Now, we all deplore, or profess to deplore, these differences and controversies. But we may do that in two ways: we may say, "I am very sorry that all Christians do not think alike," when all we mean is, "I am very sorry that all Christians do not think just as I do, for I am right and infallible, whosoever else is wrong." The fallen heart of man is too apt to say that, my friends, in its pride and narrowness, and while it cries out against the Pope of Rome, sets itself up as Pope in his stead.
But there is surely another and a better way of deploring these differences: and that is, to say to oneself, "I am sorry, bitterly sorry, that Christians cannot differ without quarrelling and hating one another over and above." And then comes the deeper home- thought, "And how much more sorry I am that I myself cannot differ from my fellow-Christians without growing angry with them, suspecting them, despising them, treating them as if they were not my fellow-Christians at all." Yes, my friends, this is what we have to do first when we think of religious controversies, to examine our own hearts and deeds and words; to see whether we too have not been making bitterness more bitter, and, as the old proverb says, "stirring the fire with a sword;" and to repent humbly and utterly of every harsh word, hasty judgment, ungenerous suspicion, as sins, not only against men, but against G.o.d the Father of Lights, who worketh in each of His children to will and to do of His good pleasure.
But some will say, "We cannot give up what we believe to be right and true." G.o.d forbid that you should try to do so, my friends; for if you really believe it, you cannot, even if you try; and by trying you will only make yourselves dishonest. But does not that hold as good of the man who differs from you? G.o.d will not surely lay down one law for you, and another for him? "But we are right, and he is wrong." Be it so. You do not surely mean that you are quite right; perfect and infallible? You mean that you are right on the whole, and as far as you see. And how can you tell but that he is right on the whole, and as far as he sees? You will answer that both cannot be right; that yes and no cannot be both true; that a thing cannot be black and white also.
My friends, my friends--but where is the religious controversy, the two sides whereof are as clearly opposite to each other as yes and no, black and white? I know none now; I have hardly found one in the records of the Protestant Church since first Luther and our Reformers protested against Romish idolatry. On that last matter there should be no doubt, as long as the first two commandments stand in the Decalogue; but, with that exception, it would be difficult to find a dispute in which the truth lay altogether with one party. The truth rather lies, in general, not so much halfway between the two combatants, as in some third place, which neither of them sees; which perhaps G.o.d does not intend them to see in this life, while He leaves his servants each to work out some one side of Christian truth, dividing to every man severally as He will, according to the powers of each mind, and the needs of each situation.
True we have the infallible rule of Scripture: but are our own interpretations of it so sure to be infallible? Inspired, infinite, inexhaustible as it is, can we pretend to have fathomed all its abysses, to have comprehended all its boundless treasures? The pretence is folly. True, again, it contains all things necessary to salvation; and those so plainly set forth, that he who runs may read, and the wayfaring man, though poor, shall not err therein.
And yet does it not contain things whereof even St. Paul himself said, that he only knew in part, and prophesied in part, and saw as through a gla.s.s darkly; and are we to suppose that they are among the truths necessary to salvation? Now are not the points about which there has been, and is still, most dispute, just of this very number? Do they belong to the simple fundamental truths of the Gospel? No. Are they such plain matters that the wayfaring man, though poor, can make up his mind on them for himself? No. Are they one of them laid down directly in Scripture, like the Ten Commandments, the Lord"s Prayer, or the Creeds? No. They are every one, as it seems to me, whether they be right or wrong, abstruse deductions, delicate theories, built up on single and obscure texts.
Surely, if they had been necessary for salvation, the Lord would have spoken on them in a tone and in words about which there should be no more mistake than about the thunders of Sinai, and the tables of stone fresh from the finger-mark of G.o.d. And He has spoken to us, my friends, on other matters, if not on these. His promises are clear enough, and short enough, though high as heaven and wide as the universe. There is one G.o.d, and one Mediator between G.o.d and man, the man Christ Jesus, the only-begotten Son of G.o.d; and whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ, is born of G.o.d; and if any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and He is the propitiation for our sins. And again, "If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of G.o.d, who giveth liberally, and upbraideth not, and he shall receive it." "For if ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, much more shall your Heavenly Father give His Holy Spirit to them who ask Him."
These are G.o.d"s promises--simple and clear enough: and what are G.o.d"s demands? Are they numerous, intricate, burdensome, a yoke which neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear? G.o.d forbid again!--"He hath showed thee, oh man, what is good. And what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy G.o.d?" And lest thou shouldest mistake in the least the meaning of these words, He hath showed thee all this, and more, by a living example fairer than all the sons of men, and through lips full of grace, in the blessed life and blessed death of His Son Jesus Christ, the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person. To this, at least, we have already attained.
Let us walk by this rule, let us all mind this same thing, and if in anything else we are differently minded, G.o.d in His own good time will reveal even that to us.
Is not this enough, my friends? Then why should we bite and tear each other about that which is over and above this? If any man believes this, and acts on it, let us hail him as a brother. After all, let our differences be what they will, have we not one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one G.o.d and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in us all? If this is not bond enough between man and man, what bond would we have? Oh, my friends, when we consider this our little life, how full of ignorance it is and darkness; within us, rebellion, inconstancy, confusion, daily sins and shortcomings; and without us, disappointment, fear of loneliness, loss of friends, loss of all which makes life worth having,--who are we that we should deny proudly one single tie which binds us to any other human being? Who are we that we should refuse one hand stretched out to grasp our own? Who are we that we should say, "Stand back, for I am holier than thou?" Who are we that we should judge another? to his own master let him stand or fall--"yea, and he shall stand," says the Apostle, "for G.o.d is able to make him stand."
Think of those last words, my friends, they are strong and startling; but we must not shrink from them. They tell us that G.o.d may be as near those whom we heap with hard names, as He is near to us; that He may intend that they should triumph, not over us, but with us over evil. And if G.o.d be with them, who dare be against them? Shall we be more dainty than G.o.d? And therefore I have never been able to hear, without a shudder, words which I have heard, and from really Christian men too: "I can wish well to a pious man of a different denomination from mine; I can honour and admire the fruits of G.o.d"s Spirit in him; but I cannot co-operate with him." When I hear such language from really good men, I confess I am puzzled. I have no doubt that their reasons seem to them very sound; but what they are I cannot conceive. I cannot conceive why I should not hold out the right hand of fellowship and brotherhood to every man who fears G.o.d and works righteousness, of whatsoever denomination he may be. We believe the Apostles" Creed, surely? Then think of the meaning of that one word, The Holy Spirit. To whom are we to attribute any man"s good deeds, except to the Holy Spirit? We dare not say that he does them by an innate and natural virtue of his own, for that would be to fall at once into the Pelagian heresy; neither dare we attribute his good deeds to an evil spirit, and say, "However good they may look, they must be bad, for he belongs to a denomination who cannot have G.o.d"s Spirit." We dare not; for that would be to approach fearfully near to the unpardonable sin itself, the sin against the Holy Ghost, the bigotry which says, "He casteth out devils by the Prince of the devils." Surely if we be Christians, and Churchmen, we confess (for the Bible and the Prayer- book declare) that every good deed of man comes down from the One Fountain of Good, from G.o.d, the Father of Lights, by the inspiration of His Holy Spirit.
Then think, my friends, think what words we have said. We confess that the great, absolute, almighty, eternal G.o.d, in whose hand suns and stars, ages and generations, h.e.l.l and heaven, and all which is and has been, and ever will be, are but as a grain of sand; who has but to take away His breath, and the whole universe would become nothing and nowhere; the utterly holy and righteous G.o.d, who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, who charges His angels with folly, and the heavens are not clean in His sight--we confess, I say, that this great G.o.d has condescended to visit that man"s soul, and cherish it, and teach it, and shape it (be it ever so little) into His own likeness: and shall we dare to stand aloof from him from whom G.o.d does not stand aloof? Shall we refuse to walk with one who walks with G.o.d? Shall we refuse to work with one who is a fellow-worker with G.o.d, to love one whom G.o.d loves, to take by the hand one whose guest G.o.d has become? Shall we be more dainty than G.o.d? more fastidious than G.o.d? more righteous than G.o.d? more separate from sinners than G.o.d? Oh, my friends, let us pray that we may love G.o.d better, and know His likeness more clearly; that we may be more ready to recognise, and admire, and welcome every, even the smallest trace of that likeness in any human being, remembering that it is the likeness of Christ, who was not merely The Teacher of all in every nation who fear G.o.d and work righteousness, but the Saviour who ate and drank with publicans and sinners: and then we shall be more careful how we call unclean what G.o.d Himself has cleansed with His own presence, His own grace, His own quickening and renewing and sanctifying Spirit.
Be sure, be sure, my friends, that in proportion as we really love the Lord Jesus Christ, we shall love those who love Him, be it in never so clumsy or mistaken a fashion; and love those too whom He loved enough to die for them, and whom He loves now enough to teach and strengthen. We shall say to them, not "Wherein do we differ?"
but "Wherein do we agree?" Not, "Because I cannot worship with you, therefore I will not work with you;" but rather, "I wish that I could worship with you; I will whenever and wherever I can, as far as you allow me, as far as the law allows me, as far as your worship is not in my eyes an actually sinful thing: but, be that as it may, we can at least do together something better even than worshipping, and that is, working. We can surely do good together. Together, let our denomination or party be what it may, we can feed the hungry, clothe the naked, reform the prisoner, humanize the degraded, save yearly the lives of thousands by labouring for the public health, and educate the minds and morals of the ma.s.ses, though our religious differences (shame on us that it should be so!) force us to part when we begin to talk to them about the world to come."
For are we not brothers after all? Has not G.o.d made us of one blood, English men, with English hearts? Has not Christ redeemed us with one and the same sacrifice? Has not the Holy Spirit given us one and the same desire of doing good? And shall we not use that spirit hand in hand? Look, look at the opportunities of doing good which are around you; look at G.o.d"s field of good works, white already to the harvest; and the labourers are few. Shall these few, instead of going manfully to work, stand idly quarrelling about the shape of their instruments, and their favourite modes of using them?
G.o.d forbid! True, there are errors against which we are bound to protest to the uttermost; but how few? The one real enemy we have all to fight is sin--evil-doing. If any man or doctrine makes men worse--makes men do worse deeds, protest then, if you will, and spare not, and shrink not: for sin must be of the Devil, whatever else is not. And therefore we are bound to protest against any doctrine which parts man from G.o.d, and, under whatsoever pretence of reverence or purity, draws again the veil between him and his Heavenly Father, and denies him free access to the Throne of Grace, and the feet of Jesus, that he may carry thither his own sins, his own doubts, his own sorrows, and speak (wondrous condescension of redeeming grace!) speak with G.o.d face to face, and yet live. For this we must protest; for this we must die, if needs be; for if we lose this, we lose all which our reforming forefathers won for us at the stake, ay, we lose our own souls; for we lose righteousness and strength, and the power to do the will of G.o.d.
For to shut a man out from free access to G.o.d and Christ is to make him certainly false, dishonest, cowardly, degraded, slavish, and sinful; as modern Popery has made, and always will make, those over whom it really gains power. This is the root of our hereditary protest against Popery; not merely because we do not agree with certain of its doctrines, but because we know from experience, that as now taught by the Jesuits, with whom it has identified itself, its general tendency is to make men bad men, ignorant, dishonest, rebellious; unworthy citizens of a free and loyal state.
And there are practices against which congregations have a right to protest, not only as Christians, but as free Englishmen.
Congregations have a right to protest against any minister who introduces obsolete ceremonies which empty his church and drive away his people. Those ceremonies may be quite harmless in themselves, as I really believe most of them are; many of them may be beautiful, and, if properly understood, useful, as I think they are; but a thing may be good in itself, and yet become bad by being used at a wrong time, and in a way which produces harm. And it is shocking, to say the least, to see churches emptied and parishes thrown into war for the sake of such matters. The lightest word which can be used for such conduct is, pedantry; but I fear at times lest the Lord in heaven should be using a far more awful word, and when He sees weak brethren driven from the fold of the Church by the self- will and obstinacy of the very men who profess to desire to bring all into the Church, as the only place where salvation is to be found,--I fear, I say, when I see such deeds, lest the Lord should repeat against them His own awful words: "If any man scandalize one of these little ones who believeth on Me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depths of the sea." What sadder mistake? Those who have sworn to seek out Christ"s lambs scattered up and down this wicked world, shall they be the very ones to frighten those lambs out of the fold, instead of alluring them back into it? Shall the shepherd play the part, not even of the hireling who flees and leaves the sheep to themselves, but of the very wolf who scatters the flock? G.o.d forbid! The Church, like the Sabbath, was made for man, my friends: not man for the Church; and the Son of Man, as He is Lord of the Sabbath, is Lord of the Church, and will have mercy in its dealings rather than sacrifice. The minister, my friends, was made for the people: and not the people for the minister. What else does the very name "minister" mean? Not a lord who has dominion, but a servant, a servant to all, who must give up again and again his private notions of what he thinks best in itself for the sake of what will be best for his flock; who must be, like St.
Paul, a Jew to the Jews; under the law to those who are still under the law; and yet again without law to those who are without law (though not without law to G.o.d, but under the law to Christ); weak with the weak; strong with the strong; that he may gain men of all sorts of opinions and characters by agreeing with them as far as he honestly can, and showing his sympathy with each as much as he can; and so become all things to all men, that he may by all means save some. Oh, my friends, who can read honestly that glorious First Epistle to the Corinthians and not see how a man may have the most intense earnestness, the strongest doctrinal certainty, and yet at the same time the greatest freedom, and charity, and liberality about minor matters of ceremonies and Church arrangements, and practical methods of usefulness; glad even that Christ be preached by his enemies, and out of spite to him, because any way Christ is preached?
But, my friends, if it is the right of free Englishmen to protest against such doings, how shall it be done? Surely in gentleness, calmness, reverence, as by men who know that they are standing on holy ground, and dealing with sacred things, before the Throne of G.o.d, and beneath the eye of Jesus Christ. Not surely, as it has been too often done, in bitterness, and wrath, and clamour, and evil-speaking, with really unjust suspicions, exaggerations, slanders, (and those, too, anonymous,) in the columns of the public prints. My friends, these are not G.o.d"s weapons. Not such is Ithuriel"s magic spear, the very touch of which unmasks falsehood.
This is to try to cast out Satan by Satan, to make evil worse by fighting it with fresh evil. Oh, my friends, if there is one counsel which I would press on all here more earnestly than another, it is this--never, never, howsoever great may be the temptation, to indulge in anonymous attacks on any human being. No man has a right to do it who prays daily to his Father in heaven, Lead us not into temptation. For it is to lead oneself into temptation, and that too sore to resist; into the temptation to say something which one dare not say, and ought not to say, were one"s name known; the temptation to forget not only the charity of Christians, but even the courtesies of civilized life; and to shoot, from behind the safe hedge of anonymousness, coward and envenomed shafts, of which we should be ashamed, did the world know that they were ours; of which we shall surely be ashamed in that great day, when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed. I speak strongly: but only because I know by bitter experience the terrible truth of my own words.
And consider, my friends, can any good result come from handling sacred matters with such harsh and fierce hands as they have been handled of late? For ourselves, such evil tempers only excite, irritate, blind us: they prevent our doing justice to the opposite side--(I speak of all parties)--they put us into an unwholesome state of suspicion, and tempt us to pa.s.s harsh judgments upon men as righteous, and perhaps far more righteous, than ourselves: they stir up our pride to special plead our case, to make the best of our own side, and the worst of our opponents": they defile our very prayers; till, when we ought to be praying G.o.d to bless all mankind, we catch ourselves unawares calling on Him to curse our enemies.
For those who are without--for the infidel, the profligate, the careless--oh, what a scandal to them! What an excuse for them to blaspheme the holy name whereby we are called, and ask, as of old, "Is this then the Gospel of Peace? See how these Christians hate one another!"
While for the young, oh, my friends, what a scandal, again, to them!
If you had seen (as I have) pious parents destroying in their own childrens" minds all faith, all reverence for holy things, by mixing themselves up in religious controversies, and indulging by their own firesides in fierce denunciations of men no worse than themselves;-- if you will watch (as you may) young people taking refuge, some in utter frivolity, saying, "What am I to believe? When religionists have settled what religion is, it will be time enough for me to think of it: meanwhile, let me eat and drink, for to-morrow I die;"--and others, the children of strong Protestant parents, taking refuge in the apostate Church of Rome, and saying, "If Englishmen do not know what to believe, Rome does; if I cannot find certainty in Protestantism, I can in Popery;"--if you will consider honestly and earnestly these sad tragedies, you will look on it as a sacred duty to the children whom G.o.d has given you, to keep aloof as much as possible from all those points on which Christians differ, and make your children feel from their earliest years that there are points, and those the great, vital root points, on which all more or less agree, which many members of the Romish Church have held, and, I doubt not, now hold, as firmly as Protestants,--adoption by one common Father, justification by the blood of one common Saviour, sanctification by one common Holy Spirit.
And believe me, my friends, that just in proportion as you delight in, and live by, these great doctrines, all controversies will become less and less important in your eyes. The more you value the living body of Christianity, the less you will think of its temporary garments; the more you feel the power of G.o.d"s Spirit, the less scrupulous will you be about the peculiar form in which He may manifest Himself. Personal trust in Christ Jesus, personal love to Christ Jesus, personal belief that He and He only, is governing this poor diseased and confused world; that He is really fighting against all evil in it; that He really rules all nations, and fashions the hearts of all of them, and understands all their works, and has appointed them their times and the bounds of their habitation, if haply they may feel after Him and find Him: personal and living belief that the just and loving Lord Christ reigneth, be the peoples never so unquiet;--this, this will keep your minds clear, and sober, and charitable, and will make you turn with disgust from platform squabbles and newspaper controversies, to do the duty which lies nearest you; to walk soberly and righteously with your G.o.d, and train up your children in His faith and fear, not merely to be scholars, not merely to be devotees, but to be Christian Englishmen; courteous and gentle, and yet manful and self-restraining; fearing G.o.d and regarding man; growing up healthy under that solemn sense of national duty which is the only safeguard of national freedom.
And, meanwhile, you will leave all who differ from you in the hands of a G.o.d who wills their salvation far more than you can do; who accepts, in every nation, those who fear Him and work righteousness; who is merciful in this--that He rewards every man according to his work; and who, if our brothers be otherwise minded from us, will reveal even that to them, if we be right: or, again, to us, if they be right. For we may have to learn from them, as well as they from us; and both have to learn much from G.o.d, in the day when all controversies and doubts shall vanish like a cloud; when we shall see no longer in part, and through a gla.s.s darkly, but face to face; while all things shall be bright in the sunshine of G.o.d"s presence and of the countenance of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
SERMON XXII. PUBLIC SPIRIT
(Preached at Bideford, 1855.)
1 Corinthians xii. 25, 26. That there should be no division in the body; but that the members should have the same care, one of another. And whether one member suffer, all suffer with it; or whether one member be honoured, all rejoice with it.
I have been asked to preach in behalf of the Provident Society of this town. I shall begin by asking you to think over with me a matter which may seem at first sight to have very little to do with you or with a provident society, but which, nevertheless, I believe has very much to do with both, and is full of wholesome spiritual instruction for us all.
Did it ever happen to any of you, to see a mob of several thousands put to instant flight by a mere handful of soldiers? And did you ever ask yourself how that apparent miracle could come to pa.s.s? The first answer which occurred to you, perhaps, was, that the soldiers were well armed, and the mob was not: but soon, I am sure, you felt that you were doing the soldiers an injustice; that they would have behaved just as bravely if every man in that mob had been as well armed as they, and have resisted till they were overpowered by mere numbers. You felt, I am sure, that there was something in the hearts and spirits of those soldiers which there was not in the hearts of the mob; that though the mob might be boiling over with the greediest pa.s.sions, the fiercest fury, while the soldiers were calm, cheerful, and caring for nothing but doing their duty, yet that there was a thought within them which was stronger than all the rage and greediness of the thousands whom they faced; that, in short, the seeming miracle was a moral and a spiritual miracle.
What, then, is this wonder-working thought which makes the soldier strong?
Courage, you answer, and the sense of duty. True; but what has called out the sense of duty? What has inspired the courage? There was a time, perhaps, when each of those soldiers was no braver or more steady than the mob in front of them. Has it never happened to you to know some young country lad, both before and after he has become a soldier? Look at him in his native village (if you will let me draw for you the sketch of a history, which, alas! is the history of thousands), perhaps one of the worst and idlest lads in it--unwilling to work steadily, haunting the public-house and the worst of company; wandering out at night to poach and caring for nothing but satisfying his gross animal appet.i.tes; afraid to look you in the face, hardly able to give an intelligible, certainly not a civil answer; his countenance expressing only vacancy, sensuality, cunning, suspicion, utter want of self-respect.
It is a sad sight, but how common a sight, even in this favoured land!
At last he vanishes; he has been engaged in some drunken affray, or in some low intrigue, and has fled for fear of the law, and enlisted as a soldier.
A year or two pa.s.ses, and you meet the same lad again--if indeed he is the same. For a strange change has come over him: he walks erect, he speaks clearly, he looks you boldly in the face, with eyes full of intelligence and self-respect; he is become civil and courteous now; he touches his cap to you "like a soldier;" he can afford now to be respectful to others, because he respects himself, and expects you to respect him. You talk to him, and find that the change is not merely outward, but inward; not owing to mere mechanical drill but to something which has been going on in his heart; and ten to one, the first thing that he begins to talk to you about, with honest pride, is his regiment. His regiment. Yes, there is the secret which has worked these wonders; there is the talisman which has humanized and civilized and raised from the mire the once savage boor. He belongs to a regiment; in one word, he has become the member of a body.
The member of a body, in which if one member suffers, all suffer with it; if one member be honoured, all rejoice with it. A body, which has a life of its own, and a government of its own, a duty of its own, a history of its own, an allegiance to a sovereign, all which are now his life, his duty, his history, his allegiance; he does not now merely serve himself and his own selfish l.u.s.ts: he serves the Queen. His nature is not changed, but the thought that he is the member of an honourable body has raised him above his nature. If he forgets that, and thinks only of himself, he will become selfish s.l.u.ttish, drunken, cowardly, a bad soldier; as long as he remembers it, he is a hero. He can face mobs now, and worse than mobs: he can face hunger and thirst, fatigue, danger, death itself, because he is the member of a body. For those know little, little of human nature and its weakness, who fancy that mere brute courage, as of an angry lion, will ever avail, or availed a few short weeks ago, to spur our thousands up the steeps of Alma, or across the fatal plain of Balaklava, athwart the corpses of their comrades, upon the deadly throats of Russian guns. A n.o.bler feeling, a more heavenly thought was needed (and when needed, thanks to G.o.d, it came!) to keep each raw lad, nursed in the lap of peace, true to his country and his Queen through the valley of the shadow of death. Not mere animal fierceness: but that tattered rag which floated above his head, inscribed with the glorious names of Egypt or Corunna, Toulouse or Waterloo, that it was which raised him into a hero: he had seen those victories; the men who conquered there were dead long since: but the regiment still lived, its history still lived, its honour lived, and that history, that honour were his, as well as those old dead warriors": he had fought side by side with them in spirit, though not in the flesh; and now his turn was come, and he must do as they did, and for their sakes, and count his own life a worthless thing for the sake of the body which he belonged to: he, but two years ago the idle, selfish country lad, now stumbling cheerful on in the teeth of the iron hail, across ground slippery with his comrades" blood, not knowing whether the next moment his own blood might not swell the ghastly stream. What matter? They might kill him, but they could not kill the regiment: it would live on and conquer; ay, and should conquer, if his life could help on its victory; and then its honour would be his, its reward be his, even when his corpse lay pierced with wounds, stiffening beneath a foreign sky.
Here, my friends, is one example of the blessed power of fellow feeling, public spirit, the sense of belonging to a body whose members have not merely a common interest, but a common duty, a common honour.
This Christian country, thank G.o.d! gives daily many another example of the same: and every place, and every station affords to each one of us opportunities,--more, alas, I fear, than we shall ever take full advantage of: but I have chosen the case of the soldier, not merely because it is perhaps the most striking and affecting, but because I wish to see, and trust in G.o.d that I shall see, those who remain at home in safety emulating the public spirit and self- sacrifice which our soldiers are showing abroad; and by sacrifices more peaceful and easy, but still well-pleasing unto G.o.d, showing that they too have been raised above selfishness, by the glorious thought that they are members of a body.
For, are we not members of a body, my friends? Are we not members of the Body of bodies, members of Christ, children of G.o.d, inheritors of the Kingdom of Heaven? Members of Christ--we, and the poor for whom I plead, as well as we; perhaps, considering their many trials and our few trials, more faithfully and loyally by far than we are. There are some here, I doubt not, to whom that word, that argument, is enough: to whom it is enough to say, Remember that the Lord whom you love loves that shivering, starving wretch as well as He loves you, to open and exhaust at once their heart, their purse, their labour of love. G.o.d"s blessing be upon all such! But it would be hypocrisy in me, my friends, to speak to this, or any congregation, as if all were of that temper of mind. It is not one in ten, alas! in the present divided state of religious parties, who feels the mere name of Christ enough of a bond to make him sacrifice himself for his fellow Christians, as a soldier does for his fellow soldiers. Not one in ten, alas! feels that he owes the same allegiance to Christ as the soldier does to his Queen; that the honour of Christianity is his honour, the history of Christianity his history, the life of Christianity his life. Would that it were so: but it is not so. And I must appeal to feelings in you less wide, honourable and righteous though they are: I must appeal to your public spirit as townsmen of this place.
I have a right as a clergyman to do so: I have a duty as a clergyman to do so. For your being townsmen of this place is not a mere material accident depending on your living in one house instead of another. It is a spiritual matter; it is a question of eternity.
Your souls and spirits influence each other; your tastes, opinions, tempers, habits, make those of your neighbours better or worse; you feel it in yourselves daily. Look at it as a proof that, whether you will or not, you are one body, of which all the members must more or less suffer and rejoice together; that you have a common weal, a common interest; that G.o.d has knit you together; that you cannot part yourselves even if you will; and that you can be happy and prosperous only by acknowledging each other as brothers, and by doing to each other as you would they should do unto you.
It may be hard at times to bring this thought home to our minds: but it is none the less true because we forget it; and if we do not choose to bring it home to our own minds, it will be sooner or later brought home to them whether we choose or not.
For bear in mind, that St. Paul does not say, if one member suffers, all the rest ought to suffer with it: he says that they do suffer with it. He does not say merely, that we ought to feel for our fellow townsmen; he says, that G.o.d has so tempered the body together as to force one member to have the same care of the others as of itself; that if we do not care to feel for them, we shall be made to feel with them. One limb cannot choose whether or not it will feel the disease of another limb. If one limb be in pain, the whole body _must_ be uneasy, whether it will or not. And if one cla.s.s in a town, or parish, or county, be degraded, or in want, the whole town, or parish, or county, must be the worse for it. St. Paul is not preaching up sentimental sympathy: he is telling you of a plain fact. He is not saying, "It is a very fine and saintly thing, and will increase your chance of heaven, to help the poor." He is saying, "If you neglect the poor, you neglect yourself; if you degrade the poor, you degrade yourself. His poverty, his carelessness, his immorality, his dirt, his ill-health, will punish _you_; for you and he are members of the same body, knit together inextricably for weal or woe, by the eternal laws according to which the Lord Jesus Christ has const.i.tuted human society; and if you break those laws, they will avenge themselves."--My friends, do we not see them avenge themselves daily? The slave-holder refuses to acknowledge that his slave is a member of the same body as himself; but he does not go unpunished: the degradation to which he has brought his slave degrades him, by throwing open to him. the downward path of l.u.s.t, laziness, ungoverned and tyrannous tempers, and the other sins which have in all ages, slowly but surely, worked the just ruin of slave-holding states. The sinner is his own tempter, and the sinner is his own executioner: he lies in wait for his own life (says Solomon) when he lies in wait for his brother"s.
Do you see the same law working in our own free country? If you leave the poor careless and filthy, you can obtain no good servants: if you leave them profligate, they make your sons profligate also: if you leave them tempted by want, your property is unsafe: if you leave them uneducated, reckless, improvident, you cannot get your work properly done, and have to waste time and money in watching your workmen instead of trusting them. Why, what are all poor-rates and county-rates, if you will consider, but G.o.d"s plain proof to us, that the poor are members of the same body as ourselves; and that if we will not help them of our own free will, we shall find it necessary to help them against our will: that if we will not pay a little to prevent them becoming pauperized or criminal, we must pay a great deal to keep them when they have become so? We may draw a lesson--and a most instructive one it is--from the city of Liverpool, in which it was lately proved that crime--and especially the crime of uneducated boys and girls--had cost, in the last few years, the city many times more than it would cost to educate, civilize, and depauperize the whole rising generation of that city, and had been a tax upon the capital and industry of Liverpool, so enormous that they would have submitted to it from no Government on earth; and yet they had been blindly inflicting it upon themselves for years, simply because they chose to forget that they were their brothers" keepers.
Look again at preventible epidemics, like cholera. All the great towns of England have discovered, what you I fear are discovering also, that the expense of a pestilence, and of the widows and orphans which it creates, is far greater than the expense of putting a town into such a state of cleanliness as would defy the entrance of the disease. So it is throughout the world. Nothing is more expensive than penuriousness; nothing more anxious than carelessness; and every duty which is bidden to wait, returns with seven fresh duties at its back.
Yes, my friends, we are members of a body; and we must realize that fact by painful experience, if we refuse to realize it in public spirit and brotherly kindness, and the approval of a good conscience, and the knowledge that we are living like our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, who laboured for all but Himself, cared for all but Himself; who counted not His own life dear to Himself that by laying it down He might redeem into His own likeness the beings whom He had made; and who has placed us on this earth, each in his own station, each in his own parish, that we might follow in His footsteps, and live by His Spirit, which is the spirit of love and fellow-feeling, that new and risen life of His, which is the life of duty, honour, and self-sacrifice.
Yes. Let us look rather at this brighter side of the question, my friends, than at the darker. I will preach the Gospel to you rather than the Law. I will appeal to your higher feelings rather than to your lower; to your love rather than your fear; to your honour rather than your self-interest. It will be pleasanter for me: it will meet with a more cordial response, I doubt not, from you.
Some dislike appeals to honour. I cannot, as long as St. Paul himself appeals to it so often, both in the individual and in bodies. His whole Epistle to Philemon is an appeal, most delicate and graceful, to Philemon"s sense of honour--to the thought of what he owed Paul, of what Paul wished him to repay, not with money, but with generosity.
And his appeal to the Corinthians is a direct appeal to their honour: not to fears of any punishment, or wrath of G.o.d, but to the respect which they owed to themselves as members of a body, the Church of Corinth; and to the respect which they owed to that body as a whole, and which they had disgraced by allowing an open scandal in it.
And his appeal was successful: they took it just as it was meant; and he rejoices in the thought that they did so. "For this, that ye sorrowed after a G.o.dly sort, what carefulness it wrought in you, yea, what clearing of yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what vehement desire, what zeal, what revenge! In all things you have approved yourselves to be clear in this matter,"
n.o.ble words, and n.o.bly answered. My friends, you, too, are members of a body: go, and do likewise in the matter of this Society"s failing funds.