Town and Country Sermons Part 13

And what came of it? That that dreadful danger brought out more faith, more courage, than perhaps has ever been among us since.

That when we seemed weakest we were strongest. That while all the nations of Europe were looking on to see us devoured up by those Spaniards, our laws and liberties taken from us, the Popish Inquisition set up in England, and England made a Spanish province, what they did see was, the people of this little island rising as one man, to fight for themselves on earth, while the tempests of G.o.d fought for them from heaven; and all that mighty fleet of the King of Spain routed and scattered, till not one man in a hundred ever saw their native country again.

And in England, after that terrible trial had pa.s.sed over us, there rose up the best and n.o.blest time which she had ever yet beheld.

Yes, my friends, three hundred years ago we went through just such a fiery trial as the Jews went through in Hezekiah's time; and G.o.d grant that we may never forget that lesson.

But what is true of whole nations, is often true also of each single person; of you and me.

To almost every man, at least once in his life, comes a time of trial--what we call a crisis. A time when G.o.d purges the man, and tries him in the fire, and burns up the dross in him, that the pure sterling gold only may be left.

To some people it comes in the shape of some terrible loss, or affliction. To others it comes in the shape of some great temptation. Nay, if we will consider, it comes to us all, perhaps often, in that shape. A man is brought to a point where he must choose between right and wrong. G.o.d puts him where the two roads part. One way turns off to the broad road, which leads to destruction: the other way turns off to the narrow road which leads to life. The man would be glad to go both ways at once, and do right and wrong too: but it so happens that he cannot. Then he would be glad to go neither way, and stay where he is: but he cannot. He must move on. He must do something. Perhaps he is asked a question which he does not wish to answer: but he must. It would be well worth his while to tell a lie. It would be very safe for him, profitable for him; while it would be very dangerous for him to tell the truth. He might ruin himself once and for all, by being an honest man. Now which shall he do? He would be glad to do both, glad to do neither: but choose he must; speak he must. He must either lie or tell the truth. Then comes the trial, whether he believes in G.o.d and in Christ, or whether he does not. If he only believes, as too many do without knowing it, in a dead G.o.d, a G.o.d far away, he will lie. If he only believes, as too many do without knowing it, in a dead Christ, a Christ who bore his sins on the cross eighteen hundred years ago, but since then has had nothing to do with him to speak of, as far as he knows--then he will lie. And that is the G.o.d and the Christ which most people believe in: and therefore when the time of trial comes, they fall away, and do and say things of which they ought to be ashamed, because their trust is not in G.o.d, but in man.

But if that man believes in the living G.o.d, and believes that he lives, and moves, and has his being in G.o.d, he cannot lie. As it is written, 'he that is born of G.o.d, sinneth not, for his seed remaineth in him, and that wicked one toucheth him not.' He will say, Whatever happens, I must obey G.o.d, and not man. The Lord is on my side, therefore I will not fear what man can do to me.

And what is the seed which remains in that man, and keeps him from playing the coward? Christ himself, the seed and Son of G.o.d. If he believes in the living Christ; if he believes that Christ is really his master, his teacher, who is watching over him, training him, from his cradle to his grave;--if he believes that Christ is dwelling in him, that whatever wish to do right he has comes from Christ, whatever sense of honour and honesty he has comes from Christ; then it will seem to him a dreadful thing to lie, to play the hypocrite, or the coward; to sin against his own better feelings. It will be sinning against Christ himself.

Remember the great Martin Luther, when he stood on one side, a poor monk standing up for the Bible and the Gospel, and against him were arrayed the Pope and the Emperor, cardinals, bishops, and almost all the princes in Europe; and his friends wanted him to hold his tongue, or to say Yes and No at once; in short, to smooth over the matter in some way.--What conceit, said many, of one poor monk standing up against all the world; and what folly, too! He would certainly be burnt alive. But Luther could not hold his tongue. He was afraid enough, no doubt. He disliked being burnt as much as other men. But he felt he must speak G.o.d's truth then or never. He must bear witness for Christ's free gospel, against Pope, Emperor, all the devils in h.e.l.l, if need be, or else hereafter for ever hold his peace. He must play the honest man that day, or be a hypocrite and a rogue for ever. His friends said to him, 'If you go to the Council, Duke George will have you burnt.' He answered, 'If it snowed Duke Georges nine days together, I must go.' They said, 'If you go into that town, you will never leave it alive.' He said, 'If there were as many devils in the town as there are tiles on the houses, I must go.' And he went, Bible in hand, and said, 'Here I stand; I can do no otherwise. G.o.d help me!' He went, and he conquered.

And so it will be with you, my friends, if you will believe in the living G.o.d, and in the living Christ; then, when temptation comes, you will be able to stand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. And you will feel yourselves better men from that day forward. You will feel that you have made one great step upward; you will look back upon that time of temptation and perplexity as the beginning of a new life; as a sign to you that Christ is with you, and in you, training you and shaping your character, till he makes you, at last, somewhat like himself; somewhat of the stature of a true man; somewhat like what he has bidden you to be, 'perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.'

SERMON XXVIII. THE TEN LEPERS

(Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity.)

Luke xvii. 17, 18. Were there not ten cleansed, but where are the nine? There are not found that returned to give glory to G.o.d, save this stranger.

No men, one would have thought, had more reason to thank G.o.d than those nine lepers. Afflicted with a filthy and tormenting disease, hopelessly incurable, at least in those days, they were cut off from family and friends, cut off from all mankind; forced to leave their homes, and wander away; forbidden to enter the houses of men, or the churches of G.o.d; forbidden, for fear of infection, to go near any human being; keeping no company but that of wretched lepers like themselves, and forced to get their living by begging; by standing (as the Gospel says) afar off, and praying the pa.s.sers-by to throw them a coin.

In this wretched state, in which they had been certain of living and dying miserably, they met the Lord: and suddenly, instantly, beyond all hope or expectation, they found themselves cured, restored to their families, their homes, their power of working, their rights as citizens; restored to all that makes life worth having, and that freely, and in a moment. If such a blessing had come to us, should we have thought any thanks too great! Would not our whole lives have been too short to bless G.o.d for his great mercy? Should we have gone away, like those nine, without a word of thanks to G.o.d, or even to the man who had healed us? What stupidity, hardhearted- ness, ingrat.i.tude of those nine, never to have even thanked the Lord for their restoration to health and happiness.

Ay, so we think. Yet those nine lepers were men of like pa.s.sions with ourselves; and what they did, we perhaps might do in their place. It is very humbling to think so: but the Bible is a humbling book: and, therefore, a wholesome book, profitable for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. And I am very much afraid that when the Bible tells us that nine out of ten of those lepers were ungrateful to G.o.d, it tells us that nine out of ten of us are ungrateful likewise.

Ungrateful to G.o.d? I fear so; and more ungrateful, I fear, than those ten lepers. For which of the two is better off, the man who loses a good thing, and then gets it back again; or the man who never loses it at all, but enjoys it all his life? Surely the man who never loses it at all. And which of the two has more cause to thank G.o.d? Those lepers had been through a very miserable time; they had had great affliction; and that, they might feel, was a set- off against their good fortune in recovering their health. They had bad years to balance their good ones. But we--how many of us have had nothing but good years? Oh consider, consider the history of the average of us. How we grow up tolerably healthy, tolerably comfortable, in a free country, under just laws, with the power of earning our livelihood, and the certainty of keeping what we earn.

Famine we know nothing of in this happy land; war, and the horrors of war, we knew nothing of--G.o.d grant we never may. In health, safety and prosperity most of us grow up; forced, it is true, to work hard: but that, too, is a blessing; for what better thing for a man, soul and body, than to be forced to work hard? In health, safety and prosperity; leaving children behind us, to prosper as we have done. And how many of us give G.o.d the glory, or Christ the thanks?

But if these be our bodily blessings, what are our spiritual blessings? Has not G.o.d given us his only-begotten son Jesus Christ?

Has he not baptised us into his Church? Has he not forgiven our sins? Has he not revealed to us that he is our Father, and we his children? Has he not given us the absolutely inestimable blessing of his commandments? Of knowing what the right thing to be done is, that we may do it and live for ever; that treasure of which not only Solomon, but the wise men of old held, that to know what was right was a more precious possession than rubies and fine gold, and all the wealth of Ind? Has he not given us the hope of a joyful immortality, of everlasting life after death, not only with those whom we have loved and lost, but with G.o.d himself?

And how many of us give G.o.d the glory, and Christ the thanks? Do we not copy those nine lepers, and just shew ourselves to the priest?-- Come to church on the Sunday, because it is the custom; people expect it of us; and G.o.d, we understand, expects it too: but where is the grat.i.tude? Where is the giving of glory to G.o.d for all his goodness? Which are we most like? Children of G.o.d, looking up to our Father in heaven, and saying, at every fresh blessing, Father, I thank thee. Truly thou knowest my necessities before I ask, and my ignorance in asking?--Or, like the stalled ox, which eats, and eats, and eats, and never thanks the hand which feeds him?

We are too comfortable, I think, at times. We are so much accustomed to be blest by G.o.d, that we take his blessings as matters of course, and feel them no more than we do the air we breathe.

The wise man says--

Our torments may by length of time become Our elements;

and I am sure our blessings may. They say that people who endure continual pain and misery, get at length hardly to feel it. And so, on the other hand, people who have continual prosperity get at length hardly to feel that. G.o.d forgive us! My friends, when I say this to you, I say it to myself. If I blame you, I blame myself.

If I warn you, I warn myself. We most of us need warning in these comfortable times; for I believe that it is this very unrighteousness of ours which brings many of our losses and troubles on us. If we are so dull that we will not know the value of a thing when we have got it, then G.o.d teaches us the value of it by taking it from us. He teaches us the value of health by making us feel sickness; he teaches us the value of wealth by making us feel poverty. I do not say it is always so. G.o.d forbid. There are those who suffer bitter afflictions, not because they have sinned, but that, like the poor blind man, the glory of G.o.d may be made manifest in them. There are those too who suffer no sorrow at all, even though they feel, in their thoughtful moments, that they deserve it. And miserable enough should we all be, if G.o.d punished us every time we were ungrateful to him. If he dealt with us after our sins, and rewarded us according to our iniquities, where should we be this day?

But still, I cannot but believe that if we do go on in prosperity, careless and unthankful, we are running into danger; we are likely to bring down on ourselves some sorrow or anxiety which will teach us, which at least is meant to teach us--from whom all good things come; and to know that the Lord has given, when the Lord has taken away.

G.o.d grant that when that lesson is sent to us we may learn it.

Learn it, perhaps, at once, and in a moment, we cannot. Weak flesh and blood cannot enter into the kingdom of G.o.d, and see that he is ruling us, and all things, in love and justice; and our eyes are, as it were, dimmed with our tears, so that we cannot see G.o.d's handwriting upon the wall against us. But at length, when the first burst of sorrow is past, we may learn it; and, like righteous Job, justify G.o.d; saying,--The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord. If we do that, and give G.o.d the glory, it may be with us, after all, as it was with Job, when G.o.d gave him back sevenfold for all that he had taken away, wealth and prosperity, sons and daughters. For G.o.d doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men out of spite. His punishments are not revenge, but correction; and, as a father, he chastises his children, not to harm, but to bless them.

And G.o.d grant that if that day, too, comes--if after sorrow comes joy, if after storm comes sunshine--we may not forget G.o.d afresh in our prosperity, nor go our ways like those dull-hearted Jews, after they were cleansed from their leprosy: but, like the Samaritan, return, and give glory to G.o.d, who gives, and delights in giving; and only takes away, that he may lift up our souls to him, in whom we live, and move, and have our being: and so, knowing who we are, and where we are, may live in G.o.d, and by G.o.d, and for G.o.d, in this life, and for ever.

SERMON XXIX. PARDON AND PEACE

(Twenty-first Sunday after Trinity.)

Psalm x.x.xii. 1-7. Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile. When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long. For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer. I acknowledge my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. For this shall every one that is G.o.dly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found: surely in the floods of great waters they shall not come nigh unto him. Thou art my hiding place; thou shalt preserve me from trouble; thou shall compa.s.s me about with songs of deliverance.

The collect for to-day is a very beautiful one. There is something musical in the sound of the very words; so musical, that it is sung as an anthem in many churches. Let us think a little over it.

'Grant, we beseech thee, merciful Lord, to thy faithful people pardon and peace; that they may be cleansed from all their sins, and serve thee with a quiet mind, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.'

That is a n.o.ble prayer; and a prayer for each and every one of us, every day. I say for every day. It is not like the fifty-first psalm, the prayer of a man who has committed some black and dreadful crime; who fears lest G.o.d should take his Holy Spirit from him, and leave him to remorse and horror; who feels that he needs to be utterly changed, and have a new heart created within him. It is not a prayer of that kind. It is rather the prayer of a man who is weary with the burden of sinful mortality; who finds it very hard work to do his duty, even tolerably well; who is dissatisfied with himself, and ashamed of himself, not about one great fault, but about many little faults; and who wants to be cleansed from them; who is tempted to be fretful, anxious, out of heart, because things go wrong; and because he feels it partly his own fault that things go wrong; and who, therefore, wants peace, that he may serve G.o.d with a quiet mind. Now then, dear friends, did I not speak truth, when I said, this is a prayer for every one of us, and for every day? For which of us does his duty as he ought? I take for granted, we are all trying to do our duty, better or worse: but I take for granted, too, that the more we try to do our duty, the more dissatisfied with ourselves we are; and the more we find we have sins without number to be cleansed from. For the more we try to do our duty, the higher notion we get of what our duty is; the more we do, the more we feel we ought to do; and the more we feel that we leave undone a great many things which we ought to do, and do a great many things which we ought not to do, and that there is no health in us: but a great deal of disease and weakness;--disease of soul, in the way of conceit, pride, selfishness, temper, obstinacy; weakness, in the way of laziness, fearfulness, and very often of sheer stupidity; we do not see, or rather will not take the trouble to see, what we ought to do, and how to do it. And therefore, we must be, or rather ought to be, dissatisfied with ourselves; and our consciences accuse us when we lie down at night, of a hundred petty miserable mistakes, which we ought to have avoided. We are continually knowing what is right, and doing what is wrong, till we get deservedly angry with ourselves; and think at times, that G.o.d must be deservedly angry with us; that we are such poor paltry creatures that he can only look on us with dislike and contempt: and even worse; that, perhaps, he does not care to see us mend; that our struggles to do right are of no value in his eyes: but that he has sternly left us to ourselves, to struggle through life, right or wrong, as best we may; and to be punished at last, for all that we have done amiss.

Such thoughts will cross our minds. They have crossed the minds of all mankind since the first man's conscience awoke, and he discovered that he was not a brute animal, by finding in himself that awful thought, which no brute animal can have--'I have done wrong.' And therefore the consciences of men will cry for pardon, just in proportion as they are worthy of the name of men, and not merely a superior sort of animals; and therefore just in proportion as our souls are alive in us, alive with the feeling of duty, of justice, of purity, of love, of a just and orderly G.o.d above--just in that proportion shall we be tormented by the difference between what we are, and what we ought to be; and the sense of sin, and the longing for pardon, will be more keen in us; and we shall have no rest till the sins are got rid of, and the pardon sure. That is the price we pay for having immortal souls. It is a heavy price truly: but it is well worth the paying, if it be only paid aright. If that tormenting feeling of being continually wrong in this life, ends by making us continually right for ever in the world to come; if Christ be formed in us at last; if out of our sinful and mortal manhood a sinless and immortal manhood is born;--then shall we, like the mother over her new-born babe, forget our anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world.

But, again, besides pardon, we want peace. Who does not know that state of mind in which, perhaps, without any great reason in reality, one has no peace? When everything seems to go wrong with a man. When he suspects everybody to be against him. When little troubles, which he could bear easily enough at other times, seem quite intolerable to him. When he is troubled with vain regrets about the past--'Ah, if I had done this and that!' and vain fears for the future, conjuring up in his mind all sorts of bad luck which may, but most probably never will, happen; and yet from off which he cannot turn his mind. Who does not know this frame of mind?

True, a great deal of this may depend on ill-health; and will pa.s.s away as the man's bodily condition gets better. We know, in the same way, that the strange anxiety which comes over us in sleepless nights, comes from bodily causes. That is merely because, the circulation of our blood being quickened, our brain becomes more active; and because we are lying alone in the silent darkness, with nothing to listen to or look at, we cannot turn our attention away from the thoughts which get possession of us and torment us. That is only bodily; and yet it may be very useful to our souls. As we lie awake, our own past lives, our own past mistakes and sins, and G.o.d's past blessings and mercies, too, may rise up before us with clearness, and teach us more than a hundred sermons; and we may find, with David, that our reins chasten us in the night-season.

'When I am in heaviness, I will think upon G.o.d; when my heart is vexed, I will complain. Thou holdest mine eyes waking... . I have considered the days of old, and the years that are past. I call to remembrance my song, and in the night I commune with my own heart, and search out my spirits. Will the Lord absent himself for ever, and will he be no more intreated? Is his mercy clean gone for ever: and is his promise come utterly to an end for evermore? Hath G.o.d forgotten to be gracious: and will he shut up his loving-kindness in displeasure? And I said it is mine own infirmity. But I will remember the years of the right hand of the Most Highest.' These sleepless hours taught the Psalmist somewhat; and they may teach us likewise. And so, again, with these sad and fretful frames of mind.

Even if they do partly come from our bodies, they have a real effect, which cannot be mistaken, on our souls; and they may have a good effect on us, if we choose. I believe that we shall find, that even if they do come from ill health and weak nerves, what starts them is--that we are dissatisfied with ourselves. We feel something wrong, not merely in our bodies, but in our souls, our characters; and then we try to lay the blame on the world around us, and shift it off ourselves; saying in our hearts, 'I should do very well, if other people, and things about me, would only let me:' but the more we try to shift off the blame, the less peace we have. Nothing mends matters less than throwing the blame on others. That is plain. Other people we cannot mend; they must mend themselves.

Circ.u.mstances about us we cannot mend; G.o.d must mend them. So, as long as we throw the blame on them, we cannot return to a cheerful and hopeful frame of mind. But the moment we throw the blame on ourselves, that moment we can have hope, that moment we can become cheerful again; for whatsoever else we cannot mend, we can at least mend ourselves. Now a man may forget this in health. He may be put out and unhappy for a while: but when his good spirits return, he does not know why. Things have not improved; but, somehow, they do not affect him as they did before. Now this is not wrong. G.o.d forbid! In such a world as this, one is glad to see a man rid of sadness by any means which is not wrong. Better anything than that a poor soul should fret himself to death.

But it may be very good for a man now and then not to forget; to be kept low, whether by ill health or by any other cause, till he faces fairly his own state, and finds out honestly what does fret him and torment him.

And then, I believe, his experience will generally be like David's.-- 'As long as I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my groaning all the day long.'

Think over these words, I beg you. I chose them for my text, just because they seem to me to contain all that I wish you to understand. As long as the Psalmist held his peace--as long as he did not confess his sin to G.o.d--all seemed to go wrong with him. He fretted his very heart away. The moment that he made a clean breast to G.o.d, peace and cheerfulness came back to him.

This psalm may speak of some really great sin which he had committed. But that makes all the more strongly for us. For if he got forgiveness for a great sin, by merely confessing it, how much more may we hope to be forgiven, for the comparatively little sins of which I am now speaking? Surely there is forgiveness for them.

Surely we, Christians, are not worse off than the old Jews. G.o.d forbid! What does the Bible tell us? If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. And again, if we walk in the light; that is, if we look honestly at our own hearts, and confess honestly to G.o.d what we see wrong there; then we have fellowship one with another; all our frettings and grudgings against our fellow-men pa.s.s away; and the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin.

G.o.d forbid again! For what is the message of the Absolution, whether general in the church, or private by the sick-bed, but this-- that there is continual forgiveness for those who really confess and repent? G.o.d forbid again! For what is the message of the Holy Communion, but that we really are forgiven, really helped by G.o.d not to do the like again; that the stains and scars of our daily misdoings are truly healed by G.o.d's grace; and power given us to lead a healthier life, the longer we persevere in the struggle after G.o.d.

Therefore, instead of proudly laying the blame of our unhappiness on our fellow-men, much less on G.o.d and his providence, let us cast ourselves, in every hour of shame or of sadness, on the boundless love of him who hateth nothing that he hath made; who so loved the world that he spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all. How shall he not with him freely give us all things? Let us open our weary hearts to him who watches with tender interest, as of a father watching the growth of his child, over every struggle of ours from worse to better; and so we shall have our reward. The more we trust to the love of G.o.d, the more shall we feel his love-- feel that we are pardoned--feel that we are at peace. We may not grow more cheerful as we grow older; but we shall grow more peaceful. Sadder men, it may be; but wiser men also; caring less and less for pleasure; caring even less and less for mere happiness: but finding a lasting comfort in the knowledge that we are doing our life's work not altogether ill, under the smile of Almighty G.o.d; aware more and more of our own weakness, and of our own failings: but trusting that G.o.d will take the will for the deed, and forgive us what we have left undone, and accept what we have done, for the sake of Christ, in whom, and not in our own poor paltry selves, he looks upon us as his adopted children.

Only let us remember to ask for pardon and to ask for peace, that we may use them as the collect bids us;--To ask for pardon, not merely that we may escape punishment; not even to escape punishment at all, if punishment be wholesome for us, as it often is: but that we may be cleansed from our sins; that we may not be left to our own weakness and our own bad habits, to grow more and more useless, more and more unhappy, day by day, but that we may be cleansed from them; and grow purer, n.o.bler, juster, stronger, more worthy of our place in G.o.d's kingdom, as our years roll by. Let us remember to ask for peace, not merely to get rid of unpleasant thoughts, or unpleasant people, or unpleasant circ.u.mstances; and then sit down and say, Soul, take thine ease, eat and drink, for thou hast much goods laid up for many years: but let us ask for peace, that we may serve G.o.d with a quiet mind; that we may get rid of the impatient, cowardly, discontented, hopeless heart, which will not let a man go about his business like a man; and get, instead of it, by the inspiration of G.o.d's Holy Spirit, the calm, contented, brave, hopeful heart, in the strength of which a man can work with a will wherever G.o.d may put him, even amidst vexation, confusion, disappointment, slander, and persecution; and, in his place and calling, serve the Lord, who served him when he died for him, and who serves him, and all his people, now and for ever in heaven.