Town and Country Sermons Part 9

The first thing we hear of him is, how Jesus, walking by the Lake of Galilee, saw Peter with his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishers. And he said unto them, 'Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. And they straightway left their nets, and followed him.' This was most likely not the first time that St.

Peter had seen our Lord, or heard him speak. Living in the same part of the country, he must have known all his miracles: but still it was a great struggle, no doubt, for him (and doubly so because he was a married man), to throw up his employment, and go wandering after one who had not where to lay his head: yet he did it, and did it at once. And you may see that he did it for a much higher and n.o.bler reason than if he had only gone to wonder at our Lord's miracles, as the mult.i.tude did, or even to be able to work miracles himself. Jesus did not say to him, Follow me, and I will give you the power of working miracles, and being admired, and wondered at; all he says is, I will make you fishers of men; I will make you able to get a hold on men's hearts, and teach them, and make them happier and better. And for that St. Peter followed him. It seems as if from the first his wish was to do good to his fellow-creatures.

And, gradually, he seems to have become the spokesman for the other apostles. When they wished to ask our Lord anything, we generally find St. Peter asking; and when (as in the gospel for to-day), our Lord asks them a question, St. Peter answers for them all. Whom say ye that I am? And Peter answered and said, 'Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living G.o.d.'

This is what St. Peter had learnt; because he had kept his eyes and his ears open, and his heart ready and teachable, that he might see G.o.d's truth when it should please G.o.d to show it him; and G.o.d did show it him: and taught him something which his own eyes and ears could not teach him; which all his thinking could not have taught him; which no _man_ could have taught him; flesh and blood could not reveal to him that Jesus was the Son of G.o.d; flesh and blood could not draw aside the veil of flesh and blood, and make him see in that poor man of Nazareth, who was called the carpenter's son, the only- begotten of the Father, G.o.d made man. No. G.o.d the Father only could teach him that, by the inspiration of his Holy Spirit: but do you think that G.o.d would have taught St. Peter that, or that St.

Peter could have learnt it, if his mind had been merely full of thoughts about himself, and what honour he was to get for himself, or what profit he was to get for himself, out of the Lord Jesus Christ?

No: St. Peter loved the Lord Jesus; loved him with his whole heart.

When afterwards our Lord asked him, 'Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?' He answered, 'Lord, thou knowest that I love thee.' And because he loved him, he saw how beautiful and glorious the Lord's character was; and his eyes were opened to see that the Lord was too beautiful, too glorious, to be merely a mortal man; and, at last, to see that he was the brightness of G.o.d's glory, and the express image of his Father's person.

But, as I said just now, St. Peter's great and excellent gifts might have made him only the more dangerous man, if he used them ill. And this seems to have been his danger. He was plainly a very bold and determined man, who knew his own power, and was ready to use it fearlessly: and what would he be tempted to do! To fancy that his power belonged to him, and not to Christ; that his wisdom belonged to himself; that his faith belonged to himself; his authority belonged to himself; and that, therefore, he could use his excellent gifts as he liked, and not merely as Christ liked. He was liable, as we say in homely English, to 'have his head turned' by his honour and his power.

For instance, immediately after our Lord had put this great honour on him, 'I will give thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven,' we find Peter mistaking his power, and, therefore, misusing it. 'From that time forth began Jesus to show unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day. Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from Thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee. But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of G.o.d, but those that be of men.' St. Peter's words, in the Greek tongue, really seem to mean that St. Peter fancied that _he_ could protect our Lord; that he had the power of delivering him, by binding his enemies the Jews, and loosing the Lord himself. That seems to have been the way in which he took our Lord's words: but what does our Lord answer? As stern words as man could hear. 'Get thee behind me, Satan; for thou art an offence unto me.' Or, rather, thou art my stumbling-block. So that St. Peter, while he fancied himself near to the angels, found out, to his shame, that he was behaving like a devil, and had to be called Satan to his face; and that while he thought he could save the Lord Jesus, he found that he was doing all he could to harm and ruin his master; trying to do the very work which the Devil tried to do, when he tempted the Lord Jesus in the wilderness. So near beside each other do heaven and h.e.l.l lie. So easy is it to give place to the Devil, and fall into the worst of sin, just when we are puffed up with spiritual pride.

And more than once afterwards, St. Peter had to learn that same lesson; when, for instance, he leaped boldly overboard from the boat, and came walking towards Jesus on the sea. That was n.o.ble: worthy of St. Peter: but he fancied himself a braver man than he was. He became afraid; and the moment that he became afraid, he began to sink. Jesus saved him, and then told him why he had become afraid: because his faith had failed him. He had ceased trusting in Christ's power to keep him up; and became helpless at once.

That should have been a lesson to St. Peter, that he was not to be so very sure of his own faith and his own courage; that without his Lord he might become cowardly and helpless any moment: but he did not take that gentle lesson; so he had to learn it once and for all by a very terrible trial. We all know how he fell;--one day protesting vehemently to his Lord, 'Though I die with thee, I will not deny thee;' the next, declaring, with oaths and curses, 'I know not the man.' No wonder that when Jesus turned and looked on him, Peter went out and wept bitterly, as bitter tears of shame as ever were shed on earth. For he knew, he was sure, that he loved his Lord all along: and now he had denied him. He who was so bold and confident, to fall thus! and into the very sins most contrary to his nature! the very sins in which he would have expected least of all to fall! He, so frank and honest and brave--He to turn coward. He to tell a base lie! I dare say, that for the moment he could hardly believe himself to be himself.

But so it is, my friends. If we forget that all which is good and strong in us comes from G.o.d, and not from ourselves; if we are conceited, and confident in ourselves; then we cut ourselves off from G.o.d's grace, and give place to Satan the Devil, that he may sift us like wheat, as he did St. Peter; and then in some shameful hour, we may find ourselves saying and doing things which we would never have believed we could have done. G.o.d grant, that if ever we fall into such unexpected sin, it may happen to us as it did to St.

Peter. For Satan gained little by sifting St. Peter. He sifted out the chaff: but the wheat was left behind safe for G.o.d's garner.

The chaff was St. Peter's rashness and self-conceit, which came from his own sinful nature; and that went, and St. Peter was rid of it for ever. The wheat was St. Peter's courage, and faith, and honour, which came from G.o.d; and that remained, and St. Peter kept them for ever. That, we read, was St. Peter's conversion; that worked the thorough and complete change in his character, and made him a new man from that day forth. And then, after that terrible and fiery trial, St. Peter was ready to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, which gave him courage with fervent zeal to preach the gospel of his Crucified Lord, and at last to be crucified himself for that Lord's sake; and so fulfil the Lord's words to him. 'When thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest: but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not.' By that our Lord seems to have meant, 'You were strong and proud and self- willed enough in your youth. The day will come when you will be tamed down, ready and willing to suffer patiently, even agony from which your flesh and blood may shrink;' and the Lord's words came true. For, say the old stories, when St. Peter was led to be crucified, he refused to be crucified upright, as the Lord Jesus had been, saying, 'That it was too great an honour for him, who had once denied his Lord, to die the same death as his Lord died.' So he was crucified, they say, with his head downward; and ended a glorious life in a humble martyrdom.

And what may we learn from St. Peter's character? I think we may learn this. Frankness, boldness, a high spirit, a stout will, and an affectionate heart; these are all G.o.d's gifts, and they are pleasant in his eyes, and ought to be a blessing to the man who has them. Ought to be a blessing to him, because they are the stuff out of which a good, and n.o.ble, and useful Christian man may be made.

But they need not be a blessing to a man; they are _excellent_ gifts: but they will not of themselves make a man an _excellent_ man, who _excels_; that is, surpa.s.ses others in goodness. We may see that ourselves, from experience. We see too many brave men, free-spoken men, affectionate men, who come to shame and ruin.

How then can we become excellent men, like St. Peter? By being baptised, as St. Peter was, with the Holy Ghost and with fire.

Baptized with the Holy Ghost, to put into our hearts good desires; to make us see what is good, and love what is good, long to do good: but baptized with fire also. 'He shall baptize you,' John the Baptist said, 'with the Holy Ghost and with fire.'

Does that seem a hard saying? Do not some at least of you know what that means? Some know, I believe. All will know one day; for it is true for all. To all, sooner or later, Christ comes to baptise them with fire; with the bitter searching affliction which opens the very secrets of their hearts, and shows them what their souls are really like, and parts the good from the evil in them, the gold from the rubbish, the wheat from the chaff. 'And he shall gather the wheat into his garner, but the chaff he shall burn up with unquenchable fire.' G.o.d grant to each of you, that when that day comes to you, there may be something in you which will stand the fire; something worthy to be treasured up in G.o.d's garner, unto everlasting life.

But do not think that the baptism of fire comes only once for all to a man, in some terrible affliction, some one awful conviction of his own sinfulness and nothingness. No; with many--and those, perhaps, the best people--it goes on month after month, year after year: by secret trials, chastenings which none but they and G.o.d can understand, the Lord is cleansing them from their secret faults, and making them to understand wisdom secretly; burning out of them the chaff of self-will and self-conceit and vanity, and leaving only the pure gold of his righteousness. How many sweet and holy souls look cheerful enough before the eyes of man, because they are too humble and too considerate to intrude their secret sorrows upon the world.

And yet they have their secret sorrows. They carry their cross unseen all day long, and lie down to sleep on it at night: and they will carry it for years and years, and to their graves, and to the Throne of Christ, before they lay it down: and none but they and Christ will ever know what it was; what was the secret chastis.e.m.e.nt which he sent to make that soul better, which seemed to us to be already too good for earth. So does the Lord watch his people, and tries them with fire, as the refiner of silver sits by his furnace, watching the melted metal, till he knows that it is purged from all its dross, by seeing the image of his own face reflected in it. G.o.d grant that our afflictions may so cleanse our hearts, that at the last Christ may behold himself in us, and us in himself; that so we may be fit to be with him where he is, and behold the glory which his Father gave him before the foundation of the world.

SERMON XIX. ELIJAH

(Tenth Sunday after Trinity.)

1 Kings xxi. 19, 20. And thou shalt speak unto him, saying, Thus saith the Lord, Hast thou killed, and also taken possession? and thou shalt speak unto him, saying, Thus saith the Lord, In the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth, shall dogs lick thy blood, even thine. And Ahab said to Elijah, Hast thou found me, O mine enemy? And he answered, I have found thee: because thou hast sold thyself to work evil in the sight of the Lord.

Of all the grand personages in the Old Testament, there are few or none, I think, grander than the prophet Elijah. Consider his strange and wild life, wandering about in forests and mountains, suddenly appearing, and suddenly disappearing again, so that no man knew where to find him; and, as Obadiah said when he met him, 'If I tell my Lord, Behold, Elijah is here; then, as soon as I am gone from thee, the Spirit of the Lord shall carry thee whither I know not.' Consider, again, his strange activity and strength, as when he goes, forty days and forty nights, far away out of Judea, over the waste wilderness, to h.o.r.eb the mount of G.o.d; or, as again, when he girds up his loins, and runs before Ahab's chariot for many miles to the entrance of Jezreel. One can fancy him from what the Bible tells us of him, clearly enough; as a man mysterious and terrible, not merely in the eyes of women and children, but of soldiers and of kings.

He seems to have been especially a countryman; a mountaineer; born and bred in Gilead, among the lofty mountains and vast forests, full of wild beasts, lions and bears, wild bulls and deer, which stretch for many miles along the further side of the river Jordan, with the waste desert of rocks and sand beyond them. A wild man, bred up in a wild country, he had learnt to fear no man, and no thing, but G.o.d alone. We do not know what his youth was like; we do not know whether he had wife, or children, or any human being who loved him.

Most likely not. He seems to have lived a lonely life, in sad and bad times. He seems to have had but one thought, that his country was going to ruin, from idolatry, tyranny, false and covetous ways; and one determination; to say so; to speak the truth, whatever it cost him. He had found out that the Lord was G.o.d, and not Baal, or any of the idols; and he would follow the Lord; and tell all Israel what his own heart had told him, 'The Lord, he is G.o.d,' was the one thing which he had to say; and he said it, till it became his name; whether given him by his parents, or by the people, his name was Elijah, 'The Lord is G.o.d.' 'How long halt ye between two opinions?'

he cries, upon the greatest day of his life. 'If the Lord be G.o.d, then follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.' How grand he is, on Carmel, throughout that n.o.ble chapter which we read last Sunday.

There is no fear in him, no doubt in him. The poor wild peasant out of the savage mountains stands up before all Israel, before king, priests, n.o.bles, and people, and speaks and acts as if he, too, were a king; because the Spirit of G.o.d is in him: and he is right, and he knows that he is right. And they obey him as if he were a king.

Even before the fire comes down from heaven, and shows that G.o.d is on his side, from the first they obey him. King Ahab himself obeys him, trembles before him--'And it came to pa.s.s, when Ahab saw Elijah, that Ahab said unto him, Art thou he that troubleth Israel?

And he answered, I have not troubled Israel; but thou, and thy father's house, in that ye have forsaken the commandments of the Lord, and thou hast followed Baalim. Now therefore send, and gather to me all Israel unto mount Carmel, and the prophets of Baal four hundred and fifty, and the prophets of the groves four hundred, which eat at Jezebel's table. So Ahab sent unto all the children of Israel, and gathered the prophets together unto mount Carmel.' The tyrant's guilty conscience makes a coward of him: and he quails before the wild man out of the mountains, who has not where to lay his head, who stands alone against all the people, though Baal's prophets are four hundred and fifty men, and the prophets of the groves four hundred, and they eat at the queen's table; and he only is left and they seek his life:--yet no man dare touch him, not even the king himself. Such power is there, such strength is there, in being an honest and a G.o.d-fearing man.

Yes, my friends, this was the secret of Elijah's power. This is the lesson which Elijah has to teach us. Not to halt between two opinions. If a thing be true, to stand up for it; if a thing be right, to do it, whatsoever it may cost us. Make up your minds then, my friends, to be honest men like Elijah the prophet of old.

For your own sake, for your neighbour's sake, and for G.o.d's sake, be honest men.

For your own sake. If you want to be respected; if you want to be powerful--and it is good to be powerful sometimes--if G.o.d has set you to govern people, whether it be your children and household, your own farm, your own shop, your own estate, your own country or neighbourhood--Do you want to know the great secret of success?--Be honest and brave. Let your word be as good as your thought, and your deed as good as your word. Who is the man who is respected?

Who is the man who has influence? The complaisant man--the cringing man--the man who cannot say No, or dare not say No? Not he. The pa.s.sionate man who loses his temper when anything goes wrong, who swears and scolds, and instead of making others do right, himself does wrong, and lowers himself just when he ought to command respect? My experience is--not he: but the man who says honestly and quietly what he thinks, and does fearlessly and quietly what he knows. People who differ from him will respect him, because he acts up to his principles. When they are in difficulty or trouble, they will go and ask his advice, just because they know they will get an honest answer. They will overlook a little roughness in him; they will excuse his speaking unpleasant truths: because they can trust him, even though he is plain-spoken.

For your neighbour's sake, I say; and again, for your children's sake; for the sake of all with whom you have to do, be honest and brave. For our children--O my friends, we cannot do a crueller thing by them than to let them see that we are inconsistent. If they hear us say one thing and do another--if, while we preach to them we do not practice ourselves, they will never respect us, and never obey us from love and principle. If they do obey us, it will be only before our faces, and from fear. If they see us doing only what we like, when our backs are turned they will do what they like.

And worse will come than their not respecting us--they will learn not to respect G.o.d. If they see that we do not respect truth and honesty, they will not respect truth and honesty; and he who does not respect them, does not respect G.o.d. They will learn to look on religion as a sham. If we are inconsistent, they will be profane.

But some may say--'I have no power; and I want none. I have no people under me for whom I am responsible.'

Then, if you think that you need not be honest and brave for your own sake, or for other peoples' sake, be honest and brave for G.o.d's sake.

Do you ask what I mean? I mean this. Recollect that truth belongs to G.o.d. That if a thing is true, it is true because G.o.d made it so, and not otherwise; and therefore, if you deny truth, you fight against G.o.d. If you are honest, and stand up for truth, you stand up for G.o.d, and what G.o.d has done.

And recollect this, too. If a thing be right for you to do, G.o.d has made it right, and G.o.d wills you to do it; and, therefore, if you do not do your duty, you are fighting against G.o.d; and if you do your duty, you are a fellow-worker with G.o.d, fulfilling G.o.d's will.

Therefore, I say, Be honest and brave for G.o.d's sake. And in this way, my friends, all may be brave, all may be n.o.ble. Speak the truth, and do your duty, because it is the will of G.o.d. Poor, weak women, people without scholarship, cleverness, power, may live glorious lives, and die glorious deaths, and G.o.d's strength may be made perfect in their weakness. They may live, did I say? I may say they have lived, and have died, already, by thousands. When we read the stories of the old martyrs who, in the heathen persecution, died like heroes rather than deny Christ, and scorned to save themselves by telling what they knew to be a lie, but preferred truth to all that makes life worth having:--how many of them--I may say the greater part of them--were poor creatures enough in the eyes of man, though they were rich enough, n.o.ble enough, in the eyes of G.o.d who inspired them. 'Few rich and few n.o.ble,' as the apostle says, 'were called.' It was to poor people, old people, weak women, ill-used and untaught slaves, that G.o.d gave grace to defy all the torments which the heathen could heap on them, and to defy the scourge and the rack, the wild beasts and the fire, sooner than foul their lips and their souls by denying Christ, and worshipping the idols which they knew were nothing, and worth nothing.

And so it may be with any of you here; whosoever you may be, however poor, however humble. Though your opportunities may be small, your station lowly, your knowledge little; though you may be stupid in mind, slow of speech, weakly of body, yet if you but make up your mind to say the thing which is true, and to do the thing which is right, you may be strong with the strength of G.o.d, and glorious with the glory of Christ.

It is a grand thing, no doubt, to be like Elijah, a stern and bold prophet, standing up alone against a tyrant king and a sinful people; but it is even a greater thing to be like that famous martyr in old time, St. Blandina, who, though she was but a slave, and so weakly, and mean, and fearful in body, that her mistress and all her friends feared that she would deny Christ at the very sight of the torments prepared for her, and save herself by sacrificing to the idols, yet endured, day after day, tortures too horrible to speak of, without cry or groan, or any word, save 'I am a Christian;' and, having outlived all her fellow-martyrs, died at last victorious over pain and temptation, so that the very heathen who tortured her broke out in admiration of her courage, and confessed that no woman had ever endured so many and so grievous torments. So may G.o.d's strength be made perfect in woman's weakness.

You are not called to endure such things. No: but you, and I, and every Christian soul are called on to do what we know to be right.

Not to halt between two opinions: but if G.o.d be G.o.d, to follow Him.

If we make up our minds to do that, we shall be sure to have our trials: but we shall be safe, because we are on G.o.d's side, and G.o.d on ours. And if G.o.d be with us, what matter if the whole world be against us? For which is the stronger of the two, the whole world, or G.o.d who made it, and rules it, and will rule it for ever?

SERMON XX. THE LOFTINESS OF HUMILITY

1 Peter v. 5. Be clothed with humility: for G.o.d resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble.

This is St. Peter's command. Are we really inclined to obey it?

For, if we are, there is nothing more easy. There is no vice so easy to get rid of as pride: if one wishes. Nothing so easy as to be humble: if one wishes.

That may seem a strange saying, considering that self-conceit is the vice of all others to which man is most given; the first sin, and the last sin, and that which is said to be the most difficult to cure. But what I say is true nevertheless.

Whosoever wishes to get rid of pride may do so. Whosoever wishes to be humble need not go far to humble himself.

But how? Simply by being honest with himself, and looking at himself as he is.

Let a man recollect honestly and faithfully his past life; let him recollect his sayings and doings for the past week; even for the past twenty-four hours: and I will warrant that man that he will recollect something, or, perhaps, many things which will not raise him in his own eyes; something which he had sooner not have said or done; something which, if he is a foolish man, he will try to forget, because it makes him ashamed of himself; something which, if he is a wise man, he will not try to forget, just because it makes him ashamed of himself; and a very good thing for him that he should be so. I know that it is so for me; and therefore I suppose it is so for every man and woman in this Church.