fighting against evil men, and an evil world-devouring empire, like that of Babylon of old, or this of Russia now, that he may save not merely us who sit here now, but our children's children, and generations yet unborn, from Russian tyranny, and Russian falsehood, and Russian profligacy, and Russian superst.i.tion. I say, I do not complain of this war; but I ask you to look at the mere waste which it brings, the mere waste of G.o.d's blessings. Consider all the skilful men now employed in making cannon, shot, and powder to kill mortal men, who might every one of them, in time of peace, have been employed in making things which would feed, and clothe, and comfort mortal man. Consider that very powder and shot itself, the fruit of so much labour and money, made simply to be shot away, once for all, as if a man should spend months in making some precious vessel, and then dash it to pieces the moment it was made. Consider that Sevastopol alone; the millions of money which it must have cost--the stone, the timber, the iron, all used there--in making a mere robber's den, which might all have been spent in giving employment and sustenance to whole provinces of poor starving Russians. Consider those tens of thousands of men, labouring day and night for months at those deadly earthworks, whose strong arms might have been all tilling G.o.d's earth, and growing food for the use of man. And then see the waste, the want, the misery which that one place, Sevastopol, has caused upon G.o.d's earth.

And consider, too, the souls of mortal men, who have been wasted there--no man knows how many, nor will know till the judgment day.

Two hundred thousand, at the least, they say, wasted about that accursed place, within the last twelve months. Two hundred thousand cunning brains, two hundred thousand strong right hands, two hundred thousand willing hearts: what good might not each of those men have done if he had been labouring peacefully at home, in his right place in G.o.d's family! What might he not have invented, made, carried over land and sea? None dead there but might have been of use in his generation; and doubtless many a one who would have done good with all his might, who would have been a blessing to those around him; and now what is left of him on earth but a few bones beneath the sod? Wasted--utterly wasted! Oh, consider how precious is one man; consider how much good the weakest and stupidest of us all might do, if he set himself with his whole soul to do good; consider that the weakest and stupidest of us, even if he has no care for good, cannot earn his day's wages without doing some good to the bodies of his fellow-men; and then judge of the loss to mankind by this one single siege of one single town; and think how many stomachs must be the emptier, how many backs the barer, for this one war; and then see how man wastes G.o.d's gifts, and wastes most of all that most precious gift of all, men, living men, with minds, and reasons, and immortal souls.

And whence has all this waste come? Simply because these Russian rulers have chosen to seek first, not G.o.d's kingdom, but their own.

Instead of behaving like G.o.d's ministers and G.o.d's stewards, and asking, 'How would G.o.d our King have us rule His kingdom?' they have laboured for their own power, conquering all the nations round them, removing their neighbour's landmark, and wasting the wealth of their country on armies, and fortresses, and fleets, with which they intended to conquer more and more of the earth which did not belong to them. Because, instead of seeking G.o.d's righteousness, and saying to themselves, 'How shall we be righteous, even as our Heavenly Father is righteous, and how shall we teach this great people to be righteous likewise?' they have sought their own pleasure, and lived in profligacy, covetous and cheating almost beyond belief; and instead of behaving righteously to the people, or teaching them to be righteous, they have crushed down the people, stupefied and corrupted them by slavery, and maddened them by superst.i.tions which are not the righteousness of G.o.d, till they have made them easy tools in their unjust wars, and are able to drive them, even by force, like sheep to the slaughter, to die miserably in a cause in which, even if those unhappy slaves conquered, they would only rivet their own chains more tightly, and put more power into the hands of the very rulers who are robbing them of their earnings, dishonouring their daughters, and driving off their sons to die in a foreign land. Ah, my friends, if these men had but sought first the kingdom of G.o.d and His righteousness; if the great wealth, and the wonderful industry and prudence of Russia had been but spent in doing justly, and loving mercy, what a rich and honourable country of brave and industrious Christian men might Russia be; a blessing, and not a curse, to half the earth of G.o.d!

Let us pray that she will become so, some day; and we may have hope for her, for she is but young, and has time yet for repentance.

But some may say--indeed, we are all ready enough to say--'Then the evil of this war is the Russians' fault, and not ours; and so in every other case. In every other evil and misery they are rather other people's fault than ours. If we do our duty well enough, and if other people would but do theirs, all would be well.'

We are all apt to say this in our hearts. But our Lord does not say so. His promise is to all mankind: but His promise is to each of us also. When He says, Seek ye first G.o.d's kingdom and righteousness, He speaks to you and to me, to every soul now here.

Believe it, my friends. The more that I see of life, the more I see how much of our sorrow is our own fault; how much of our happiness is in our own hands; and the more I see how little use there is in finding fault with this government, or that, the more I see how much use there is in every man's finding fault with himself, and taking his share of the blame.

I do not doubt that if the whole people of England, for the last forty years, had sought first G.o.d's kingdom and G.o.d's righteousness, and said to themselves in every matter, not merely 'What is profitable for us to do?' but 'What is _right_ for us to do?' we should have been spared the expenses and the sorrows of this war: but as for blaming our government, my friends,--what they are we are; we choose them, Englishmen like ourselves, and they truly _represent us_. Not one complaint can we make against them, which we may not as justly make against ourselves; and if we had been in their places, we should have done what they did; for the seeds of the same sins are in us; and we yield, each in his own household and his own business, to the same temptations as they, to the sins which so easily beset Englishmen at this present time. I say, frankly, I see not one charge brought against them in the newspapers which might not quite as justly be brought against me, and, for aught I know, against every one of us here; and while we are not faithful over a few things, what right have we to complain of them for not having been faithful over many things? Believe, rather (I believe it), that if we had been in their place, we should have done far worse than they; and ask yourselves, 'Do _I_ seek first G.o.d's kingdom and G.o.d's righteousness; for if I do not, what right have I to lay the blame of my bad success on other men's not seeking them?'

To each of us, as much as to our government, or to the Russian empire, is Christ's command; and each of us must take the consequences, if we break it. Let us look at ourselves, and mend ourselves, and try whether G.o.d's promise will not hold true for us, each in his station, let the world round us go as it will. Be sure that G.o.d is just, and that every man bears his own burden: that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from Thee, O G.o.d!

Shall not the judge of all the earth do right? Be sure that those who trust in Him shall never be confounded, though the earth be moved, and the mountains carried into the midst of the sea, as it is written, 'Trust in the Lord, and be doing good; dwell in the land, and work where G.o.d has placed thee, and verily thou shalt be fed.'

But have we done so, my friends? have we sought first G.o.d's kingdom and His righteousness? have we not rather forgotten the meaning of the text, and what G.o.d's kingdom is, and what His righteousness is?

Do not most people fancy that G.o.d's kingdom only means some pleasant place to which people are to go after they die? and that seeking G.o.d's righteousness only means having Christ's righteousness imputed to us (as they call it), without our being righteous and good ourselves? Do not most of us fancy that this very text means, 'Do you take care of your souls, and G.o.d will take care of your bodies; do you see after the salvation of your souls, and G.o.d will see after the salvation of your bodies'? a meaning which, in the first place, is not true, for G.o.d will do no such thing; and all the religion in the world will not prevent a man's having to work for his daily bread, or pay his debts for him without money; and a meaning which, in the second place, people themselves do not believe; for religious professors in general now are just as keen about money as irreligious ones, and even more so; so that covetousness and cunning, ambition and greediness to rise in life, seem now-a-days to go hand in hand with a high religious profession; and those who fancy themselves the children of light have become just as wise in their generation as the children of this world whom they despise.

No, my friends, that is not the meaning of the text; and when I ask you, Have you obeyed the text? I do not ask you that question; but one which I believe is something far more spiritual and more deep, something at least which is far more heart-searching, and likely to p.r.i.c.k a man's conscience, perhaps to make him angry with me who ask.

Do you seek first G.o.d's kingdom, or your own profit, your own pleasure, your own reputation? Do you believe that you are in G.o.d's kingdom, that He is your King, and has called you to the station in which you are to do good and useful work for Him upon this earth of His? Whatever be your calling, whether you be servant, labourer, farmer, tradesman, gentleman, maid, wife, or widow, father, son, or husband, do you ask yourself every day, 'Now what are the laws of G.o.d's kingdom about this station of mine? what is my duty here? how can I obey G.o.d, and His laws here, and do what He requires of me, and so be a good servant, a good labourer, a good tradesman, a good master, a good parish officer, a good wife, a good parent, pleasing to G.o.d, useful to my neighbours and to my countrymen?' Or do you say to yourselves, 'How can I get the greatest quant.i.ty of money and pleasure out of my station, with the least trouble to myself?' My dearest friends, ask yourselves, each of you, in which of these two ways do you look at your own station in life?

And do you seek first G.o.d's righteousness? There can be no mistake as to what G.o.d's righteousness is; for G.o.d's righteousness must be Christ's righteousness, seeing that He is the express image of His Father. Now do you ask yourselves, 'How am I to be righteous in my station, as Christ was in His? how can I do my Heavenly Father's will, as Christ did? how can I behave like Christ in my station? how would the Lord Jesus Christ have behaved, if He had been in my place, when He was on earth?' My friends, that is the question, the searching question, the question which must convince us all of sin, and show us so many faults of our own to complain of, that we shall find no time to throw stones at our neighbours. How would the Lord Jesus Christ have behaved, if He had been in my place when He was upon earth?

My dear friends, till we can all of us answer that question somewhat better than we can now, we have no need to look as far as Russia, or as our forefathers' mistakes, or our rulers' mistakes, to find out why this trouble and that trouble come upon us: for we shall find the reason in our own selfish, greedy, self-willed hearts.

Oh, my friends, let us each search our own lives, and repent, and amend, and resolve to do our duty, as sons of G.o.d, in the station to which G.o.d has called us, by the help of the Spirit of G.o.d, which He has promised freely to those who ask Him. And now, this day, as we thank G.o.d for this great victory, let us thank Him, not with our lips merely, but with our lives, by living such lives as He loves to see, such lives as He meant us to live, lives of loyalty to G.o.d, and of usefulness to our brethren, and of industry and prudence in our calling, and so help forward, each of us, however humble our station, the glory of G.o.d; because we shall each of us, in the cottage and in the field, in the shop and in the mansion, in this our little parish, and therefore in the great nation of which it is a part, help forward the fulfilment of those blessed words, Our Father which art in heaven; Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven; and therefore, also, the fulfilment of the words which come after them, and not before them; Give us this day our daily bread.

SERMON XIV. ENGLAND'S STRENGTH

2 Kings xix. 34. I will defend this city, to save it for mine own sake.

The first lesson for this morning's service is of the grandest in the whole Old Testament; grander perhaps than all, except the story of the pa.s.sage of the Red Sea, and the giving of the Law on Sinai.

It follows out the story which you heard in the first lesson for last Sunday afternoon, of the invasion of Judea by the a.s.syrians.

You heard then how this great a.s.syrian conqueror, Sennacherib, after taking all the fortified towns of Judah, and sweeping the whole country with fire and sword, sent three of his generals up to the very walls of Jerusalem, commanding King Hezekiah to surrender at discretion, and throw himself and his people on Sennacherib's mercy; how proudly and boastfully he taunted the Jews with their weakness; how, like the Russian emperor now, he called in religion as the excuse for his conquests and robberies, saying, as if G.o.d's blessings were on them, 'Am I now come up without the Lord against this place to destroy it? The Lord said to me, Go up against this place to destroy it;' while all the time what he really trusted in (as his own words showed) was what the Russian emperors trust in, their own strength and the number of their armies.

Jerusalem was thus in utter need and danger; the vast army of the a.s.syrians was encamped at Lachish, not more than ten miles off; and however strong the walls of Jerusalem might be, and however advantageously it might stand on its high hill, with lofty rocks and cliffs on three sides of it, yet Hezekiah knew well that no strength of his could stand more than a few days against Sennacherib's army.

For these a.s.syrians had brought the art of war to a greater perfection than any nation of the old world: they lived for war, and studied, it seems, only how to conquer. And they have left behind them very remarkable proofs of what sort of men they were, of which I think it right to tell you all; for they are most instructive, not merely because they prove the truth of Isaiah's account, but because they explain it, and help us in many ways to understand his prophecies. They are a number of sculptures and paintings, representing Sennacherib, his army, and his different conquests, which were painted by his command, in his palace; and having been lately discovered there, among the ruins of Nineveh, have been brought to England, and are now in the British Museum, while copies of many of them are in the Crystal Palace. There we see these terrible a.s.syrian conquerors defeating their enemies, torturing and slaughtering their prisoners, swimming rivers, beating down castles, sweeping on from land to land like a devouring fire, while over their heads fly fierce spirits who protect and prosper their cruelties, and eagles who trail in their claws the entrails of the slain. The very expression of their faces is frightful for its fierceness; the countenances of a 'bitter and hasty nation,' as the Prophet calls them, whose feet were swift to shed blood. And as for the art of war, and their power of taking walled towns like Jerusalem, you may see them in these pictures battering down and undermining forts and castles, with instruments so well made and powerful, that all other nations who came after them, for more than two thousand years, seem to have been content to copy from them, and hardly to have improved on the old a.s.syrian engines.

Such, and so terrible, they came up against Jerusalem: to attempt to fight them would have been useless madness; and Hezekiah had but one means of escaping from them, and that was to cast himself and his people upon the boundless mercy, and faithfulness, and power of G.o.d.

And Hezekiah had his answer by Isaiah the prophet: and more than an answer. The Lord took the matter into His own hand, and showed Sennacherib which was the stronger, his soldiers and horses and engines, or the Lord G.o.d; and so that terrible a.s.syrian army came utterly to nought, and vanished off the face of the earth.

Now, my friends, has this n.o.ble history no lesson in it for us? G.o.d forbid! It has a lesson which ought to come nearer to our hearts than to the hearts of any nation: for though we or our forefathers have never been, for nearly three hundred years, in such utter need and danger as Jerusalem was, yet be sure that we might have been so, again and again, had it not been for the mercy of the same G.o.d who delivered Jerusalem from the a.s.syrians. It is now three hundred years ago that the Lord delivered this country from as terrible an invader as Sennacherib himself; when He three times scattered by storms the fleets of the King of Spain, which were coming to lay waste this land with fire and sword: and since then no foreign foe has set foot on English soil, and we almost alone, of all the nations of Europe, have been preserved from those horrors of war, even to speak of which is dreadful! Oh, my friends! we know not half G.o.d's goodness to us!

And if you ask me, why G.o.d has so blest and favoured this land, I can only answer--and I am not ashamed or afraid to answer--I believe it is on account of the Church of England; it is because G.o.d has put His name here in a peculiar way, as He did among the Jews of old, and that He is jealous for His Church, and for the special knowledge of His Gospel and His Law, which He has given us in our Prayer-book and in our Church Catechism, lighting therein a candle in England which I believe will never be put out. It is not merely that we are a Protestant country,--great blessing as that is,--it is, I believe, that there is something in the Church of England which there is not in Protestant countries abroad, unless perhaps Sweden: for every one of them (except Sweden and ourselves) has suffered, from time to time, invading armies, and the unspeakable horrors of war. In some of them the light of the Gospel has been quenched utterly, and in others it lingers like a candle flickering down into the socket. By horrible persecutions, and murder, and war, and pillage, have those nations been tormented from time to time; and who are we, that we should escape? Certainly from no righteousness of our own. Some may say, It is our great wealth which has made us strong. My friends, believe it not. Look at Spain, which was once the richest of all nations; and did her riches preserve her? Has she not dwindled down into the most miserable and helpless of all nations?

Has not her very wealth vanished from her, because she sold herself to work all unrighteousness with greediness?

Some may say, It is our freedom which makes us strong. My friends, believe it not. Freedom is a vast blessing from G.o.d, but freedom alone will preserve no nation. How many free nations have fallen into every sort of misery, ay, into bitter slavery, in spite of all their freedom. How many free nations in Europe lie now in bondage, gnawing their tongues for pain, and weary with waiting for the deliverance which does not come? No, my friends, freedom is of little use without something else--and that is loyalty; reverence for law and obedience to the powers that be, because men believe those powers to be ordained of G.o.d; because men believe that Christ is their King, and they His ministers and stewards, and that He it is who appoints all orders and degrees of men in His Holy Church.

True freedom can only live with true loyalty and obedience, such as our Prayer-book, our Catechism, our Church of England preaches to us. It is a Church meant for free men, who stand each face to face with their Heavenly Father: but it is a Church meant also for loyal men, who look on the law as the ordinance of G.o.d, and on their rulers as the ministers of G.o.d; and if our freedom has had anything to do (as no doubt it has) with our prosperity, I believe that we owe the greater part of our freedom to the teaching and the general tone of mind which our Prayer-book has given to us and to our forefathers for now three hundred years.

Not that we have listened to that teaching, or acted up to it: G.o.d knows, we have been but too like the Jews in Isaiah's time, who had the Law of G.o.d, and yet did every man what was right in his own eyes; we, like them, have been hypocritical; we, like them, have neglected the poor, and the widow, and the orphan; we, like them, have been too apt to pay t.i.the of mint and anise, and neglect the weightier matters of the law, justice, mercy, and judgment. When we read that awful first chapter of Isaiah, we may well tremble; for all the charges which he brings against the Jews of his time would just as well apply to us; but yet we can trust in the Lord, as Isaiah did, and believe that He will be jealous for His land, and for His name's sake, and not suffer the nations to say of us, 'Where is now their G.o.d?' We can trust Him, that if He turn His hand on us, as He did on the Jews of old, and bring us into danger and trouble, yet it will be in love and mercy, that He may purge away our dross, and take away all our alloy, and restore our rulers as at the first, and our counsellors as at the beginning, that we may be called, 'The city of righteousness, the faithful city.' True, we must not fancy that we have any righteousness of our own, that we merit G.o.d's favour above other people; our consciences ought to tell us that cannot be; our Bibles tell us that is an empty boast. Did we not hear this morning, 'Bring forth fruits meet for repentance: and think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father; for G.o.d is able of these stones to raise up children to Abraham.' But we may comfort ourselves with the thought that there is One standing among us (though we see Him not) who will, ay, and does, 'baptize us with the Holy Ghost and with fire, whose fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly purge His floor, and gather the wheat into His garner,' for the use of our children after us, and the generations yet unborn, while the chaff, all among us which is empty, and light, and rotten, and useless, He will burn up (thanks be to His holy name) with fire unquenchable, which neither the falsehood and folly of man, nor the malice of the Devil, can put out, but which will purge this land of all its sins.

This is our hope, and this is the cause of our thankfulness. For who but we should be thankful this day that we are Englishmen, members of Christ's Church of England, inhabitants of, perhaps, the only country in Europe which is not now perplexed with fear of change, while men's hearts fail them for dread, and looking for those things which are coming on the earth? a country which has never seen, as all the countries round have seen, a foreign army trampling down their crops, burning their farms, cutting down their trees, plundering their towns, destroying in a day the labour of years, while women are dishonoured, men tortured to make them give up their money, the able-bodied driven from their homes, ruined and wanderers, and the sick and aged left to perish of famine and neglect. My friends, all these things were going on but last year upon the Danube. They are going on now in Asia: even with all the mercy and moderation of our soldiers and sailors, we have not been able to avoid inflicting some of these very miseries upon our own enemies; and yet here we are, going about our business in peace and safety in a land in which we and our forefathers have found, now for many a year, that just laws make a quiet and prosperous people; that the effect of righteousness is peace, and the fruit of righteousness, quietness and a.s.surance for ever;--a land in which the good are not terrified, the industrious hampered, and the greedy and lawless made eager and restless by expectation of change in government; but every man can boldly and hopefully work in his calling, and 'whatsoever his hand finds to do, do it with all his might,' in fair hope that the money which he earns in his manhood he will be able to enjoy quietly in his old age, and hand it down safely to his children, and his children's children;--a land which for hundreds of years has not felt the unspeakable horrors of war; a land which even now is safely and peacefully gathering in its harvest, while so many countries lie wasted with fire and sword.

Oh, my friends, who made us to differ from others, or what have we that we did not receive? Not to ourselves do we owe our blessings; hardly even to our wise forefathers: but to G.o.d Himself, and the Spirit of G.o.d which was with them, and is with us still, in spite of all our shortcomings. We owe it to our wise Const.i.tution, to our wise Church, the principle of which is that G.o.d is Judge and Christ is King, in peace as well as in war, in times of quiet as well as in times of change; I say, to our wise Const.i.tution and to our wise Church, which teach us that all power is of G.o.d; that all men who have power, great or small, are His stewards; that all orders and degrees of men in His Holy Church, from the queen on the throne to the labourer in the harvest-field, are called by G.o.d to their ministry and vocation, and are responsible to G.o.d for their conduct therein. How then shall we show forth our thankfulness, not only in our lips, but in our lives? How, but by believing that very principle, that very truth which He has taught us, and by which England stands, that we are G.o.d's people, and G.o.d's servants? He has indeed showed us what is good, and our fathers before us; and what does the Lord require of us in return, but to do the good which He has showed us, to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with our G.o.d?

Oh, my friends, come frankly and joyfully to the Lord's Table this day. Confess your sins and shortcomings to Him, and entreat Him to enable you to live more worthily of your many blessings. Offer to Him the sacrifice of your praise and thankfulness, imperfect though it is, and join with angels and archangels in blessing Him for what He is, and what He has been to you: and then receive your share of _His_ most perfect sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, the bread and the wine which tell you that you are members of His Church; that His body gives you whatsoever life and strength your souls have; that His blood washes out all your sins and shortcomings; that His Spirit shall be renewed in you day by day, to teach you to do the good work which He has prepared already for you, and to walk in the old paths which have led our forefathers, and will lead us too, I trust, safe through the chances and changes of this mortal life, and the fall of mighty kingdoms, towards that perfect City of G.o.d which is eternal in the heavens.

SERMON XV. THE LIFE OF G.o.d

Ephesians iv. 17, 18. That ye walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, being alienated from the life of G.o.d through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart.

You heard these words read in the Epistle for to-day. I cannot expect that you all understood them. It is no shame to you that you did not. Some of them are long and hard Latin words. Some of them, though they are plain English enough, are hard to understand because they have to do with deep matters, which can only be understood by the help of G.o.d's Spirit. And even with the help of G.o.d's Spirit we cannot any of us expect to understand _all_ which they mean: we cannot expect to be as wise as St. Paul; for we must be as good as St. Paul before we can be as wise about goodness as he was. I do not pretend to understand all the text myself: no, not half, nor a tenth part of what it very likely means. But I do seem to myself to understand a little about it, by the help and blessing of G.o.d; and what little of it I do understand, I will try to make you understand also.

For the words in the text belong to you as much as to me, or to St.

Paul himself. What is true for one man, is true for every man.

What is right for one man, is right for every man. What G.o.d promises for one man, He promises to every man. Man or woman, black or white, rich or poor, scholar or unlearned, there is no respect of persons with Him. 'In Christ Jesus,' says St. Paul, 'there is neither male nor female, slave nor freeman, Jew who fancies that G.o.d's promises belong to him alone, or Gentile who knows nothing about them, clever learned Greek, or stupid ignorant Barbarian.'