Kitabı oxu: «Westminster Sermons», səhifə 16
SERMON XXII. NOBLE COMPANY
Hebrews xii. 22, 23
Ye are come to the city of the living God, and to the spirits of just men made perfect.
I have quoted only part of the passage of Scripture in which these words occur. If you want a good employment for All Saints’ Day, read the whole passage, the whole chapter; and no less, the 11th chapter, which comes before it: so will you understand better the meaning of All Saints’ Day. But sufficient for the day is the good thereof, as well as the evil; and the good which I have to say this morning is—You are come to the spirits of just men made perfect; for this is All Saints’ Day.
Into the presence of this noble company we have come: even nobler company, remember, than that which was spoken of in the text. For more than 1800 years have passed since the Epistle to the Hebrews was written: and how many thousands of just men and women, pure, noble, tender, wise, beneficent, have graced the earth since then, and left their mark upon mankind, and helped forward the hallowing of our heavenly Father’s name, the coming of His kingdom, the doing of His will on earth as it is done in heaven; and helped therefore to abolish the superstition, the misrule, the vice, and therefore the misery of this struggling, moaning world. How many such has Christ sent on this earth during the last 1800 years. How many before that; before His own coming, for many a century and age. We know not, and we need not know. The records of Holy Scripture and of history strike with light an isolated mountain peak, or group of peaks, here and here through the ages; but between and beyond all is dark to us now. But it may not have been dark always. Scripture and history likewise hint to us of great hills far away, once brilliant in the one true sunshine which comes from God, now shrouded in the mist of ages, or literally turned away beyond our horizon by the revolution of our planet: and of lesser hills, too, once bright and green and fair, giving pasture to lonely flocks, sending down fertilizing streams into now forgotten valleys; themselves all but forgotten now, save by the God who made and blessed them.
Yes: many a holy soul, many a useful soul, many a saint who is now at God’s right hand, has lived and worked, and been a blessing, himself blest, of whom the world, and even the Church, has never heard, who will never be seen or known again, till the day in which the Lord counteth up His jewels.
Let us rejoice in that thought on this day, above all days in the year. On this day we give special thanks to God for all His servants departed this life in His faith and fear. Let us rejoice in the thought that we know not how many they are; only that they are an innumerable company, out of all tongues and nations, whom no man can number. Let us rejoice that Christ’s grace is richer, and not poorer, than our weak imaginations can conceive, or our narrow systems account for. Let us rejoice that the goodly company in whose presence we stand, can be limited and defined by no mortal man, or school of men: but only by Him from whom, with the Father, proceeds for ever the Holy Spirit, the inspirer of all good; and who said of that Spirit—“The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth. So is every one who is born of the Spirit”—and who said again, “John came neither eating nor drinking, and ye said, He hath a devil. The Son of man came eating and drinking, and ye say, Behold a man gluttonous and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. But I say unto you, Verily wisdom is justified of all her children”—and who said again—when John said to Him, “Master, we saw one casting out devils in Thy name, and he followeth not us”—“Forbid him not. For I say to you, that he that doeth a miracle in My name will not lightly speak evil of Me”—and who said, lastly—and most awfully—that the unpardonable sin, either in this life or the life to come, was to attribute beneficent deeds to a bad origin, because they were performed by one who differed from us in opinion; and to say, “He casteth out devils by Beelzebub, prince of the devils.”
These are words of our Lord, which we are specially bound to keep in our minds, with reverence and godly fear, on All Saints’ Day, lest by arranging our calendar of saints according to our own notions of who ought to be a saint, and who ought not—that is, who agrees with our notions of perfection, and who does not—we exclude ourselves, by fastidiousness, from much unquestionably good company; and possibly mix ourselves up with not a little which is, to say the least, questionable.
Men in all ages, Churchmen or others, have fallen into this mistake. They have been but too ready to limit their calendar of saints; to narrow the thanksgivings which they offer to God on All Saints’ Day.
The Romish Church has been especially faulty on this point. It has assumed, as necessary preliminaries for saintship—at least after the Christian era—the practice of, or at least the longing after, celibacy; and after the separation of the Eastern and Western Churches, unconditional submission to the Church of Rome. But how has this injured, if not spoiled, their exclusive calendar of saints. Amid apostles, martyrs, divines, who must be always looked on as among the very heroes and heroines of humanity, we find more than one fanatic persecutor; more than two or three clearly insane personages; and too many who all but justify the terrible sneer—that the Romish Calendar is the “Pantheon of Hysteria.”
And Protestants, too—How have they narrowed the number of the spirits of just men made perfect; and confined the Pæan which should go up from the human race on All Saints’ Day, till a “saint” has too often meant with them only a person who has gone through certain emotional experiences, and assented to certain subjective formulas, neither of which, according to the opinion of some of the soundest divines, both of the Romish, Greek, and Anglican communions, are to be found in the letter of Scripture as necessary to salvation; and who have, moreover, finished their course—doubtless often a holy, beneficent, and beautiful course—by a rapturous death-bed scene, which is more rare in the actual experience of clergymen, and, indeed, in the conscience and experience of human beings in general, than in the imaginations of the writers of religious romances.
But we of the Church of England, as by law established—and I recognize and obey, and shall hereafter recognize and obey, no other—have no need so to narrow our All Saints’ Day; our joy in all that is noble and good which man has said or done in any age or clime. We have no need to define where formularies have not defined; to shut where they have opened; to curse where they either bless, or are humbly, charitably, and therefore divinely, silent. With a magnificent faith in the justice of the Father, and in the grace of Christ, and in the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, our Church bids us—Judge not the dead, lest ye be judged. Condemn not the dead, lest ye be condemned. For she bids us commit to the earth the corpses of all who die not “unbaptized,” “excommunicate,” or wilful suicides, and who are willing to lie in our consecrated ground; giving thanks to God that our dear brother has been delivered from the miseries of this sinful world, and in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life.
At least: we of the Abbey of Westminster have a right to hold this; for we, thank God, act on it, and have acted on it for many a year. We have a right to our wide, free, charitable, and truly catholic conception of All Saints’ Day. Ay, if we did not use our right, these walls would use it for us; and in us would our Lord’s words be fulfilled—If we were silent, the very stones beneath our feet would cry out.
For hither we gather, as far as is permitted us, and hither we gather proudly, the mortal dust of every noble soul who has done good work for the British nation; accepting each and all of them as gifts from the Father of lights, from whom proceedeth every good and perfect gift, as sent to this nation by that Lord Jesus Christ who is the King of all the nations upon earth; and acknowledging—for fear of falling into that Pelagian heresy, which is too near the heart of every living man—that all wise words which they have spoken, all noble deeds which they have done, have come, must have come, from The One eternal source of wisdom, of nobleness, of every form of good; even from the Holy Spirit of God.
We make no severe or minute inquiries here. We leave them, if they must be made, to God the Judge of all things, and Christ who knows the secrets of the hearts; to Him who is merciful in this: that He rewardeth every man according to his works.
All we ask is—and all we dare ask—of divine or statesman, poet or warrior, musician or engineer—of Dryden or of Handel—of Isaac Watts or of Charles Dickens—but why go on with the splendid diversities of the splendid catalogue?—What was your work? Did we admire you for it? Did we love you for it? And why? Because you made us in some way or other better men. Because you helped us somewhat toward whatsoever things are pure, true, just, honourable, of good report. Because, if there was any virtue—that is, true valour and manhood; if there was any praise—that is, just honour in the sight of men, and therefore surely in the sight of the Son of man, who died for men; you helped us to think on such things. You, in one word, helped to make us better men.
Welcome then, friends unknown—and, alas! friends known, and loved, and lost—welcome into England’s Pantheon, not of superstitious and selfish hysteria, but of beneficent and healthy manhood.
Your words and your achievements have gone out into all lands, and your sound unto the ends of the world; and let them go, and prosper in that for which the Lord of man has sent them. Our duty is, to guard your sacred dust. Our duty is, to point out your busts, your monuments around these ancient walls, to all who come, of every race and creed; as proofs that the ancient spirit is not dead; that Christ has not deserted the nation of England, while He sends into it such men as you; that Christ has not deserted the Church of England, while He gives her grace to recognize and honour such men as you, and to pray Christ that He would keep up the sacred succession of virtue, talent, beneficence, patriotism; and make us, most unworthy, at last worthy, one at least here and there, of the noble dead, above whose dust we now serve God.
Yes, so ought we in Westminster to keep our All Saints’ Day; in giving thanks to God for the spirits of just men made perfect. Not only for those just men and women innumerable, who—as I said at first—have graced this earth during the long ages of the past: but specially for those who lie around us here; with whom we can enter, and have entered already, often, into spiritual communion closer than that, almost, of child with parent; whose writings we can read, whose deeds we can admire, whose virtues we can copy, and to whom we owe a debt of gratitude, we and our children after us, which never can be repaid.
And if ever the thought comes over us—But these men had their faults, mistakes—Oh, what of that?
Nothing is left of them
Now, but pure manly.
Let us think of them: not as they were, compassed round with infirmities—as who is not?—knowing in part, and seeing in part, as St Paul himself, in the zenith of his inspiration, said that he knew; and saw, as through a glass, darkly.
Let us think of them not as they were, the spirits of just men imperfect: but as the spirits of just men made, or to be made hereafter, perfect; when, as St Paul says, “that which is in part is done away, and that which is perfect is come.” And let us trust Christ for them, as we would trust Him for ourselves; sure “that the path of the just is as a shining light, which shineth more and more unto the perfect day.”
Ah, how many lie in this Abbey, to meet whom in the world to come, would be an honour most undeserved!
How many more worthy, and therefore more likely, than any of us here, to behold that endless All Saints’ Day, to which may God in His mercy, in spite of all our shortcomings, bring us all. Amen.
SERMON XXIII. DE PROFUNDIS
Psalm cxxx
Out of the deep have I called unto Thee, O Lord: Lord, hear my voice. O let Thine ears consider well the voice of my complaint. If Thou, Lord, wilt be extreme to mark what is done amiss, O Lord, who may abide it? For there is mercy with Thee, therefore shall Thou be feared. I look for the Lord; my soul doth wait for Him: in His word is my trust. My soul fleeth unto the Lord before the morning watch: I say, before the morning watch. O Israel, trust in the Lord: for with the Lord there is mercy, and with Him is plenteous redemption. And He shall redeem Israel from all his sins.
Let us consider this psalm awhile, for it is a precious heirloom to mankind. It has been a guide and a comfort to thousands and tens of thousands. Rich and poor, old and young, Jews and Christians, Romans, Greeks, and Protestants, have been taught by it the character of God; and taught to love Him, and trust in Him, in whom is mercy, therefore He shall be feared.
The Psalmist cries out of the deep; out of the deep of sorrow, perhaps, and bereavement, and loneliness; or out of the deep of poverty; or out of the deep of persecution and ill-usage; or out of the deep of sin, and shame, and weakness which he hates yet cannot conquer; or out of the deep of doubt, and anxiety—and ah! how common is that deep; and how many there are in it that swim hard for their lives: may God help them and bring them safe to land;—or out of the deep of overwork, so common now-a-days, when duty lies sore on aching shoulders, a burden too heavy to be borne.
Out of some one of the many deeps into which poor souls fall at times, and find themselves in deep water where no ground is, and in the mire wherein they are ready to sink, the Psalmist cries. But out of the deep he cries—to God. To God, and to none else.
He goes to the fountain-head, to the fount of deliverance, and of forgiveness. For he feels that he needs, not only deliverance, but forgiveness likewise. His sorrow may not be altogether his own fault. What we call in our folly “accident” and “chance,” and “fortune,”—but which is really the wise providence and loving will of God—may have brought him low into the deep. Or the injustice, cruelty, and oppression of men may have brought him low; or many another evil hap. But be that as it may, he dares not justify himself. He cannot lift up altogether clean hands. He cannot say that his sorrow is none of his own fault, and his mishap altogether undeserved. If Thou, Lord, wert extreme to mark what is done amiss, O Lord, who could abide it? “Not I,” says the Psalmist. “Not I,” says every human being who knows himself; and knows too well that—“If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”
But the Psalmist says likewise, “There is forgiveness with Thee, therefore shall Thou be feared.”
My friends, consider this; the key of the whole psalm; the gospel and good news, for the sake of which the psalm has been preserved in Holy Scripture, and handed down to us.
God is to be feared, because He is merciful. It is worth while to fear Him, because He is merciful, and of great kindness, and hateth nothing that He hath made; and willeth not the death of a sinner, but rather that he should turn from his wickedness and live.
Superstitious people, in all ages, heathens always, and sometimes, I am sorry to say, Christians likewise, have had a very different reason, an opposite reason, for fearing God.
They have said: Not—there is mercy: but there is anger with God: therefore shall He be feared. They have said—We must fear God, because He is wrathful, and terrible, and ready to punish; and is extreme to mark what is done amiss, and willeth the death of a sinner: and therefore they have not believed, when Holy Scripture told them, that God was love, and that God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, and sent Him to visit the world in great humility, that the world through Him might be saved.
God has seemed to them only a proud, stern, and formidable being; a condemning judge, and not a merciful Father; and therefore, when they have found themselves in the deep of misery, they have cried out of it to saints, angels, the Virgin Mary; or even to sun, moon, and stars, and all the powers of nature; or even, again—what is more foolish still,—to astrologers, wizards, mediums, and quacks of every shape and hue; to any one and any thing, rather than to God.
But do not you do so, my friends. Fix it in your hearts and minds; and fix it now, before you fall into the deep, as most are apt to do before they die; lest, when the dark day comes, you have no time to learn in adversity the lesson which you should have learnt in prosperity. Fix in your hearts and minds the blessed Gospel and good news—“There is mercy with Thee, O God; therefore shall Thou be feared.” There is mercy with Him, pity, tenderness, sympathy; a heart which can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; which knoweth what is in man; which despiseth not the work of His own hands; which remembereth our weak frame, and knoweth that we are but dust: else the spirit would fail before Him, and the souls which He has made. Think of God as that which He is—a compassionate God, a long-suffering God, a generous God, a magnanimous God, a truly royal God; in one word, a Perfect God; who causeth His sun to shine on the evil and on the good, and sendeth His rain on the just and on the unjust; a God who cannot despise, cannot neglect, cannot lose His patience with any poor soul of man; who sets Himself against none but the insolent, the proud, the malicious, the mean, the wilfully stupid and ignorant and frivolous. Against those who exalt themselves, whether as terrible tyrants or merely contemptible boasters, He exalts Himself; and will shew them, sooner or later, whether He or they be the stronger; whether He or they be the wiser. But for the poor soul who is abased, who is down, and in the depth; who feels his own weakness, folly, ignorance, sinfulness, and out of that deep cries to God as a lost child crying after its father—even a lost lamb bleating after the ewe—of that poor soul, be his prayers never so confused, stupid and ill-expressed—of him it is written: “The Lord helpeth them that fall, and lifteth up all those that are down. He is nigh to all that call on Him, yea, to all that call upon Him faithfully. He will fulfil the desire of those that fear Him, He also will hear their cry and will help them.”
Yes. To all such does God the Father, God who made heaven and earth, hold up, as it were, His only-begotten Son, Christ, hanging on the Cross for us; and say: Behold thy God. Behold the brightness of God’s glory, and the express image of God’s person. Behold what God gave for thee, even His only-begotten Son. Behold that in which God the Father was well pleased: in His Son; not condemning you, not destroying you, but humbling Himself, dying Himself awhile, that you may live for ever. Look; and by seeing the Son, see the Father also—your Father, and the Father of the spirits of all flesh; and know that His essence and His name is—Love.
Therefore, when you are in the deep of sorrow, whatever that depth may be, cry to God. To God Himself; and to none but God. If you can go to the pure fountain-head, why drink of the stream, which must have gathered something of defilement as it flows? If you can get light from the sun itself, why take lamp or candle in place of his clear rays? If you can go to God Himself, why go to any of God’s creatures, however holy pure, and loving? Go to God, who is light of light, and life of life; the source of all light, the source of all life, all love, all goodness, all mercy. From Him all goodness flows. All goodness which ever has been, shall be, or can be, is His alone, the fruit of His Spirit. Go then to Him Himself. Out of the depth, however deep, cry unto God and God Himself. If David, the Jew of old, could do so, much more can we, who are baptized into Christ; much more can we, who have access by one Spirit to the Father; much more can we, who—if we know who we are and where we are—should come boldly to the throne of grace, to find mercy and grace to help us in the time of need.
Boldness. That is a bold word: but it is St Paul’s, not mine. And by shewing that boldness, we shall shew that we indeed fear God. We shall shew that we reverence God. We shall shew that we trust God. For so, and so only, we shall obey God. If a sovereign or a sage should bid you come to him, would you shew reverence by staying away? Would you shew reverence by refusing his condescension? You may shew that you are afraid of him; that you do not trust him: but that is not to shew reverence, but irreverence.
If God calls, you are bound by reverence to come, however unworthy. If He bids you, you must obey, however much afraid. You must trust Him; you must take Him at His word; you must confide in His goodness, in His justice, in His wisdom: and since He bids you, go boldly to His throne, and find Him what He is, a gracious Lord.
My friends, to you, every one of you—however weak, however ignorant, ay, however sinful, if you desire to be delivered from those sins—this grace is given; liberty to cry out of the depth to God Himself, who made sun and stars, all heaven and earth; liberty to stand face to face with the Father of the spirits of all flesh, and cling to the one Being who can never fail nor change; even to the one immortal eternal God, of whom it is written, “Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of Thy hands. They shall perish, but Thou shalt endure. They all shall wax old, like a garment, and as a vesture shalt Thou change them, and they shall be changed. But Thou art the same, and Thy years shall not fail.”
But it is written again, “My soul waits for the Lord.” Yes, if you can trust in the God who cannot change, you can afford to wait; you need not be impatient; as it is written—“Fret not thyself, lest thou be moved to do evil;” and again—“He that believeth shall not make haste.” For God, in whom you trust, is not a man that He should lie, nor a son of man that He should repent. Hath He promised, and shall He not do it? His word is like the rain and dew, which fall from heaven, and return not to it again useless, but give seed to the sower and bread to the eater. So is every man that trusteth in Him. His kingdom, says the Lord, is as if a man should put seed into the ground, and sleep and wake, and the seed should grow up, he knoweth not how. So the seed which we sow—the seed of repentance, the seed of humility, the seed of sorrowful prayers for help—it too shall take root, and grow, and bring forth fruit, we know not how, in the good time of God, who cannot change. We may be sad; we may be weary; our eyes may wait and watch for the Lord as the Psalmist says; more than they that watch for the morning: but it must be as those who watch for the morning, for the morning which must and will come, for the sun which will surely rise, and the day which will surely dawn, and the Saviour who will surely deliver, and the God who is merciful in this—that He rewardeth every man according to his work.
“Oh trust in the Lord. For with the Lord there is mercy, and with Him is plenteous redemption; and He shall deliver His people from all their sins.”
From their sins. Not merely from the punishment of their sins; not always from the punishment of their sins in this life: but, what is better far, from the sins themselves; from the sins which bring them into fresh and needless troubles; and which make the old troubles, which cannot now be escaped, intolerable.
From all their sins. Not only from the great sins, which, if persisted in, will surely destroy both body and soul in hell: but from the little sins which do so easily beset us; from little bad habits, tempers, lazinesses, weaknesses, ignorances, which hamper and hinder us all every day when we try to do our duty. From all these will the Lord deliver us, by the blood of Christ, and by the inspiration of His Holy Spirit, that we may be able at last to say to children and friends, and all whom we love and leave behind us—
“Oh taste and see that the Lord is gracious. Blessed is the man that trusteth in Him.”
Yes. This at least we may do—Trust in our God, and thank God that we may do it; for if men may not do that, then is that true of them which Homer said of old—that man is more miserable than all the beasts of the field. For the animals look neither forward nor back. They live but for the present moment; and pain and grief, being but for the moment, fall lightly upon them. But we—we who have the fearful power of looking back, and looking forward—we who can feel regret and remorse for the past, anxiety and terror for the future—to us at times life would be scarce worth having, if we had not a right to cry with all our hearts—
“O God, in Thee have I trusted, let me never be confounded.”
