In that day men will find out a wonder and miracle. They will see many that are first last, and many that are last first. They will find that there were poor who were the richest after all; the simple who were wisest, and gentle who were bravest, and weak who were strongest; that G.o.d"s ways are not as men"s ways, nor G.o.d"s thoughts as men"s thoughts. Alas, who shall stand when G.o.d does this? At least He who will do it is Jesus, who loved us to the death; boundless love and gentleness, boundless generosity and pity; who was tempted even as we are, who has felt our every weakness. In that thought is utter comfort, that our Judge will be He who died and rose again, and is praying for us even now, to His Father and our Father.
Therefore fear not, gentle souls, patient souls, pure consciences and tender hearts. Fear not, you who are empty and hungry, who walk in darkness and see no light; for though He fulfil once more, as He has again and again, the awful prophecy before the text; though He tread down the people in His anger, and make them drunk in His fury, and bring their strength to the earth; though kings with their armies may flee, and the stars which light the earth may fall, and there be great tribulation, wars, and rumours of wars, and on earth distress of nations with perplexity--yet it is when the day of His vengeance is at hand, that the year of His redeemed is come. And when they see all these things, let them rejoice and lift up their heads, for their redemption draweth nigh.
Do you ask how I know this? Do you ask for a sign, for a token that these my words are true? I know that they are true. But, as for tokens, I will give you but this one, the sign of that bread and that wine. When the Lord shall have delivered His people out of all their sorrows, they shall eat of that bread and drink of that wine, one and all, in the kingdom of G.o.d.
VIII--EASTER-DAY
If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of G.o.d--COLOSSIANS iii. 1.
I know no better way of preaching to you the gospel of Easter, the good news which this day brings to all men, year after year, than by trying to explain to you the Epistle appointed for this day, which we have just read.
It begins, "If ye then be risen with Christ." Now that does not mean that St. Paul had any doubt whether the Colossians, to whom he was speaking, were risen with Christ or not. He does not mean, "I am not sure whether you are risen or not; but perhaps you are not; but if you are, you ought to do such and such things." He does not mean that. He was quite sure that these Colossians were risen with Christ. He had no doubt of it whatsoever. If you look at the chapter before, he says so. He tells them that they were buried with Christ in baptism, in which also they were risen with Christ, through faith of the operation of G.o.d, who has raised Him from the dead.
Now what reason had St. Paul to believe that these Colossians were risen with Jesus Christ? Because they had given up sin and were leading holy lives? That cannot be. The Epistle for this day says the very opposite. It does not say, "You are risen, because you have left off sinning." It says, "You must leave off sinning, because you are risen." Was it then on account of any experiences, or inward feeling of theirs? Not at all. He says that these Colossians had been baptized, and that they had believed in G.o.d"s work of raising Jesus Christ from the dead, and that therefore they were risen with Christ. In one word, they had believed the message of Easter-day, and therefore they shared in the blessings of Easter-day; as it is written in another place, "If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus Christ, and believe in thy heart that G.o.d has raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved."
Now these seem very wide words, too wide to please most people. But there are wider words still in St. Paul"s epistles. He tells us again and again that G.o.d"s mercy is a free gift; that He has made to us a free present of His Son Jesus Christ. That He has taken away the effect of all men"s sin, and more than that, that men are G.o.d"s children; that they have a right to believe that they are so, because they are so. For, He says, the free gift of Jesus Christ is not like Adam"s offence. It is not less than it, narrower than it, as some folks say. It is not that by Adam"s sin all became sinners, and by Jesus Christ"s salvation an elect few out of them shall be made righteous. If you will think a moment, you will see that it cannot be so. For Jesus Christ conquered sin and death and the devil. But if, as some think, sin and death and the devil have destroyed and sent to h.e.l.l by far the greater part of mankind, then they have conquered Christ, and not Christ them. Mankind belonged to Christ at first. Sin and death and the devil came in and ruined them, and then Christ came to redeem them; but if all that He has been able to do is to redeem one out of a thousand, or even nine out of ten, of them, then the devil has had the best of the battle. He, and not Christ, is the conqueror. If a thief steals all the sheep on your farm, and all that you can get back from him is a part of the whole flock, which has had the best of it, you or the thief? If Christ"s redemption is meant for only a few, or even a great many elect souls out of all the millions of mankind, which has had the best of it, Christ, the master of the sheep, or the devil, the robber and destroyer of them? Be sure, my friends, Christ is stronger than that; His love is deeper than that; His redemption is wider than that. How strong, how deep, how wide it is, we never shall know.
St. Paul tells us that we never shall know, for it is boundless; but that we shall go on knowing more and more of its vastness for ever, finding it deeper, wider, loftier than our most glorious dreams could ever picture it. But this, he says, we do know, that we have gained more than Adam lost. For if by one man"s offence many were made sinners, much more shall they who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life by one even Jesus Christ.
For, he says, where sin abounded, G.o.d"s grace and free gift has much more abounded. Therefore, as by the offence of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation, even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men to justification of life. Upon all men, you see. There can be no doubt about it. Upon you and me, and foreigners, and gipsies, and heathens, and thieves, and harlots--upon all mankind, let them be as bad or as good, as young or as old, as they may, the free gift of G.o.d has come to justification of life; they are justified, pardoned, and beloved in the sight of Almighty G.o.d; they have a right and a share to a new life; a different sort of life from what they are inclined to lead, and do lead, by nature--to a life which death cannot take away, a life which may grow, and strengthen, and widen, and blossom, and bear fruit for ever and ever.
They have a share in Christ"s resurrection, in the blessing of Easter-day. They have a share in Christ, every one of them whether they claim that share or not. How far they will be punished for not claiming it, is a very different matter, of which we know nothing whatsoever. And how far the heathen who have never heard of Christ, or of their share in Him, will be punished, we know not--we are not meant to know. But we know that to their own Master they stand or fall, and that their Master is our Master too, and that He is a just Master, and requires little of him to whom He gives little; a just and merciful Master, who loved this sinful world enough to come down and die for it, while mankind were all rebels and sinners, and has gone on taking care of it, and improving it, in spite of all its sin and rebellion ever since, and that is enough for us.
St. Paul knew no more. It was a mystery, he says, a wonderful and unfathomable matter, which had been hidden since the foundation of the world, of which he himself says that he saw only through a gla.s.s darkly; and we cannot expect to have clearer eyes than he. But this he seems to have seen, that the Lord, when He rose again, bought a blessing even for the dumb beasts and the earth on which we live.
For he says, the whole creation is now groaning in the pangs of labour, being about to bring forth something; and the whole creation will rise again; how, and when, and into what new state, we cannot tell. But St. Paul seems to say that when the Lord shall destroy death, the last of his enemies, then the whole creation shall be renewed, and bring forth another earth, n.o.bler and more beautiful than this one, free from death, and sin, and sorrow, and redeemed into the glorious liberty of the children of G.o.d.
But this, on the other hand, St. Paul did see most clearly, and preached it to all to whom he spoke, that the ground and reason of this great and glorious mystery was the thing which happened on the first Easter-day, namely, the Lord Jesus rising from the dead. About that, at least, there was no doubt at all in his mind. We may see it by the Easter anthem, which we read this morning, taken out of the fifteenth chapter of his first epistle to the Corinthians:
"Christ is risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of them that slept.
"For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.
"For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive."
Now he is not talking here merely of the rising again of our bodies at the last day. That was in his mind only the end, and outcome, and fruit, and perfecting, of men"s rising from the dead in this life.
For he tells these same Corinthians, and the Colossians, and others to whom he wrote, that life, the eternal life which would raise their bodies at the last day, was even then working in them.
Neither is he speaking only of a few believers. He says that, owing to the Lord"s rising on this day, all shall be made alive--not merely all Christians, but all men. For he does not say, as in Adam all Christians die, but all men; and so he does not say, all Christians shall be made alive, but all men. For here, as in the sixth chapter of Romans, he is trying to make us understand the likeness between Adam and Jesus Christ, whom he calls the new Adam. The first Adam, he says, was only a living soul, as the savages and heathens are; but the second Adam, the Lord from heaven, the true pattern of men, is a quickening, life-giving spirit, to give eternal life to every human being who will accept His offer, and claim his share and right as a true man, after the likeness of the new Adam, Jesus Christ.
We then, every one of us who is here to-day, have a right to believe that we have a share in Christ"s eternal life: that our original sin, that is, the sinfulness which we inherited from our forefathers, is all forgiven and forgotten, and that mankind is now redeemed, and belongs to the second Adam, the true and original head and pattern of man, Jesus Christ, in whom was no sin; and that because mankind belongs to him, G.o.d is well pleased with them, and reconciled to them, and looks on them not as a guilty, but as a pardoned and beloved race of beings.
And we have a right to believe also, that because all power is given to Christ in heaven and earth, there is given to Him the power of making men what they ought to be--like His own blessed, and glorious, and perfect self. Ask him, and you shall receive; knock at the gate of His treasure-house, and it shall be opened. Seek those things that are above, and you shall find them. You shall find old bad habits die out in you, new good habits spring up in you; old meannesses become weaker, new n.o.bleness and manfulness become stronger; the old, selfish, covetous, savage, cunning, cowardly, brutal Adam dying out, the new, loving, brotherly, civilised, wise, brave, manful Adam growing up in you, day by day, to perfection, till you are changed from grace to grace, and glory to glory into the likeness of the Lord of men.
"These are great promises," you may say, "glorious promises; but what proof have you that they belong to us? They sound too good to be true; too great for such poor creatures as we are; give us but some proof that we have a right to them; give us but a pledge from Jesus Christ; give us but a sign, an a.s.surance from G.o.d, and we may believe you then."
My friends, I am certain--and the longer I live I am the more certain--that there is no argument, no pledge, no sign, no a.s.surance, like the bread and the wine upon that table. a.s.surances in our own hearts and souls are good, but we may be mistaken about them; for, after all, they are our own thoughts, notions in our own souls, these inward experiences and a.s.surances; delightful and comforting as they are at times, yet we cannot trust them--we cannot trust our own hearts, they are deceitful above all things, who can know them? Yes: our own hearts may tell us lies; they may make us fancy that we are pleasing G.o.d, when we are doing the things most hateful to Him. They have made thousands fancy so already. They may make us fancy we are right in G.o.d"s sight, when we are utterly wrong. They have made thousands fancy so already. These hearts of ours may make us fancy that we have spiritual life in us; that we are in a state higher and n.o.bler than the sinners round us, when all the while our spirits are dead within us. They made the Pharisees of old fancy that their souls were alive, and pure, and religious, when they were dead and d.a.m.ned within them; and they may make us fancy so too. No: we cannot trust our hearts and inward feelings; but that bread, that wine, we can trust. Our inward feelings are a sign from man; that bread and wine are a sign from G.o.d. Our inward feelings may tell us what we feel toward G.o.d: that bread, that wine, tell us something ten thousand times more important; they tell us what G.o.d feels towards us. And G.o.d must love us before we can love Him; G.o.d must pardon us before we can have mercy on ourselves; G.o.d must come to us, and take hold of us, before we can cling to Him; G.o.d must change us, before we can become right; G.o.d must give us eternal life in our hearts before we can feel and enjoy that new life in us. Then that bread, that wine, say that G.o.d has done all that for us already; they say: "G.o.d does love you; G.o.d has pardoned you; G.o.d has come to you; G.o.d is ready and willing to change and convert you; G.o.d has given you eternal life; and this love, this mercy, this coming to find you out while you are wandering in sin, this change, this eternal life, are all in His Son Jesus Christ; and that bread, that wine, are the signs of it. It is for the sake of Jesus" blood that G.o.d has pardoned you, and that cup is the new covenant in His blood. Come and drink, and claim your pardon. It is simply because Jesus Christ was man, and you, too, are men and women, wearing the flesh and blood which Christ wore; eating and drinking as Christ ate and drank, and not for any works or faith of your own, that G.o.d loves you, and has come to you, and called you into His family. This is the Gospel, the good news of Christ"s free grace, and pardon, and salvation; and that bread, that wine, the common food of all men, not merely of the rich, or the wise, or the pious, but of saints and penitents, rich and poor.
Christians and heathens, alike--that plain, common, every-day bread and wine--are the signs of it. Come and take the signs, and claim your share in G.o.d"s love, in G.o.d"s family. And it is in Jesus Christ, too, that you have eternal life. It is because you belong to Jesus Christ, to mankind, of which He is the head and king, that G.o.d will change you, strengthen your soul to rise above your sins, raise you up daily more and more out of spiritual death, out of brutishness, and selfishness, and ignorance, and malice, into an eternal life of wisdom, and love, and courage, and mercifulness, and patience, and obedience; a life which shall continue through death, and beyond death, and raise you up again for ever at the last day, because you belong to Christ"s body, and have been fed with Christ"s eternal life. And that bread, that wine are the signs of it. "Take, eat," said Jesus, "this is my body; drink, this is my blood." Those are the signs that G.o.d has given you eternal life, and that this life is in His Son. What better sign would you have? There is no mistaking their message; they can tell you no lies. And they can, and will, bring your own Gospel-blessings to your mind, as nothing else can. They will make you feel, as nothing else can, that you are the beloved children of G.o.d, heirs of all that your King and Head has bought for you, when He died, and rose again upon this day. He gave you the Lord"s Supper for a sign. Do you think that He did not know best what the best sign would be? He said: "Do this in remembrance of me." Do you think that He did not know better than you, and me, and all men, that if you did do it, it would put you in remembrance of Him?
Oh! come to His table, this day of all days in the year; and claim there your share in His body and His blood, to feed the everlasting life in you; which, though you see it not now, though you feel it not now, will surely, if you keep it alive in you by daily faith, and daily repentance, and daily prayer, and daily obedience, raise you up, body and soul, to reign with Him for ever at the last day.
IV--THE COMFORTER
FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER EASTER.
If I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send Him unto you--JOHN xvi. 7.
We are now coming near to two great days, Ascension-day and Whit- Sunday, which our forefathers have appointed, year by year, to put us continually in mind of two great works, which the Lord worked out for us, His most unworthy subjects, and still unworthier brothers.
On Ascension-day He ascended up into Heaven, and received gifts for men, even for His enemies, that the Lord G.o.d might dwell among them; and on Whit-Sunday, He sent down those gifts. The Spirit of G.o.d came down to dwell in the hearts of men, to be the right of everyone who asks for it, white or black, young or old, rich or poor, and never to leave this earth as long as there is a human being on it. And because we are coming near to these two great days, the Prayer-book, in the Collects, Epistles, and Gospels, tries to put us in mind of those days, and to make us ready to ask for the blessings of which they are the yearly signs and witnesses. The Gospel for last Sunday told us how the Lord told His disciples just before His death, that for a little while they should not see Him; and again a little while and they should see Him, because he was going to the Father, and that they should have great sorrow, but that their sorrow should be turned into joy. And the Gospel for to-day goes further still, and tells us why He was going away--that He might send to them the Comforter, His Holy Spirit, and that it was expedient--good for them, that He should go away; for that if He did not, the Comforter would not come to them. Now, in these words, I do not doubt He was speaking of Ascension-day, and of Whit-Sunday; and therefore it is that these Gospels have been chosen to be read before Ascension-day and Whit- Sunday; and in proportion as we attend to these Gospels, and take in the meaning of them, and act accordingly, Ascension-day and Whit- Sunday will be a blessing and a profit to us; and in proportion as we neglect them, or forget them, Ascension-day and Whit-Sunday will be witnesses against our souls at the day of judgment, that the Lord Himself condescended to buy for us with His own blood, blessings unspeakable, and offer them freely unto us, in spite of all our sins, and yet we would have none of them, but preferred our own will to G.o.d"s will, and the little which we thought we could get for ourselves, to the unspeakable treasures which G.o.d had promised to give us, and turned away from the blessings of His kingdom, to our own foolish pleasure and covetousness, like "the dog to his vomit, and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire."
I said that G.o.d had promised to us an unspeakable treasure: and so He has; a treasure that will make the poorest and weakest man among us, richer than if he had all the wealth gathered from all the nations of the world, which everyone is admiring now in that Great Exhibition in London, and stronger than if he had all the wisdom which produced that wealth. Let us see now what it is that G.o.d has promised us--and then those to whom G.o.d has given ears to hear, and hearts to understand, will see that large as my words may sound, they are no larger than the truth.
Christ said, that if He went away, He would send down the Comforter, the Holy Spirit of G.o.d. The Nicene Creed says, that the Holy Spirit of G.o.d is the Lord and Giver of life; and so He is. He gives life to the earth, to the trees, to the flowers, to the dumb animals, to the bodies and minds of men; all life, all growth, all health, all strength, all beauty, all order, all help and a.s.sistance of one thing by another, which you see in the world around you, comes from Him.
He is the Lord and Giver of life; in Him, the earth, the sun and stars, all live and move and have their being. He is not them, or a part of them, but He gives life to them. But to men He is more than that--for we men ourselves are more than that, and need more. We have immortal spirits in us--a reason, a conscience, and a will; strange rights and duties, strange hopes and fears, of which the beasts and the plants know nothing. We have hearts in us which can love, and feel, and sorrow, and be weak, and sinful, and mistaken; and therefore we want a Comforter. And the Lord and Giver of life has promised to be our Comforter; and the Father and the Son, from both of whom He proceeds, have promised to send Him to us, to strengthen and comfort us, and give our spirits life and health, and knit us together to each other, and to G.o.d, in one common bond of love and fellow-feeling even as He the Spirit knits together the Father and the Son.
I said that we want a Comforter. If we consider what that word Comforter means, we shall see that we do want a Comforter, and that the only Comforter which can satisfy us for ever and ever, must be He, the very Spirit of G.o.d, the Lord and Giver of life.
Now Comforter means one who gives comfort; so the meaning of it will depend upon what comfort means. Our word comfort, comes from two old Latin words, which mean WITH and TO STRENGTHEN. And, therefore, a Comforter means anyone who is with us to strengthen us, and do for us what we could not do for ourselves. You will see that this is the proper meaning of the word, when you remember what bodily things we call comforts. You say that a person is comfortable, or lives in comfort, if he has a comfortable income, a comfortable house, comfortable clothes, comfortable food, and so on. Now all these things, his money, his house, his clothes, his food, are not himself.
They make him stronger and more at ease. They make his life more pleasant to him. But they are not HIM; they are round him, with him, to strengthen him. So with a person"s mind and feelings; when a man is in sorrow and trouble, he cannot comfort himself. His friends must come to him and comfort him; talk to him, advise him, show their kind feeling towards him, and in short, be with him to strengthen him in his afflictions. And if we require comfort for our bodies, and for our minds, my friends, how much more do we for our spirits--our souls, as we call them! How weak, and ignorant, and self-willed, and perplexed, and sinful they are--surely our souls require a comforter far more than our bodies or our minds do! And to comfort our spirits, we require a spirit; for we cannot see our own spirits, our own souls, as we can our bodies. We cannot even tell by our feelings what state they are in. We may deceive ourselves, and we do deceive ourselves, again and again, and fancy that our souls are strong when they are weak--that they are simple and truthful when they are full of deceit and falsehood--that they are loving G.o.d when they are only loving themselves--that they are doing G.o.d"s will when they are only doing their own selfish and perverse wills. No man can take care of his own spirit, much less give his own spirit life; "no man can quicken his own soul," says David, that is, no man can give his own soul life. And therefore we must have someone beyond ourselves to give life to our spirits. We must have someone to teach us the things that we could never find out for ourselves, someone who will put into our hearts the good desires that could never come of themselves. We must have someone who can change these wills of ours, and make them love what they hate by nature, and make them hate what they love by nature. For by nature we are selfish. By nature we are inclined to love ourselves, rather than anyone else; to take care of ourselves, rather than anyone else. By nature we are inclined to follow our own will, rather than G.o.d"s will, to do our own pleasure, rather than follow G.o.d"s commandments, and therefore by nature our spirits are dead; for selfishness and self-will are SPIRITUAL DEATH.
Spiritual life is love, pity, patience, courage, honesty, truth, justice, humbleness, industry, self-sacrifice, obedience to G.o.d, and therefore to those whom G.o.d sends to teach and guide us. THAT is spiritual life. That is the life of Jesus Christ; His character, His conduct, was like that--to love, to help, to pity, all around--to give up Himself even to death--to do His Father"s will and not His own. That was His life. Because He was the Son of G.o.d He did it.
In proportion as we live like Him, we shall he living like sons of G.o.d. In proportion as we live like Jesus Christ, the Son of G.o.d, our spirits will be alive. For he that hath Jesus Christ the Son of G.o.d in him, hath life, and he that hath not the Son of G.o.d, hath not life, says St. John. But who can raise us from the death of sin and selfishness, to the life of righteousness and love? Who can change us into the likeness of Jesus Christ? Who can even show us what Jesus Christ"s likeness is, and take the things of Christ and show them to us; so that by seeing what He was, we may see what we should be? And who, if we have this life in us, will keep it alive in us, and be with us to strengthen us? Who will give us strength to force the foul and fierce and false thoughts out of our mind, and say, "Get thee behind me, Satan?" Who will give our spirits life? and who will strengthen that life in us?
Can we do it for ourselves? Oh! my friends, I pity the man who is so blind and ignorant, who knows so little of himself, upon whom the lessons which his own mistakes, and sins, and failings should have taught him, have been so wasted that he fancies that he can teach and guide himself without any help, and that he can raise his own soul to life, or keep it alive without a.s.sistance. Can his body do without its comforts? Then how can his spirit? If he left his house, and threw away his clothes, and refused all help from his fellow-men, and went and lived in the woods like a wild beast, we should call him a madman, because he refused the help and comfort to his body which G.o.d has made necessary for him. But just as great a madman is he who refuses the help and the strengthening which G.o.d has made necessary for his spirit--just as great a madman is he who fancies that his soul is any more able than his body is, to live without continual help. It is just because man is n.o.bler than the beast that he requires help. The fox in the wood needs no house, no fire; he needs no friends; he needs no comforts, and no comforters, because he is a beast--because he is meant to live and die selfish and alone; therefore G.o.d has provided him in himself with all things necessary to keep the poor brute"s selfish life in him for a few short years.
But just because man is n.o.bler than that; just because man is not intended to live selfish and alone; just because his body, and his mind, and his spirit are beautifully and delicately made, and intended for all sorts of wonderful purposes, therefore G.o.d has appointed that from the moment he is born to all eternity he cannot live alone; he cannot support himself; he stands in continual need of the a.s.sistance of all around him, for body, and soul, and spirit; he needs clothes, which other men must make; houses, which other man must build; food, which other men must produce; he has to get his livelihood by working for others, while others get their livelihood in return by working for him. As a child he needs his parents to be his comforters, to take care of him in body and mind. As he grows up he needs the care of others; he cannot exist a day without his fellow-men: he requires school-masters to educate him; books and masters to teach him his trade; and when he has learnt it, and settled himself in life, he requires laws made by other men, perhaps by men who died hundreds of years before he was born, to secure to him his rights and property, to secure to him comforts, and to make him feel comfortable in his station; he needs friends and family to comfort him in sorrow and in joy, to do for him the thousand things which he cannot do for himself. In proportion as he is alone and friendless he is pitiable and miserable, let him be as rich as Solomon himself. From the moment, I say, he is born, he needs continual comforts and comforters for his body, and mind, and heart.
And then he fancies that, though his body and his mind cannot exist safely, or grow up healthily, without the continual care and comforting of his fellow-men, that yet his soul, the part of him which is at once the most important and the most in danger; the part of him of which he knows least; the part of him which he understands least; the part of him of which his body and mind cannot take care, because it has to take care of them, can live, and grow, and prosper without any help whatsoever!
And if we cannot strengthen our own souls no man can strengthen them for us. No man can raise our bodies to life, much less can he raise our souls. The physician himself cannot cure the sicknesses of our bodies; he can only give us fit medicines, and leave them to cure us by certain laws of nature, which he did not make, and which he cannot alter. And though the physician can, by much learning, understand men"s bodies somewhat, who can understand men"s souls? We cannot understand our own souls; we do not know what they are, how they live; whence they come, or whither they go. We cannot cure them ourselves, much less can anyone cure them for us. The only one who can cure our souls is He that made our souls; the only one who can give life to our souls is He who gives life to everything. The only one who can cure, and strengthen, and comfort our spirits, is He who understands our spirits, because He himself is the Spirit of all spirits, the Spirit who searcheth all things, even the deep things of G.o.d; because He is the Spirit of G.o.d the Father, who made all heaven and earth, and of Jesus Christ the Son, who understands the heart of man, who can be touched with the feelings of our infirmities, and hath been tempted in all things, just as we are, yet without sin.
He is the Comforter which G.o.d has promised to our spirits, the only Comforter who can strengthen our spirits; and if we have Him with us, if He is strengthening us, if He is leading us, if He is abiding with us, if He is changing us day by day, more and more into the likeness of Jesus Christ, are we not, as I said at the beginning of my sermon, richer than if we possessed all the land of England, stronger than if we had all the armies of the world at our command? For what is more precious than--G.o.d Himself? What is stronger than--G.o.d Himself? The poorest man in whom G.o.d"s Spirit dwells is greater than the greatest king in whom G.o.d"s Spirit does not dwell. And so he will find in the day that he dies. Then where will riches be, and power? The rich man will take none of them away with him when he dieth, neither shall his pomp follow him. Naked came he into this world, and naked shall he return out of it, to go as he came, and carry with him none of the comforts which he thought in this life the only ones worth having.
But the Spirit of G.o.d remains with us for ever; that treasure a man shall carry out of this world with him, and keep to all eternity.
That friend will never forsake him, for He is the Spirit of Love, which abideth for ever. That Comforter will never grow weak, for He is Himself the very eternal Lord and Giver of Life; and the soul that is possessed by Him must live, must grow, must become n.o.bler, purer, freer, stronger, more loving, for ever and ever, as the eternities roll by. That is what He will give you, my friends; that is His treasure; that is the Spirit-life, the true and everlasting life, which flows from Him as the stream flows from the fountain-head.
X--WHIT-SUNDAY
The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance--against such there is no law.--GALATIANS v. 22, 23.
In all countries, and in all ages, the world has been full of complaints of Law and Government. And one hears the same complaints in England now. You hear complaints that the laws favour one party and one rank more than another, that they are expensive, and harsh, and unfair, and what not?--But I think, my friends, that for us, and especially on this Whit-Sunday, it will be much wiser, instead of complaining of the laws, to complain of ourselves, for needing those laws. For what is it that makes laws necessary at all, except man"s sinfulness? Adam required no laws in the garden of Eden. We should require no laws if we were what we ought to be--what G.o.d has offered to make us. We may see this by looking at the laws themselves, and considering the purposes for which they were made. We shall then see, that, like Moses" Laws of old, the greater part of them have been added because of transgressions.--In plain English--to prevent men from doing things which they ought not to do, and which, if they were in a right state of mind, they would not do. How many laws are pa.s.sed, simply to prevent one man, or one cla.s.s, from oppressing or ill-using some other man or cla.s.s? What a vast number of them are pa.s.sed simply to protect property, or to protect the weak from the cruel, the ignorant from the cunning! It is plain that if there was no cruelty, no cunning, no dishonesty, these laws, at all events, would not be needed. Again, one of the great complaints against the laws and the government, is that they are so expensive, that rates and taxes are heavy burdens--and doubtless they are: but what makes them necessary except men"s sin? If the poor were more justly and mercifully treated, and if they in their turn were more thrifty and provident, there would be no need of the expenses of poor rates. If there was no love of war and plunder, there would be no need of the expense of an army. If there was no crime, there would be no need of the expense of police and prisons. The thing is so simple and self- evident, that it seems almost childish to mention it. And yet, my friends, we forget it daily. We complain of the laws and their harshness, of taxes and their expensiveness, and we forget all the while that it is our own selfishness and sinfulness which brings this expense upon us, which makes it necessary for the law to interfere and protect us against others, and others against us. And while we are complaining of the government for not doing its work somewhat more cheaply, we are forgetting that if we chose, we might leave government very little work to do--that every man if he chose, might be his own law-maker and his own police--that every man if he will, may lead a life "against which there is no law."
I say again, that it is our own fault, the fault of our sinfulness, that laws are necessary for us. In proportion as we are what Scripture calls "natural men," that is, savage, selfish, divided from each other, and struggling against each other, each for his own interest; as long as we are not renewed and changed into new men, so long will laws, heavy, severe, and burdensome, be necessary for us.
Without them we should be torments to ourselves, to our neighbours, to our country. But these laws are only necessary as long as we are full of selfishness and unG.o.dliness. The moment we yield ourselves up to G.o.d"s law, man"s laws are ready enough to leave us alone.