Chapter III: Preface (3)

The scenes which strike us with such horror at this moment are but a specimen of agonies which have been endured for long generations in the successive struggles of mankind; and if we are horrified at the wars and agonies around us, we may be reminded, by the readiness of all nations for such conflicts, that they are almost the normal condition of humanity. In the middle of the last century Burke calculated that, assuming the numbers of men then upon earth to be computed at 500 millions at the most, the slaughter of mankind in the various wars and revolutions which were known up to that date amounted to upwards of seventy times that number, or 35,000 millions. That, on what he thought a moderate estimate, represents the amount of bloodshed which the passions of men had, up to his time, inflicted upon human society. How much more is to be added to that tremendous calculation for the wars which have followed since that date in the East and West? Taking these facts into account, we shall see good reason to recognize that the Book of Revelation, in its fearful scenes, is but a true description of the actual experience of mankind. The plagues, and destructions, and slaughters which that Book depicts, as the result of the just judgments of God, have, as a matter of fact, been realized, and it is through scenes of suffering and misery of this nature that the world is being conducted by the Divine justice to its ultimate goal.

But we have the more reason to be inexpressibly thankful that that goal is revealed to us as one of peace and bliss. It is when we bear in mind the miseries and agonies which the Book of Revelation depicts, and which are brought so bitterly home to us by such a war as the present, that we realize the full force of the promise that “God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.” Seeing what the world has been hitherto, and the miseries by which it is burdened now, we might well despair of such a result, unless we had the express assurance of Revelation that there is One sitting upon the throne Who gives this as the very definition of His work, “Behold, I make all things new.” We should, indeed, be ungrateful not to recognize that the state of things around us contains in itself some pledge and earnest of this revelation. Grievously as the passions of mankind degrade them in practice, there is nevertheless publicly recognized, in principle, a higher standard of responsibility, a higher and more universal obligation to maintain peace and goodwill on earth, than at any previous time in the world’s history. Even amidst such a war as is now waging, principles have been established for its conduct, which produce a great alleviation of its miseries, compared with those which were suffered in the great struggles of nations and of races in previous ages, or even during the last century. But still, none must feel more grievously than those who have the conduct of human affairs how slight would be our hopes of the establishment of complete peace on earth, did it depend simply on the wisdom or strength of even the wisest leaders of mankind. They cannot extirpate the passions which are the real ultimate cause of the wars and fightings among us. They cannot take out of men’s hearts the lusts which war in their members, and which nullify the best laws and institutions. Our hope lies in the assured faith that all the terrible scenes of which the earth is full, like those in the Book of Revelation, are under the control of Him that sitteth on the throne, that they are working out great purposes of truth and justice, that the actions of all men, small and great, are subject to His ultimate judgment, and that, finally, when the issues of right and wrong in this world have been thus worked out, in a manner which shall vindicate the truth and righteousness of God, He will fulfill His great work, in which He is even now engaged, of making all things new.

It is, indeed, an unconscious faith of this kind which sustains men, and has ever sustained them, amidst the confusions and sufferings of life and history. A deep instinct compels them to believe that they are in the hands of a God of justice and truth, and to appeal to Him in the midst of their struggles, and even in those crises in which their best efforts seem to be defeated. But it is the special privilege, the special grandeur, of the Christian Faith to have an explicit assurance of this truth from the mouth of the Judge Himself. He said unto His Apostle, “Write, for these words are true and faithful.” He, the King of Peace, left with His last Apostle the warnings and the promises of this Book. Lest men should be discouraged by the terrible experiences through which they were yet to pass, He warned them beforehand that such experiences were inevitable, and that the world would have to pass through a purgatory of this kind; but at the same time He told them that, when judgment was completed, a new Heaven and a new Earth would be the result, and He bade them be assured that, amidst whatever darkness and confusion, He was sitting on the throne making all things new.

All that we have to do individually is to see that we are true to Him, and in our hearts live in obedience to His will. In the text He goes on to say to the Apostle, “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the water of life freely. He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and _I_ will be his God, and he shall be My son.” “Blessed,” he says again, “are they that do His commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city. For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.” We are not able, with our limited and earthly vision, to discern “the work that God worketh from the beginning of the world,” or the course of His judgments in the world at large. That is beyond us, and we must submit and take our part, whatever it may be, in these mysterious manifestations, possessing our souls in the patience which such assurances as those in the text can alone provide. But we can have the comfort, for our own selves, of passing through this strange and painful scene in sure and certain hope of our ultimate blessedness, provided in our own hearts and souls we give ourselves up to the rule and the order of Him Who is the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last, provided we make it the whole purpose of our lives to do His commandments, and, by His grace, overcome the evil which besets us in our own lives. Our personal and private lives reflect in greater or less degree those stern experiences which this Book describes in the case of the world at large. We have our sins, and as the consequences of our sins our sufferings and sorrows, desolations and punishments of various kinds, and we must expect to have to bear them till the moment of our departure arrives. But by God’s grace we are also allowed in some measure to anticipate the privilege which is held out to the world at large, and which is our own ultimate hope. The fulfilment of the blessed promise of making all things new is not merely commenced, but, if we will, is consciously commenced, within our hearts and souls while we are upon earth. “We ourselves,” says St. Paul, “groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body,” just as “the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.” But we have the first-fruits of the Spirit. His grace is within us at all times to give us new hearts and new spirits, to introduce His peace into our souls, and to enable us to spread that peace around us. Let us only seek it faithfully, and the renewing and replenishing water of life will restore us and maintain our energies, and will be in us as a well of water springing up into everlasting life.

RESISTANCE UNTO BLOOD.

CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL, GOOD-FRIDAY, APRIL 3, 1916.

“_Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin._”--Heb. xii. 4.

“Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.” That is the manner in which the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews applies the Cross of Christ as an example and an inspiration to Christians. He is exhorting them to “lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us,” and to “run with patience the race that is set before us,” “looking unto Jesus the Author and Perfecter of our Faith, who, for the joy that was set before Him, endured the Cross.” It is an aspect of our Saviour’s Cross which it is most important to realize if its significance for ourselves is to be duly appreciated. What was it that brought our Lord to the Cross? Of course, the ultimate cause was that the will of God required that sacrifice to be made for the expiation of human sin. “Him,” said St. Peter, “being delivered up by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain.” But God’s counsel and will were worked out by human agencies; and it is of infinite interest to consider what were the motives which led men like the leaders of the Jewish nation to commit the awful crime of putting to death the Son of God, manifested in perfect human nature. The simple explanation is that He “resisted unto blood, striving against sin.” Our Lord strove against sin, and sinners could not endure His antagonism; and the opposition between the two was so intense that one or other of the two antagonists had to be overpowered. That is the substance of the story of our Lord’s life as told by the Evangelists. Our Lord came proclaiming that the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand--a Kingdom with higher claims and severer judgments than the Jews could tolerate. It claimed a spiritual perfection instead of a legal one, an obedience of the heart instead of a mere compliance in external acts; it penetrated into the secrets of the conscience; and our Lord further declared that He Himself was the Judge by Whom these claims would be enforced. The Jewish rulers felt that this amounted to superseding themselves and their authority, and they treated our Lord as a usurper who must be suppressed. The tremendous denunciation of the Scribes and Pharisees: “Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites,” was an act of open and righteous hostility to the authorities who had rejected His mission and spurned His claims. They felt that He or they must be overthrown, and they used the Roman Government to destroy Him.

It thus appears that our Lord’s crucifixion was the culminating struggle in the never-ceasing battle between right and wrong, righteousness and sin, in which the history of mankind consists. Our Lord appeared as the representative of absolute righteousness, and He was put to death because men could not endure that righteousness. In His rejection by the Jews and His crucifixion by the Roman Governor, the highest official representatives of human righteousness at that time and place combined to condemn themselves. But they could not have consummated that sacrifice without the consent and even co-operation of our Lord Himself. He had power, if He had chosen to exert it, to destroy them and assert His Divine supremacy. “Thinkest thou,” He said, “that I cannot now pray to My Father, and He shall presently give Me more than twelve legions of angels? But how, then, shall the Scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?” Instead of destroying His enemies, He submitted to be put to death Himself. He allowed the unrighteousness of human nature to break in full force upon His own head; He Himself became its victim, and a victim of such infinite greatness as to constitute an expiation for all the sin of mankind. Sin and evil can only be avenged by an adequate exhibition and endurance of their consequences. But that endurance and that manifestation were afforded, in the highest conceivable form, in the destruction, so far as men could effect it, of perfect goodness and holiness. That was what our Lord’s submission to the Cross involved. When that expiation had been made to God and God’s righteousness, our Lord assumed His full authority as a Saviour and a Judge, and, by His Resurrection and Ascension, established the Kingdom of Heaven in all its grace and power. Henceforth men have lived under that dispensation of love as well as of justice, and the Cross has been held aloft among them as the means and the assurance of forgiveness and of grace.

No human being can imitate our Lord in that supreme act of self-surrender to His Father’s will, by which He abandoned all His right and power to avenge Himself on His enemies, and became the supreme victim, and therefore atonement, for human sin. But it is possible for men to follow Him in the course of action which brought Him to that awful decision and agony. “He resisted unto blood, striving against sin.” So far as we strive against sin and evil, whatever the consequences to ourselves, we are following Him to the foot of the Cross. It is not the mere endurance of suffering, the mere surrender of life in itself, which renders us followers of our Lord in His sacrifice: men have endured much and sacrificed much for more or less selfish reasons, for ambition or for military glory and power. But the essence of our Lord’s sacrifice was that it was made in the cause of righteousness and truth only. “To this end was I born,” He said, “and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth.” We are following Him so far as in all our words and acts we are bearing witness unto the truth. That witness may at any time involve suffering and death. God has so constituted mankind that few great causes have ever been finally won without the voluntary sacrifice of life. That sacrifice may sometimes be made, like that of our Lord and of the martyrs, by the voluntary endurance of the cruel penalties inflicted by the enemies of the truth; or it may be endured in obedience to the claim of lawful authorities that we should take up arms and offer our lives, in defence of some righteous cause. Men may act in our Lord’s spirit if they submit to wrong in their own persons, rather than avenge themselves. But the authorities who, as St. Paul says, are the ministers of God, are bound to protect those committed to their charge, and for that purpose have a right to call upon those under them to use the sword at their command to defend the right. In so using the sword at the command of their rulers, at whatever cost to themselves, they also are acting in Christ’s spirit, because they are upholding righteousness and asserting the truth in the manner required by their duty. To all forms of organized sin the witness of the Jewish sacrifices holds good. “Without shedding of blood is no remission.” That, so long as the present dispensation lasts, is the unalterable law of God’s Will and Word. Soldiers, therefore, who are obeying a lawful command in defence of the right, are offering their lives in the spirit in which Christ endured the Cross, and may claim the comfort of being fellows with Him in the “holy war” of right against wrong.

But if the Cross of Christ is to be the centre of our lives, we must strive to live in all things, and not only in such great crises as those of war and the battlefield, in the spirit which brought our Lord to His Cross--the spirit of absolute obedience in all things to the righteous will of God. What the Spirit of the Cross requires of us is the absolute surrender of our own wills to the will of God, and the constant endeavour to bear witness to that will, and to promote it in every part of our lives. It is not the mere meditation on the sufferings of the Cross which will bring us into harmony with it. The Apostles do not dwell much on them, profoundly as they must have been moved by them. What they dwell on is the spirit which moved our Saviour to accept them and to bear them. That spirit is to be discerned throughout His life, as well as in His agony in the garden and in His sayings on the Cross. It is embodied in His gracious words: “Whoever shall do the will of My Father which is in Heaven, the same is My brother and sister and mother.” The Cross is the highest and final expression of His devotion and His Father’s will; but we can follow that spirit in every duty, however humble. If the National Mission is to fulfil its object, it must impress that spirit of supreme devotion to the will of God, as revealed in Christ, upon the nation as a whole, and the Cross must become the symbol of our national, no less than of our individual, life.

THE KING’S ACCESSION AND INTERCESSION.

CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL, 1915.

“_I exhort, therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, thanksgivings, be made for all men: for kings, and for all that are in authority: that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty._”--1 Tim. ii. 1.

It is in fulfilment of the duty prescribed in this text that we hold every year a Service of Thanksgiving and Intercession on the anniversary of our King’s accession to the throne, and I am sure we all know and appreciate the abundant reasons we have for offering such thanksgivings. We know that every public action of the King since he came to the throne has borne witness to his unreserved devotion to the welfare of his subjects in all parts of his Empire. His visit, for instance, to India was a very arduous and anxious undertaking, and was prompted by his own desire to assure the Indian people of his deep personal care for them, and also to strengthen the bonds between them and his subjects at home; and no doubt the generous service which Indian princes and soldiers are now rendering to the Empire on the plains of Flanders is in great measure due to the influence of that visit, in deepening the loyalty and devotion of his Indian subjects. We have had abundant evidence, moreover, in the last few months, of the King’s deep sympathy with his people in the sorrows and losses which this war is inflicting upon them. He has sent his son and heir to serve with his soldiers at the Front, and has himself visited them there to thank and cheer them, and he has lately set a very conspicuous example of personal self-denial in the ordinary habits of life. We see that the King and Queen live for the good of their subjects, and for the promotion of all that is good and true and gracious throughout their vast Empire, and that their example is one of the chief influences which are working among us for these noble ends. Knowing and appreciating all this, I need not say more to induce you to join with a full heart to-day in the words of our Service, and to “yield unfeigned thanks to God” that He was pleased, as on this day, to place His servant our Sovereign Lord King George upon the throne of this realm.

But I think it may be desirable and opportune to lay some special stress on those intercessions which we are bidden to offer “for kings and for all that are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.” Those words remind us, first of all, that the purpose of God, so far as this world is concerned, is that we may live a life of peace in all godliness and honour--a state of peace in which men may enjoy the happiness for which God intended them, in which they may “replenish the earth and subdue it,” and develop to the utmost the faculties and capacities with which God has endowed them. That is the main object to be kept in view for the purpose of the present life. The next fact of which the words remind us is that the maintenance of these peaceful conditions of life depends mainly upon Kings and all that are in authority. It does not depend merely upon Kings, but also upon those in authority, who are the Kings’ Ministers. In some parts of the world, as in this country, Kings no longer have the power by themselves, and of their own motion, to determine the course of public affairs, to keep the peace or to declare wars. Yet their position must always give them an immense influence in the government of a nation; and even now, in the two greatest countries of Europe--Germany and Russia, they have not merely the supreme control, but the supreme initiative, in affairs of State. The peace of the world, the possibility of our living a quiet and peaceable life, depends in Europe, in the main, on the rulers of Russia and Germany, upon those in authority in France, and upon the King of England and his Ministers.

It is a momentous fact, and a surprising one to realize. God has so constituted mankind that the welfare of the masses, of the millions of ordinary men and women, depends upon the actions of a few dozens of the leading men in the various countries of Europe. We are proud of being a constitutional country, and of the fact that by the election of members of Parliament--by selecting, that is, the members of the House of Commons--the vast majority of Englishmen have a voice in creating their own Government; and to a certain extent in that way we govern ourselves. But nevertheless, in the last resort, the fate of the country depends upon the dozen or two men who are placed in power by the House of Commons. It is a simple fact that the mass of the people in this country had no voice whatever in determining whether we should or should not enter upon this terrible war. It was determined for us in the course of a few hours by the King’s Ministers, and by the action they took in their relations with other countries. In the nature of the case it must be so. Whether they will or not, great masses of people and great nations cannot do without a Government; and when they have established one, that Government must necessarily act in many critical emergencies without waiting to consult the people whom it governs. A nation and its King, with his Ministers, constitute as much one body, to use St. Paul’s image, as the various elements and limbs of the human body and its brain. We become one single organism, under the control and management of the brain of that organism, which is the King and his Ministers. It is an awful responsibility for men to have entrusted to them, to be able to declare war and thus to launch many millions of men in their own country, and hundreds of millions of men in the Empire and in other countries, upon a gigantic struggle, of which all we know for certain at the outset is that it will involve a sacrifice of tens of thousands of lives, the devastation of fair countries, and the waste of enormous treasure. But so it is and ever must be. In the freest republics that ever existed the chief rulers have had similarly to act as the brain of the whole people; and it depends on their wisdom and faithfulness, not merely at critical moments, but in that daily administration of affairs out of which critical moments arise, whether the people shall live a quiet and peaceable life or not.

We must add to this the fact--which no one would be more ready to recognize than these leaders and rulers, Kings, Ministers, or Presidents, themselves--that the affairs with which they have to deal, the problems they have to solve, are too vast and mysterious to be fully grasped by any human brain, and that they are liable to the most grievous miscalculations. If you need evidence of this, look at the outbreak of the present war. Our rulers in this country had no idea at all, within a few days of the event, that such a war was about to break upon us; the rulers of all other nations have been loudly proclaiming, ever since it began, that they are not responsible for it, and that it would not have happened but for circumstances which they could not foresee or control. There seem, indeed, to have been wild and unscrupulous spirits in Germany who were eager for it, and who had long been intriguing for it; but none the less it burst upon Europe suddenly and unexpectedly, and it baffled the foresight of European statesmen in general. In the face of such imperfect competence for these problems of statesmanship, and of such enormous responsibility for them, are we not compelled to stretch out our hands towards Heaven, and implore God’s guidance for the rulers who are feeling their way amidst such dim lights--“for kings and for all in authority,” upon whose words and actions the fate of the world and its peace, the happiness and the very life of millions of men and women are dependent? If, indeed, we could not do so, we might well despair. We should behold before us a mass of nations rising against one another, blinded--as we see in Germany that nations can be blinded--by passion and pride, and fighting wildly, almost like men in the dark, and we might well feel helpless before such a chaos. But knowing, as it is the privilege of Christians to know, that “the Lord sitteth above the water-floods,” that “the Lord remaineth a King for ever,” knowing, as another Psalm says, that “the Lord is King, be the people never so impatient. He sitteth between the cherubim, be the earth never so unquiet,” we cry unto the Lord in our trouble, and implore Him to deliver us out of our distress.

There is another reason for our thus appealing to Him, which is, that we are assured by His Word that the whole history of the world has been under his control, and that He has been directing its course throughout, and determining the fate of nations for His own purposes. We have before us the most conclusive evidence of this in the history of the Jews. The course of their history and their position in the world at the present day were announced to Abraham and Moses thousands of years ago, and they have fulfilled, and are now fulfilling, the place and the function in the world which were then assigned to them. There is nothing, accordingly, on which the Bible insists more urgently and constantly than that the great issues of war and history are in the hands of God. It is not merely that He exercises a general controlling influence over them, but that He has His own purposes, which He is gradually fulfilling by means of “the unruly wills and affections of sinful men.” It teaches us that “except the Lord build the house they labour in vain that build it; except the Lord keep the city the watchman watcheth but in vain.” He does not merely interpose in the course of the building, but He is the Builder. He is building up, through the ages, some great design, and all nations will be made in the end to conform to it.

It is certain, for instance, that it was not by our design or forethought, or our skill, that the Empire which we are now called on to defend was built up. A hundred years ago--nay, fifty years ago--no statesman seems to have imagined that the British Empire would grow, or could grow, to the vast dimensions it now possesses. Not merely did they not imagine it--some of them actually deprecated its growth. It has not been by our will and design, but in great measure against them, that the British nations have been developed into one great body politic. It must be the hand of God which we see in all that development. We have, whether we will or no, a great work laid upon us all over the world--in India, in America, and in the Islands of the sea--and we recognize that it is by God’s will that this task and responsibility, which is at the same time a great privilege, has been laid upon us. We may well, therefore, implore continually His help and guidance in the discharge of it. Is it not, then, an imperative duty, is not St. Paul right in putting it in the very forefront of our duties, that we should offer up supplications, intercessions, urgent prayers for the King and for all in authority under him, that they may be guided to know God’s will in the vast problems which are set before them? that “God’s wisdom may be their guide and that His Arm may strengthen them,” and that He may direct their actions and endeavours to His own glory, to the accomplishment of His great designs, and to the welfare of our people?

Let us ask ourselves earnestly whether we have realized, as we ought, since this war began, that it is in God’s hands, and not in ours, to determine its issue. War is not merely an appeal to the sword--it is, in a far higher degree, an appeal, the final appeal, to God Himself. Lord Bacon observes that great soldiers and Commanders have always been conspicuous for their acknowledgment that the issues of their great battles and campaigns all depended upon some supernatural power. They knew better than others the infinite accidents and chances upon which the issue of war depends, and they realized that it was in God’s power to determine that issue as He pleased. I fear it must be owned that we have not, as yet, acknowledged this truth in the present war as much as we ought. If we had, would not the Services of Intercession in this Cathedral and elsewhere be more frequently and more earnestly attended? Let us be reminded then, by this Service of Prayer and Supplication, on the anniversary of the Accession of our King, how deeply he and his Ministers need that prayer and intercession, how wholly dependent they are, in bearing the momentous burdens laid upon them, upon “the good hand of our God upon them”; and let us henceforth “pray without ceasing” for God’s blessing upon our King, and particularly, at this time, for his victory over the bitter enemies by whom he has been forced into this dreadful struggle.

THE CHRISTIAN SANCTION OF WAR.

AT THE SERVICE OF INTERCESSION FOR THE KING’S NAVAL AND MILITARY FORCES IN CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL, AUGUST, 1914.

We are assembled here this afternoon, at the call of our King in Council and of our Archbishop, for the purpose of solemn intercession with Almighty God on behalf of his Majesty’s naval and military forces now engaged in war. That is in accordance with the solemn practice of our fathers at all the great crises of our history; and it is only about fourteen years since we were similarly interceding with Almighty God in this cathedral, when the King’s forces were engaged in an arduous struggle in South Africa. But the gravity of our present struggle is greater than that of any in the memory of living men, perhaps greater than that of any other in our history. The very existence of our Empire, and even the independence of our Kingdom, is at stake; and the Power by which we are threatened has been, of late years, deemed the greatest military force in Europe, and a naval force only second to our own. It may be that the capacities and resources of our Kingdom and Empire will be strained as they have never been strained before, and that all our manhood, and even our womanhood, will be called upon for all the force and endurance of which they are capable. Prayer to God is incumbent upon us at all times; but there are special reasons why, in a great war, it is the most important of all duties, and the most precious of all privileges. The issues of war are, in an extraordinary degree, beyond the control of man. The issue of a battle or a campaign may, in fact, be determined by incidents, moral and physical, which no human power can foresee or control. Our own deliverance from the Spanish Armada was certainly determined, in an incalculable degree, by the tremendous storm which wrecked the Spanish fleet at the critical moment; and again and again in history have great battles been decided by influences of that nature, or by some incalculable turn in the feeling and temper of an army. Consequently, when nations go to war they place themselves and their fortunes in the hands of God in a more absolute manner than in any other human affairs. That is what we have now done by declaring war against Germany; and we have, therefore, more reason than at any other time in our history to fall before God’s footstool, and to implore Him for the protection and blessing which He, and He only, can give us. It is still more true now than in the Psalmist’s time that “there is no king that can be saved by the multitude of an host, neither is any mighty man delivered by much strength; an horse is counted but a vain thing to save a man, neither shall he deliver any man by his great strength. Behold the eye of the Lord is upon them that fear Him, and upon them that put their trust in His mercy.” In that spirit we now bow before His throne--in the words of our daily prayer in time of war and tumult--before the throne of “the only Giver of all victory.”

Coming before Him in these solemn circumstances, and with this momentous petition, it becomes us to ask ourselves whether we are doing so in a spirit, and with a cause, in which we can expect His blessing, and a favourable answer to our prayers. “If I incline unto wickedness with my heart,” says the Psalmist, “the Lord will not hear me.” If we are to offer our prayers with a believing and confident heart, we must have our conscience clear; and before men ask God’s blessing in so tremendous an issue as that of war, they must consider with the most solemn earnestness whether they can feel assured that what they are doing and asking is in accordance with His will.

As to the lawfulness of war itself, though some good Christian minds are troubled by the question, the answer seems clear and simple. War is justifiable for the same reason that it is lawful to put men to death for great crimes, like murder and treason. The conscience of mankind at large, the conscience of Christian States at large, has uniformly wielded the sword of justice in avenging and averting, by the punishment of death, such crimes of violence and treachery as destroy the very frame of Society. That use of the sword of justice, moreover, has the express support of Revelation, for St. Paul has declared that the ruler “beareth not the sword in vain; he is the minister of God, an avenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.” But if it is lawful to use the sword of justice against individuals, it must be equally lawful to use it against a community of individuals--in other words, against a society, or a nation, who are unjustly destroying or threatening the lives and the peace of another society or nation. The use of the sword--which is an elementary name for war--has been shown by thousands of years of experience to be, in the last resort, the only effectual means of punishing and preventing unjust violence. It is vain to argue what might be possible or desirable if man were an uncorrupt creature. He is, as a matter of fact, a sinful creature; and, as St. Paul plainly says, it is God Himself who has put the sword into the hands of human authority to punish, and to restrain, the effects of that sinfulness.

Thus the mere fact of our resort to the sword need not of itself burden our consciences. But if this account of its awful purpose be true, one indispensable condition for its use is obviously requisite. If the purpose of the sword is to punish injustice, then we must take care that it is used for that solemn purpose only. It was not given to men to enable them to gratify their ambition or pride, or to enlarge their kingdoms at their pleasure, or for any selfish purpose whatever. He who draws the sword for any purpose but that of upholding justice and judgment on the earth is committing the crime of murder on the vastest scale, and renders himself justly liable to the stern use of the sword against himself. If, therefore, we are to come before God with a clear conscience at this moment, we must be able to say, from our hearts, that we have not now drawn the sword from any selfish motive, or under the influence of any violent passion, but that we have drawn it simply and solely in the discharge of our bounden duty, and in fulfilment of just promises and engagements to our neighbours. My brethren, I believe it may be confidently asserted that this country has never been engaged in a war in respect to which this could be said with more unqualified confidence than in the present case.

I think, indeed, we may thankfully consider, in reviewing our long history, that the wars by which our Empire has been developed and established have, on the whole, been of this character, and have not been prompted by either national or dynastic ambition. The wars under Queen Elizabeth, in which the germs of our Empire were laid, were mainly prompted by a just indignation against the cruel and superstitious tyranny of Spain; and the wars of Marlborough and Wellington were similarly fought to protect Europe against an overbearing and unjust domination. In the heat of those struggles we may have been betrayed, in some instances, into an unjust use of the sword; but, on the whole, we may thank God that the wars which have established Great Britain in its present position have been--at least mainly--fought in just causes. Certainly in the present instance we have no other motive or object. We covet no other nation’s possessions; we have not interfered--and do not desire to interfere--with any other nation’s affairs; we would not willingly exert our influence for any other purpose but that of promoting righteousness and freedom; and if, in our later history, we have erred, as human beings can hardly avoid erring sometimes, the errors have been due to a failure of judgment, and not of motive or intention. As to the particular occasion of this war, we have offered no provocation whatever, except what has been called “the strong antipathy” of right to wrong; the provocation which adherence to promise and treaties must ever offer to those who would break them; the provocation which defence of the weak must ever offer to those who would overbear them. We can say in a word, with a good conscience, that we are at least earnestly endeavouring to act as the servants of Him of Whom the Psalmist exclaims: “The Lord is King; the earth may be glad thereof; yea, the multitude of the isles may be glad thereof. Clouds and darkness are round about Him; righteousness and judgment are the habitation of His seat.” It is in the cause of that righteousness and judgment that we desire to act.

But there is one other condition that we must fulfil, if we are to dare to claim the favour of God in this great struggle. We must not only ask whether we are upholding righteousness in our public action but whether we are observing it in our own hearts, and in our national life. Sufferings, we are told in our Prayer Book, may be sent “to correct and amend in us whatever doth offend the eyes of our Heavenly Father.” Can we fail to be sensible that there is much in our lives, both private and public, which must offend His eyes? Our private sins must be left to our private consciences. But who has not listened during the last few years, with a painful sense of their justice, to reproaches among ourselves at the luxury, the extravagance, the reckless pursuit of pleasure, the general self-indulgence, which have been too prevalent among us? With what heart can men appeal for God’s favour and protection, in their hour of need, who, in their hours of well-being, have neglected His worship and disregarded His Word and Sacraments? Before going into battle as a nation and as individuals, let us seek His absolution in that comprehensive prayer of our Litany “that it would please Him to give us true repentance, to forgive us all our sins, negligences, and ignorances, and to endue us with the grace of His Holy Spirit to amend our lives according to His Holy Word.”

In so far as we approach Him in this spirit, we may humbly hope for His blessing on the bravery and the self-sacrifice of our sailors and soldiers. Those sacrifices, moreover, alike for them and for ourselves, will be relieved of their worst bitterness, and will be glorified by a sacred and Divine example. They will not be fruitless sacrifices. They will be sacrifices which will win for the fellow-countrymen of those who offer them, and for the world at large, grand additions to that edifice of righteousness and judgment, of Christian civilization, towards which the hopes of mankind are directed with an inexpressible yearning. If this war results, as we now pray that it may, in the reassertion of principles which were in danger of being forgotten or overridden, in the re-establishment of the faith of treaties, and in the protection of the weak against the strong, it will have established for Europe and the world a great consolidation and advance in the essential principles of national truth and justice. It is a comparatively poor thing to die for glory, or for power and wealth; but it is a grand thing to die for righteousness and equity, for the God who allows us to be His instruments in upholding them, and for the King and country whose call we are proud to obey. If, moreover, men go to war in this spirit, they may claim a still more Divine privilege. In the sacrifice which soldiers make in a righteous cause, they are following, in the most essential characteristic, the “author and finisher of our Faith,” the “Captain of our Salvation,” whose work is summed up in that soldier-like phrase, “He resisted unto blood, striving against sin.” The soldier who sheds his blood on the battlefield in a righteous cause, and with a righteous purpose, is doing the very thing that Christ did, and he may be assured of Christ’s approval and blessing. In quiet times we may fail to realize adequately the solemn truth that, whenever we receive the Holy Communion, we are receiving spiritual benefits which were won for us by the sacrifice of the Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ. If war, in one aspect, is a horrible thing, so was the Cross; but the whole hope of the salvation of mankind, here and hereafter, was won by that Divine bloodshed; and its grace and glory are reflected over every battlefield, in which blood is shed in the long struggle against unrighteousness. In these convictions, and with these solemn resolves, let us now appeal to God, in firm and humble faith, for His help in this hour of need; and let us enter into this dread conflict with the full assurance that “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.”

THE WARNING OF THE TOWER IN SILOAM.

PREACHED IN CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL, OCTOBER 25, 1914.

“_I tell you, Nay; but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish._”--Luke xiii. 1-5.

“Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.” In these solemn words, twice repeated, our Lord affords us a flash of light upon the principles and methods of the Divine judgments, and utters a solemn warning; and I think that both the revelation and the warning will be found intensely applicable to the distressing sufferings and anxieties through which we and our country are now passing. Our Lord had been speaking about the severity of the Divine justice, and about the blindness of men in not foreseeing the approach of His judgments. “Ye hypocrites,” He said, “ye can discern the face of the sky and of the earth; but how is it that ye do not discern this time? Yea, and why even of yourselves judge ye not what is right?” and He warns them that if they fall into the hands of justice, they will not depart thence till they have paid the very last mite. At this mention of the Divine judgment, some who were present told Him of a dreadful act of violence which had recently occurred, of some Galilæans, “whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.” It would seem they were members of an extremely zealous sect of Jews, who objected to the custom which then prevailed of offering sacrifices in the Temple for the welfare of the Roman Government; and Pilate treated their conduct as treasonable, and had them slaughtered in the Temple while they were offering their own sacrifices. The object of the interruption seems to have been to ask our Lord whether these men had brought such a punishment upon themselves by unusual sin, and it may also have been intended to tempt Him to pronounce some censure on Pilate, and thus to bring Himself into conflict with the Roman authorities. But our Lord’s reply lifts the matter at once out of any personal or local bearings, and lays down a principle which applies to all such tragedies. “Suppose ye,” He said, “that these Galilæans were sinners above all the Galilæans because they suffered such things? I tell you, Nay; but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.” He drives the truth home by applying it to another recent tragedy, which might have seemed a mere accident. “Those eighteen,” He said, “upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and slew them, think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, Nay; but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.” It is not for you, He seems to say, to be curious about the reason why these particular men have suffered in this way. What you should do is to learn that you are all liable to suffer in the same way, and that you will do so unless you repent.

Now, it will be seen that there is a momentous revelation contained in these words, respecting the real cause of such dreadful disasters as these two incidents illustrated. When He says, “Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish,” He clearly intimates that a Divine judgment is going forward in the world, which sooner or later brings suffering and destruction upon men in consequence of their sin. Even what we might call a physical accident, like the fall of a tower which kills eighteen persons, is a warning to men that they are liable to such a death at any moment, and that, therefore, they should repent and be prepared for it. It is an example of what may befall any of us, and of what will befall all of us in one way or another, unless we repent. If we look more particularly into the example of the men whom Pilate slaughtered, we shall realize that it has a peculiarly close application to our own day. These men, who were resisting the Roman Government, were examples of the vehement passions which were at that time surging among the Jewish people. Our Lord Himself was the victim of the fierce hatred of foreign influence which prevailed among the people. The priests and Pharisees said among themselves, “What do we? For this man doeth many miracles, and if we let Him thus alone, all men will believe on Him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.” And the High Priest, Caiaphas, replied, “Ye know nothing at all, nor consider that it is expedient for us that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not.” Thus it was that the passions of the Jewish people were worked up into such blindness and wickedness, that they committed the awful crime of putting our Lord to death; and then in forty years the prediction of our Lord was fulfilled, and the great mass of them perished in just such a slaughter as that which Pilate committed, the blood of the nation being shed in torrents in the Courts of the Temple, and amidst its sacrifices. These events--the massacre by Pilate, the murder of our Lord, the destruction of the Jewish people--were not separate and disconnected events. They were all the consequence of the sins and evil passions which our Lord denounced among the Jews of His time; and the disasters which the Jews suffered were the judgments of God’s righteousness upon those sins.

Now what this reveals to us is the constitution of that world of human society amidst which we live. The bedrock of it, the basis of its whole constitution, is the righteousness of God and His unwavering maintenance of His moral laws. As the Psalmist says, “Clouds and darkness are round about Him,” and we cannot follow in all respects His mysterious dispensations; but one thing we know for certain, that “righteousness and judgment are the habitation of His seat.” All His providential government of mankind is based on the assertion of right and the punishment and repression of wrong; and, as another prophet says, when you see God’s judgments in the world you may be sure that the object of them is that the inhabitants of the world may learn righteousness. But it is of the first importance we should realize how those judgments are for the most part executed. It is not, as a rule, by the special and visible interposition of God’s hand. There have been times, indeed, as on various occasions in the history of the Jews, such as the deliverance of His people from Egypt, when God manifestly interposed, by miraculous means, to punish His enemies and to deliver His people. But for the most part, and in the general course of history, the moral and religious laws which God has established in human nature are left to work out their natural consequences, and men are punished not merely because of their sins, but by their sins, and by the working out of their sins in their lives. The explanation of the chief troubles of mankind, and in particular of the wars and sufferings which have cursed the earth from generation to generation, is contained in that statement of St. James: “From whence come wars and fightings among you? Come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? Ye lust and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.” When the men and women of whom a nation is composed give way to those lusts of which St. James speaks, to covetousness, jealousy, sensuality, and untruthfulness, they are gradually storing up the fuel of passions for some great conflagration, which arises in the natural course of things, as the consequence of some great public injustice into which they are betrayed. They thus rouse the indignation of other people, they commit injustices which must be resisted, and then the world is convulsed in some great war like the present.