Chapter VIII: Part 8

But if these be our bodily blessings, what are our spiritual blessings? Has not God 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 God himself?

And how many of us give God 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 God, we understand, expects it too: but where is the gratitude? Where is the giving of glory to God for all his goodness? Which are we most like? Children of God, 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 God, 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. God 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 God 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. God forbid. There are those who suffer bitter afflictions, not because they have sinned, but that, like the poor blind man, the glory of God 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 God 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.

God 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 God, 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 God'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 God; saying,--The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord. If we do that, and give God the glory, it may be with us, after all, as it was with Job, when God gave him back sevenfold for all that he had taken away, wealth and prosperity, sons and daughters. For God 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 God grant that if that day, too, comes--if after sorrow comes joy, if after storm comes sunshine--we may not forget God 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 God, 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 God, and by God, and for God, in this life, and for ever.

SERMON XXIX. PARDON AND PEACE

(Twenty-first Sunday after Trinity.)

Psalm xxxii. 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 godly 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 compass 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 noble 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 God 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 God 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 God 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 God 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 pass 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 God'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 God; 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 God 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. Circumstances about us we cannot mend; God 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. God 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 God--all seemed to go wrong with him. He fretted his very heart away. The moment that he made a clean breast to God, 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. God 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 God what we see wrong there; then we have fellowship one with another; all our frettings and grudgings against our fellow-men pass away; and the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin. God 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? God forbid again! For what is the message of the Holy Communion, but that we really are forgiven, really helped by God not to do the like again; that the stains and scars of our daily misdoings are truly healed by God's grace; and power given us to lead a healthier life, the longer we persevere in the struggle after God.

Therefore, instead of proudly laying the blame of our unhappiness on our fellow-men, much less on God 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 God, 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 God; aware more and more of our own weakness, and of our own failings: but trusting that God 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, nobler, juster, stronger, more worthy of our place in God'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 circumstances; 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 God 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 God's Holy Spirit, the calm, contented, brave, hopeful heart, in the strength of which a man can work with a will wherever God 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.

So shall we have real pardon, and real peace. A pardon which will make us really better; and a peace which will make us really more useful. And to be good and to be useful were the two ends for which God sent us into the world at all.

SERMON XXX. THE CENTRAL SUN

(Sunday after Ascension, Evening.)

Ephesians iv. 9. 10. Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.

This is one of those very deep texts which we are not meant to think about every day; only at such seasons as this, when we have to think of Christ ascending into heaven, that he might send down his Spirit at Whitsuntide. Of this the text speaks; and therefore, we may, I hope, think a little of it to-day, but reverently, and cautiously, like men who know a very little, and are afraid of saying more than they know. These deep mysteries about heaven we must always meddle with very humbly, lest we get out of our depth in haste and self- conceit. As it is said,

Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

For, if we are not very careful, we shall be apt to mistake the meaning of Scripture, and make it say what we like, and twist it to suit our own fancies, and our own ignorance. Therefore we must never, with texts like this, say positively, 'It must mean this. It can mean only this.' How can we tell that?

This world, which we do see, is far too wonderful for us to understand. How much more wonderful must be the world which we do not see? How much more wonderful must heaven be? How can we tell what is there, or what is not there? We can tell of some things that are not there, and those are sin, evil, disorder, harm of any kind. Heaven is utterly good. Beyond that, we know nothing. Therefore I dare not be positive about this text, for fear I should try to explain it according to my own fancies. Wise fathers and divines have differed very much as to what it means; how far any one of them is right, I cannot tell you.

The ancient way of explaining this text was this. People believed in old times that the earth was flat. Then, they held, hell was below the earth, or inside it in some way: and the burning mountains, out of which came fire and smoke, were the mouths of hell. And when they believed that, it was easy for them to suppose that St. Paul spoke of Christ's descending into hell. He went down, says St. Paul, into the lower parts of the earth. What could those lower parts be, they asked, but the hell which lay under the earth?

Now about that we know nothing. St. Paul himself never says that hell is below the earth. Indeed (and this is a very noteworthy thing) St. Paul never, in his epistles, mentions in plain words hell at all; so what St. Paul thought about the matter, we can never know. Whether by Christ's descending into the lower parts of the earth, he meant descending into hell, or merely that our Lord came down on this earth of ours, poor, humble, and despised, laying his glory by for a while, this we cannot tell. Some wise men think one thing, some another. Two of the wisest and best of the great old fathers of the Church think that he meant only Christ's death and burial. So how dare I give a positive opinion, where wiser men than I differ?

But about the other half of the text, which says, that he ascended high above all heavens, there is no such difficulty.

All agree as to what that means: though, perhaps, in old times they would have put it in different words.

The old belief was, that as hell was below the flat earth, so heaven was above it; and that there were many heavens, seven heavens, in layers, as it were, one above the other; and that the seventh heaven, which was the highest of all, was where God dwelt. Now, whether St. Paul believed this, we cannot tell. He speaks of being himself caught up into the third heaven, and here Christ is spoken of as ascending above all heavens.

My own belief, though I say it very humbly, is, that St. Paul spoke of these things only as a figure of speech, for the sake of the ignorance of the people to whom he was writing. They talked in that way; and he was forced now and then to talk in that way, too, to make them understand him. I think that, when he spoke of being caught up into the third heaven, he did not mean that he was lifted bodily off the earth into the skies: but that his soul was raised up and enlightened to understand high and wonderful heavenly matters, though not the highest or most wonderful. If he had meant that, he would have said, that he was caught up into the seventh heaven. We know that our Lord, in the same way, continually used parables; because, as he said, the ignorant people could not understand the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven; and he had, therefore, to put them into parables, taken from the common country matters, and country forms of speech, if by any means he might make them understand. And so, I suppose, it was with St. Paul. He had to speak in such a way that he could be understood; and no more.

But when he says that Christ ascended far above all heavens, we are to believe this--that he ascended to God himself. So high that he could go no higher; so far that he could go no farther.

We, now, do not believe that there are seven heavens above the earth; and we need not. It is no doctrine of the Church, or of the Creeds. We know that the earth is round, and not flat; and that the heavens, if by that we mean the sky, is neither above it, nor below it, but round it on every side. But some may say, whither, then, did our Lord ascend? To what place did his body go up? And that is a right question; for we must always bear in mind that not merely Christ's godhead but his manhood, not merely Christ's soul but his body also, ascended into heaven. If we do not believe that, we do not hold the Catholic faith. Whither, then, did Christ ascend?

My friends, we know this. That this earth and the planets move round the sun, which is in the centre of them. We know this, too; that all the countless stars which spangle the sky are really suns likewise, perhaps, with worlds which we cannot see, moving round them, as we move round the sun. We know, too, that these fixed stars, as they seem to be, are not really fixed, but have some regular movements among themselves, which seem very slow and small to us, from their immense distance, but which really are very great and fast.

Now all these suns and stars, it is reasonable to believe, most probably have a centre. There must be order among them; and they most probably move round one thing, one place, one central sun, as it were, which is the very heart of all the worlds, and the whole universe. Where that place is, or what it is like, we know not, and cannot know. Only this we may believe, that it is glorious beyond all that eye hath seen, and ear heard, or hath entered into the heart of man to conceive. If this world be beautiful, how beautiful must that world of all worlds be. If the sun be glorious, how glorious must the sun of all suns be. If the heaven over us be grand, how grand must that heaven of heavens be. We will not talk of it; for we cannot imagine it: and if we tried to, we should only lower it to our own low fancies. But is it not reasonable to suppose, that there God the Father does, perhaps, in some unspeakable way, shew forth his glory? That there, in the heart of all the worlds, Cherubim and Seraphim continually adore him, crying day and night, 'Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Sabaoth: Heaven and earth are full of the majesty of thy glory!' before his throne from which goes forth light, and power, and life, to all worlds and all created things.

And is it not reasonable to believe, that there Christ is, in the bosom of the Father, and at the right hand of God? We know that those, too, are only figures. That God is a Spirit, everywhere and nowhere; and has not hands as we have. But it is only by such figures that the Bible can make us understand the truth, that Christ is the highest being in all heavens and worlds; equal with God the Father, and sharer of his kingdom, and power, and glory, God blessed for ever. Amen.

What then does St. Paul mean, when he says, 'That he may fill all things?' I do not know. And I will take care not to lessen and spoil St. Paul's words, by any ignorant words of my own. But one thing I know it will mean one day, for St. Paul says so. That Christ reigns, and will reign, triumphant over sin, and death, and hell, till he have put all enemies under his feet, and the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. Then shall he deliver up the kingdom to God, even the Father; that God may be all in all. What that means I do not know. But this I can say, and you can say. We can pray that God will finish the number of his elect and hasten his kingdom, that we, with all that are departed in the true faith, may have our perfect consummation and bliss, both in body and soul, in his eternal kingdom. And this I can say, that it means now, for you and me; for Whitsuntide tells me:--that whatever else Christ can or cannot fill, he can at least fill our hearts, because he is in the bosom of the Father himself; and therefore from him, as from the Father, proceeds the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of life. That Spirit will proceed even to us, if we will have him. He will fill our hearts with himself; with the Spirit of goodness, which proceeds out of the heaven of heavens, and out of the bosom of God himself; with love, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness; with truth, honour, duty, earnestness, and all that is the likeness of Christ and of God. Oh let us pray for that Spirit; the Spirit of truth, which Christ promised us when he ascended up into the heaven of heavens, to keep us sound in our most holy faith; and the Spirit of goodness, to give us strength to live the good lives of good Christian men.

And then it will matter little what opinions we hold about deep things, which the wisest man can never put into words. And it will matter little, whether what I have been telling you to-day about the heaven of heavens be exactly true or not; for what says St. Paul of such deep matters? That we know in part, and prophesy in part; and that prophecies shall fail, and knowledge vanish away: but charity, love, and right feeling, and right doing, which is the very Holy Spirit of God, shall abide for ever. And if that Spirit be with us, he will guide us in due time into all truth; teach us all we need to know, and enable us to practise all we ought to do. Amen.

SERMON XXXI. CHRISTMAS PEACE

(Sunday before Christmas.)

Phil. iv. 4. Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice.

This is a glorious text, and one fit to be the key-note of Christmas-day. If we will take it to heart, it will tell us how to keep Christmas-day. St. Paul has been speaking of two good women, who seem to have had some difference; and he beseeches them to make up their difference, and be of the same mind in the Lord. And then he goes on to tell them, and all Christian people, why they should make up their differences.

And for that reason, I suppose, the Church has chosen it for the epistle before Christmas-day, on which all men are to make friends with each other, and rejoice in the Lord. Let your moderation, he says, be known to all men. The Greek word signifies forbearance, reasonable dealing, consideration for one another, readiness to give way, not standing too severely on one's own rights. Now this is just the temper in which we ought to meet our friends at Christmas-- forbearance. They may not have always behaved well to us. Be it so. No more have we to them. Let us, once in the year at least, forget old grudges. Let us do as we would be done by; give and forgive; live and let live; bury our past quarrels, and shake hands over their graves.

For the Lord is at hand. Close to all of us: watching all we do, and setting the right value on it. He cannot mistake. He sees both sides of a matter, and all sides--a thousand sides which we cannot see. He can judge better than we. Let him judge. Why do I say, Let him judge? He has judged already, weeks, months ago, as soon as each quarrel happened: and, perhaps, he found us in the wrong as well as our neighbours; and, if so, the least said the soonest mended. Let us forgive and forget, lest we be neither forgotten nor forgiven.

And, because the Lord is at hand, be anxious about nothing. The word here is the same as in the Sermon on the Mount. It means do not fret; do not terrify yourselves; for the Lord is at hand; he knows what you want: and will he not give it? Is not Christmas-day a sign that he will give it--a pledge of his love? What did he do on the first Christmas-day? What did he shew himself to be on the first Christmas-day? Now, here is the root of the whole matter, and a deep root it is; as deep as the beginning of all things which are, or ever were, or ever will be. And yet if we will believe our Bibles, it is a root which we all may find. What did the angels say the first Christmas night? Peace on earth, and goodwill to men. That is what God proclaimed. That is what he said that he had, and would give.

Now, says the apostle, if you will believe the latter half of this same Christmas message, then the first half of it will come true to you. If you will believe that God's will is a good will to you, then you will have peace on earth. For believe in Christmas-day; believe that the Lord is at hand; that he has been made man for ever and ever; and that to the Man Christ Jesus all power is given in heaven and earth: and then, if you want aught, instead of grudging or grinding your neighbours, ask him. In everything let your requests be made known unto God: and then the peace of God will keep your hearts through Christ Jesus.

You will feel at peace with God through Christ Jesus, because you have found out that God is at peace with you; that God is not against you, but for you; that God does not hate you, but love you; and if God is at peace with you, what cause have you to be at war with him? And so the message of Christmas-day will bring you peace.

You will be at peace with your neighbours, through Christ Jesus. When you see God stooping to make peace with sinful men, you will be ashamed to be quarrelling with them. When you see God full of love, you will be ashamed to keep up peevishness, grudging, and spite. When you see God's heaven full of light, you will be ashamed to be dark yourselves; your hearts will go out freely to your fellow- creatures; you will long to be friends with every one you meet; and you will find in that the highest pleasure which you ever felt in life. But mind one thing--what sort of a peace this peace of God is. It passes all understanding; the very loftiest understanding. The cleverest and most learned men that ever lived could not have found it--we know they did not find it--by their own cleverness and learning. No more will you find God's peace, if you seek for it with your understanding. Thinking will not bring you peace, think as shrewdly as you may. Reading will not bring it, read as deeply as you may. Some people think otherwise; that they can get the peace of God by understanding. If they could but understand more, their minds would be at rest. So they weary themselves with reading, and thinking, and arguing, perhaps trying to understand predestination, election, assurance; perhaps trying to understand which is the true Church. What do they get thereby? Certainly not the peace of God. They certainly do not set their minds at rest. They cannot. Books cannot give a live soul rest. Understanding cannot. Nothing can give you or me rest, save God himself. The peace is God's; and he must give it himself, with his own hand, or we shall never get it. Go then to God himself. Thou art his child, as Christmas-day declares: be not afraid to go unto thy Father. Pray to him; tell him what thou wantest: say, Father, I am not moderate, reasonable, forbearing. I fear I cannot keep Christmas- day aright, for I have not a peaceful Christmas spirit in me; and I know that I shall never get it by thinking, and reading, and understanding; for it passes all that, and lies far away beyond it, does peace, in the very essence of thine undivided, unmoved, absolute, eternal Godhead, which no change nor decay of this created world, nor sin or folly of men or devils, can ever alter; but which abideth for ever what it is, in perfect rest, and perfect power, and perfect love. O Father, give me thy peace. Soothe this restless, greedy, fretful soul of mine, as a mother soothes a sick and feverish child. How thou wilt do it I do not know. It passes all understanding. But though the sick child cannot reach the mother, the mother is at hand, and can reach it. Though the eagle, by flying, cannot reach the sun, yet the sun is at hand, and can reach all the earth, and pour its light and warmth over all things. And thou art more than a mother: thou art the everlasting Father. Pour thy love over me, that I may love as thou lovest. Thou art more than the sun: thou art the light and the life of all things. Pour thy light and thy life over me, that I may see as thou seest, and live as thou livest, and be at peace with myself and all the world, as thou art at peace with thyself and all the world. Again, I say, I know not how; for it passes all understanding: but I hope that thou wilt do it for me. I trust that thou wilt do it for me, for I believe the good news of Christmas-day. I believe that thou art love, and that thy mercy is over all thy works. I believe the message of Christmas-day: that thou so lovest the world, that thou hast sent thy Son to save the world, and me. I know not how; for that, too, passes understanding: but I believe that thou wilt do it; for I believe that thou art love; and that thy mercy is over all thy works, even over me. I believe the message of Christmas-day, that thy will is peace on earth, even peace to me, restless and unquiet as I am; and goodwill to men, even to me, the chief of sinners.

SERMON XXXII. THE LIFE OF THE SPIRIT

(First Sunday after Christmas.)

Isaiah xxxviii. 16. O Lord, by these things men live, and in all these things is the life of my spirit.

These words are the words of Hezekiah, king of Judah; and they are true words, words from God. But, if they are true words, they are true words for every one--for you and me, for every one here in this church this day: for they do not say, By these things certain men live, one man here and another man there; but all men. Whosoever is really alive, that is, has life in his spirit, his soul, his heart, the life of a man and not a beast, the only life which is worthy to be called life, then that life is kept up in him in the same way that it was kept up in Hezekiah, and by the same means.

Let us see, then, what things they were which gave Hezekiah's spirit life. Great joy, great honour, great success, wealth, health, prosperity and pleasure? Was it by these things that Hezekiah found men lived? Not so, but by great sorrow. 'In those days was Hezekiah sick unto death. And Isaiah the prophet the son of Amos came unto him and said, Thus saith the Lord, Set thine house in order; for thou shall die and not live. Then Hezekiah turned his face towards the wall and prayed unto the Lord; and Hezekiah wept sore.'

Trouble upon trouble came on Hezekiah; and that just when he might have expected a little rest. The Lord had just delivered Hezekiah and the Jews from a fearful danger, of which we read in the chapter before. Hezekiah had believed God's promise by the mouth of Isaiah. He held fast his faith in God when Sennacherib and his Assyrian army were camping round Jerusalem; for God had said, 'I will defend this city to save it for my own sake and for my servant David's sake.' He defended his city bravely and nobly, and showed himself a true, and valiant, and godly king. And perhaps Hezekiah expected to be rewarded for his faith, and rewarded for having done his duty: but it was not so. He had to wait, and to endure more. And now this fresh trouble was come upon him. Isaiah told him he should die and not live: and he must prepare himself to meet death.

Hezekiah, you see, was horribly afraid of death. I do not mean that he was afraid of going to hell, for he does not say so: but he felt, to use his own words, 'The grave cannot praise thee, death cannot celebrate thee: they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.' And, therefore, death looked to him an ugly and an evil thing--as it is; the Lord's enemy, and his last enemy, the one with which he will have the longest and sorest fight. He conquered death by rising from the dead: but nevertheless we die; and death is an ugly, fearful, hateful thing in itself, and rightly called the King of Terrors: for terrible it is to those who do not know that Christ has conquered it. Hezekiah lived before the Lord Jesus came into the flesh to bring life and immortality to light, by rising from the dead; and, therefore, the life after death was not brought to light to him, any more than it was to David, or any other Old Testament Jew. He dreaded it, because he knew not what would come after death. And, therefore, he prayed hard not to die. He did not pray altogether in a right way: but still he prayed. 'Remember now, O Lord, I beseech thee, how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart, and have done that which was good in thy sight.' And the Lord heard his prayer. 'Then came the word of the Lord to Isaiah, saying, Go, and say to Hezekiah, Thus saith the Lord, I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears, behold I will add unto thy days fifteen years.'

Then what was the use of God's warning to him? What was the use of his sickness and his terror, if, after all, his prayer was heard, and after the Lord had told him, Thou shall die and not live--that did not come to pass: but the very contrary happened, that he lived, and did not die?

Of what use to him was it? Of this use at least, that it taught him that the Lord God would hear the prayers of mortal men. Oh my friends, is not that worth knowing? Is not that worth going through any misery to learn--that the Lord will hear us? That he is not a cold, arbitrary tyrant, who goes his own way, never caring for our cries and tears, too proud to turn out of his way to hear us: but that he is very pitiful and of tender mercy, and repenting him of the evil? Hezekiah did not pray rightly. He thought himself a better man than he was. He said, 'Remember now, O Lord, I beseech thee, how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good in thy sight.' And Hezekiah wept sore. But he did pray. He went to God, and told his story to him, and wept sore; and the Lord God heard him, and taught him that he was not as good as he fancied; taught him that, after all, he had nothing to say for himself--no reason to shew why he should not die. 'What shall I say? He hath both spoken unto me, and himself hath done it: I shall go softly all my years in the bitterness of my soul.' And so he felt that, instead of justifying himself, he must throw himself utterly on God's love and mercy; that God must undertake for him. 'O Lord, I am oppressed, crushed--the heart is beaten out of me. I have nothing to say for myself. Undertake for me. I have nothing to say for myself, but I have plenty to say of thee. Thou art good and just. Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell. I can say no more.'

And then he found that the Lord was ready to save him. That what the Lord wished was, not to kill him, but to recover him, and make him live--live more really, and fully, and wisely, and manfully--by making him trust more utterly in God's goodness, and love, and mercy; making him more certain that, good as he thought himself, and perfect in heart, he was full of sins: and yet that the Lord had cast all these sins of his behind his back, forgotten and forgiven them, as soon as he had made him see that all that was good and strong in him came from God, and all that was evil and weak from himself. And then he says, 'O Lord, by these things men live, and in all these things is the life of my spirit.' God meant all along to receive me, and make me live. He chastened me, and brought me low, to shew me that my own faith, my own righteousness, was no reason for his saving me: but that his own love and mercy was a good reason for saving me. 'Behold,' he goes on to say, 'for peace I had great bitterness: but thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption: for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back.'

And, my dear friends, what Hezekiah saw but dimly, we ought to see clearly. The blessed news of the Gospel ought to tell us it clearly. For the blessed Gospel tells us that the same Lord who chastened and taught, and then saved, Hezekiah, was made flesh, and born a man of the substance of a mortal woman; that he might in his own person bear all our sicknesses and carry our infirmities; that he might understand all our temptations, and be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, seeing that he himself was tempted in all points likewise, yet without sin.

Oh hear this, you who have had sorrows in past times. Hear this, you who expect sorrows in the times to come.

He who made, he who lightens, every man who comes into the world; he who gave you every right thought and wholesome feeling that you ever had in your lives: he counts your tears; he knows your sorrows; he is able and willing to save you to the uttermost. Therefore do not be afraid of your own afflictions. Face them like men. Think over them. Ask him to help you out of them: or if that is not to be, at least to tell you what he means by them. Be sure that what he must mean by them is good to you: a lesson to you, that in some way or other they are meant to make you wiser, stronger, hardier, more sure of God's love, more ready to do God's work, whithersoever it may lead you. Do not be afraid of the dark day of affliction, I say. It may teach you more than the bright prosperous one. Many a man can see clearly in the cloudy day, who would be dazzled in the sunlight. The dull weather, they say, is the best weather for battle; and sorrow is the best time for seeing through and conquering one's own self. Therefore do not be afraid, I say, of sorrow. All the clouds in the sky cannot move the sun a foot further off; and all the sorrow in the world cannot move God any further off. God is there still, where he always was; near you, and below you, and above you, and around you; for in him you live and move and have your being, and are the offspring and children of God. Nay, he is nearer you, if possible, in sorrow, than in joy. He is informing you, and guiding you with his eye, and, like a father, teaching you the right way which you should go. He is searching and purging your hearts, and cleansing you from your secret faults, and teaching you to know who you are and to know who he is--your Father, the knowledge of whom is life eternal. By these things, my friends-- by being brought low and made helpless, till ashamed of ourselves, and weary of ourselves, we lift up eyes and heart to God who made us, like lost children crying after a Father--by these things, I say, we live, and in all these things is the life of our spirit.

SERMON XXXIII. THE UNCHANGEABLE ONE