XVI--ON THE DAY OF THANKSGIVING
(Nov. 15th, 1849.)
G.o.d hath visited his people.--LUKE vii. 16.
We are a.s.sembled this day to thank G.o.d solemnly for the pa.s.sing away of the cholera from England; and we must surely not forget to thank Him at the same time for the pa.s.sing away of the fever, which has caused so much expense, sorrow, and death among us. Now I wish to say a very few words to you on this same matter, to show you not only how to be thankful to G.o.d, but what to be thankful for. You may say: It is easy enough for us to know what to thank G.o.d for in this case.
We come to thank Him, as we have just said in the public prayers, for having withdrawn this heavy visitation from us. If so, my friends, what we shall thank Him for depends on what we mean by talking of a visitation from G.o.d.
Now I do not know what people may think in this parish, but I suspect that very many all over England do NOT know what to thank G.o.d for just now; and are altogether thanking him for the wrong thing--for a thing which, very happily for them, He has NOT done for them, and which, if He had done it for them, would have been worse for them than all the evil which ever happened to them from their youth up until now. To be plain then, many, I am afraid, are thanking G.o.d for having gone away and left them. While the cholera was here, they said that G.o.d was visiting them; and now that the cholera is over, they consider that G.o.d"s visit is over too, and are joyful and light of heart thereat. If G.o.d"s visit is over, my friends, and He is gone away from us; if He is not just as near us now as He was in the height of the cholera, the best thing we can do is to turn to Him with fasting, and weeping, and mourning, and roll ourselves in the dust, and instead of thanking our Father for going away, pray to Him, of his infinite mercy, to condescend to come back again and visit us, even though, as superst.i.tious and ignorant men believe, G.o.d"s visiting us were sure to bring cholera, or plague, or pestilence, or famine, or some other misery. For I read, that in His presence is life and not death--at His right hand is fulness of joy, and not tribulation and mourning and woe; but if not, it were better to be with G.o.d in everlasting agony, than to be in everlasting happiness without G.o.d.
Here is a strange confusion--people talking one moment like St. Paul himself, desiring to be with Christ and G.o.d for ever, and then in the same breath talking like the Gadarenes of old, when, after Christ had visited them, and judged their sins by driving their unlawful herd of swine into the sea, they answered by beseeching Him to depart out of their coasts.
Why is this confusion?--Because people do not take the trouble to read their Bibles; because they bring their own loose, careless, cant notions with them when they open their Bibles, and settle beforehand what the Bible is to tell them, and then pick and twist texts till they make them mean just what they like and no more. There is no folly, or filth, or tyranny, or blasphemy, which men have not defended out of the Bible by twisting it in this way. The Bible is better written than that, my friends. He that runs may read, if he has sense to read. The wayfaring man, though simple, shall make no such mistake therein, if he has G.o.d"s Spirit in him--the spirit of faith, which believes that the Bible is G.o.d"s message to men--the humble spirit, which is willing to listen to that message, however strange or new it may seem to him--the earnest spirit, which reads the Bible really to know what a man shall do to be saved. Look at your Bibles thus, my friends, about this matter. Read all the texts which speak of G.o.d"s visiting and G.o.d"s visitation, and you will find all the confusion and strangeness vanish away. For see! The Bible talks of the Lord visiting people in His wrath--visiting them for their sins--visiting them with sore plagues and punishments, about forty times. But the Bible speaks very nearly as often of G.o.d"s visiting people to bring them blessings and not punishments. The Bible says G.o.d visited Sarah and Hannah to give them what they most desired--children. G.o.d visited the people of Israel in Egypt to deliver them out of slavery. In the book of Ruth we read how the Lord visited His people in giving them bread. The Psalmist, in the captivity at Babylon, PRAYS G.o.d to visit him with His salvation. The prophet Jeremiah says that it was a sign of G.o.d"s anger against the Jews that He had not visited them; and the prophets promised again and again to their countrymen, how, after their seventy years"
captivity in Babylon, the Lord would visit them, and what for?--To bring them back into their own land with joy, and heap them with every blessing--peace and wealth, freedom and righteousness. So it is in the New Testament too. Zacharias praised G.o.d: "Blessed be the Lord G.o.d of Israel, for He hath visited and redeemed His people; through the tender mercy of our G.o.d, whereby the day-spring from on high hath visited us." And that was the reason why I chose Luke vii.
16, for my text--only because it is an example of the same thing.
The people, it says, praised G.o.d, saying: "A great Prophet is risen up among us, and G.o.d hath visited His people." And in the 14th of Acts we read how G.o.d visited the Gentiles, not to punish them, but to take out of them a people for His name, namely, Cornelius and his household. And lastly, St. Peter tells Christian people to glorify G.o.d in the day of visitation, as I tell you now--whether His visitation comes in the shape of cholera, or fever, or agricultural distress; or whether it comes in the shape of sanitary reform, and plenty of work, and activity in commerce; whether it seems to you good or evil, glorify G.o.d for it. Thank Him for it. Bless Him for it. Whether His visitation brings joy or sorrow, it surely brings a blessing with it. Whether G.o.d visits in wrath or in love, still G.o.d visits. G.o.d shows that He lives; G.o.d shows us that He has not forgotten us; G.o.d shows us that He is near us. Christ shows us that His words are true: "Lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the world."
That is a hard lesson to learn and practise, though not a very difficult one to understand. I will try now to make you understand it--G.o.d alone can teach you to practise it. I pray and hope, and I believe too, that He will--that these very hard times are meant to teach people REALLY to believe in G.o.d and Jesus Christ, and that they WILL teach people. G.o.d knows we need, and thanks be to Him that He DOES know that we need, to be taught to believe in Him. Nothing shows it to me more plainly than the way we talk about G.o.d"s visitations, as if G.o.d was usually away from us, and came to us only just now and then--only on extraordinary occasions. People have gross, heathen, fleshly, materialist notions of G.o.d"s visitations, as if He was some great earthly king who now and then made a journey about his dominions from place to place, rewarding some and punishing others. G.o.d is not in any place, my friends. G.o.d is a Spirit. The heaven and the heaven of heavens could not contain Him if He wanted a place to be in, as, glory be to His name, He does not. If He is near us or far from us, it is not that He is near or far from our bodies, as the Queen might be nearer to us in London than in Scotland, which is most people"s notion of G.o.d"s nearness. He is near, not our bodies, but our spirits, our souls, our hearts, our thoughts--as it is written, "The kingdom of G.o.d is WITHIN you." Do not fancy that when the cholera was in India, G.o.d was nearer India than He was to England, and that as the cholera crawled nearer and nearer, G.o.d came nearer and nearer too; and that now the cholera is gone away somewhere or other, G.o.d is gone away somewhere or other too, to leave us to our own inventions. G.o.d forbid a thousand times! As St. Paul says: "He is not far from any one of us." "In Him we live and move and have our being," cholera or none. Do you think Christ, the King of the earth, is gone away either--that while things go on rightly, and governments, and clergy, and people do right, Christ is there then, filling them all with His Spirit and guiding them all to their duty; but that when evil times come, and rulers are idle, and clergy dumb dogs, and the rich tyrannous, and the poor profligate, and men are crying for work and cannot get it, and every man"s hand is against his fellow, and no one knows what to do or think; and on earth is distress of nations with perplexity, men"s hearts failing them for fear, and for dread of those things which are coming on the earth--do you think that in such times as those, Christ is the least farther off from us than He was at the best of times?--The least farther off from us now than He was from the apostles at the first Whitsuntide? G.o.d forbid!--G.o.d forbid a thousand times! He has promised Himself, He that is faithful and true, He that will never deny Himself, though men deny Him, and say He is not here, because their eyes are blinded with love of the world, and covetousness and bigotry, and dread lest He, their Master, should come and find them beating the men-servants and maid-servants, and eating and drinking with the drunken in the high places of the earth, and saying: "Tush!
G.o.d hath forgotten it"--ay, though men have forgotten Him thus, and-- worse than thus, yet He hath said it--"Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." Why, evil times are the very times of which Christ used to speak as the "days of the Lord," and the "days of the Son of man." Times when we hear of wars and rumours of wars, and on earth distress of nations with perplexity--what does He tell men to do in them? To go whining about, and say that Christ has left His Church? No! "Then," He says, "when all these things come to pa.s.s, then rejoice and lift up your heads, for your redemption draweth nigh."
And yet the Scripture does most certainly speak of the Lord"s coming out of His place to visit--of the Son of Man coming, and not coming to men--of His visiting us at one time and not at another. How does that agree with what I have just said? My dear friends, we shall see that it agrees perfectly with what I have said, if we will only just remember that we are not beasts, but men. It may seem a strange thing to have to remind people of, but it is just what they are always forgetting. My friends, we are not animals, we are not spiders to do nothing but spin, or birds only to build nests for ourselves, much less swine to do nothing but dig after roots and fruits, and get what we can out of the clods of the ground. We are the children of the Most High G.o.d; we have immortal souls within us; nay, more, we are our souls: our bodies are our husk--our sh.e.l.l--our clothes--our house--changing day by day, and year by year upon us, one day to drop off us till the Resurrection. But WE are our SOULS, and when G.o.d visits, it is our souls He visits, not merely our bodies. There is the whole secret. People forget G.o.d, and therefore they are glad to fancy that He has forgotten them, and has nothing to do with this world of His which they are misusing for their own selfish ends; and then G.o.d in His mercy visits them. He knocks at the door of their hearts, saying: "See! I was close to you all the while." He forces them to see Him and to confess that He is there whether they choose or not. G.o.d is not away from the world. He is away from people"s hearts, because He has given people free wills, and with free wills the power of keeping Him out of their hearts or letting Him in. And when G.o.d visits He forces Himself on our attention. He knocks at the door of our hard hearts so loudly and sharply that He forces all to confess that He is there--all who are not utterly reprobate and spiritually dead. In blessings as well as in curses, G.o.d knocks at our hearts. By sudden good fortune, as well as by sudden mishap; by a great deliverance from enemies, by an abundant harvest, as well as by famine and pestilence. Therefore this cholera has been a true visitation of G.o.d. The poor had fancied that they might be as dirty, the rich had fancied that they might be as careless, as they chose; in short, that they might break G.o.d"s laws of cleanliness and brotherly care without His troubling Himself about the matter. And lo! He has visited us; and shown us that He does care about the matter by taking it into His own hands with a vengeance. He who cannot see G.o.d"s hand in the cholera must be as blind--as blind as who?--as blind as he that cannot see G.o.d"s hand when there is no cholera; as blind as he who cannot see G.o.d"s hand in every meal he eats, and every breath he draws; for that man is stone blind--he can be no blinder. The cholera came; everyone ought to see that it did not come by blind chance, but by the will of some wise and righteous Person; for in the first place G.o.d gave us fair warning. The cholera came from India at a steady pace. We knew to a month when it would arrive here. And it came, too, by no blind necessity, as if it was forced to take people whether it liked or not. Just as it was in the fever here, so it was in the cholera, "One shall be taken and another left." It took one of a street and left another; took one person in a family and left another: it took the rich man who fancied he was safe, as well as the poor man who did not care whether he was safe or not. The respectable man walking home to his comfortable house, pa.s.sed by some untrapped drain, and then poisonous gas struck him and he died. The rich physician who had been curing others, could not save himself from the poison of the crowded graveyard which had been allowed to remain at the back of his house. By all sorts of strange and unfathomable judgments the cholera showed itself to be working, not by a blind necessity, but at the will of a thinking Person, of a living G.o.d, whose ways are not as our own ways, and His paths are in the great deep. And yet the cholera showed--and this is what I want to make you feel--that it was working at the will of the same G.o.d in whom we live and move and have our being, who sends the food we eat, the water in which we wash, the air we breathe, and who has ordained for all these things natural laws, according to which they work, and which He never breaks, nor allows us to break them. For every case of cholera could be traced to some breaking of these laws--foul air--foul food--foul water, or careless and dirty contact with infected persons; so that by this G.o.d showed that He and not chance ruled the world, and that he was indeed the living and willing G.o.d. He showed at the same time that He was the wise G.o.d of order and of law; and that gas and earth, wind and vapour, fulfil His word, without His having to break His laws, or visit us by moving, as people fancy, out of a Heaven where He was, down to an earth, where He was not.
But, lastly, remember what I told you before, that the cholera being a visitation means that G.o.d, by it, has been visiting our hearts, knocking loudly at them that He may awaken us, and teach us a lesson.
And be sure that in the cholera, and this our own parish fever, there is a lesson for each and every one of us if we will learn it. To the simple poor man, first and foremost, G.o.d means by the cholera to teach the simple lesson of cleanliness; to the house-owner He means to teach that each man is his brother"s keeper, and responsible for his property not being a nest of disease; to rulers it is intended to teach the lesson that G.o.d"s laws cannot be put off to suit their laziness, cowardice, or party squabbles. But beside that, to each person, be sure such a visitation as this brings some private lesson.
Perhaps it has taught many a widow that she has a Friend stronger and more loving than even the husband whom she has lost by the pestilence--the G.o.d of the widow and the fatherless. Perhaps it has taught many a strong man not to trust in his strength and his youth, but in the G.o.d who gave them to him. Perhaps it has taught many a man, too, who has expected public authorities to do everything for him, "not to put his trust in princes, nor in any child of man, for there is no help in them," but to hear G.o.d"s advice, "Help thyself and G.o.d will help thee." Perhaps it has stirred up many a benevolent man to find out fresh means for rooting out the miseries of society.
Perhaps it has taught many a philosopher new deep truths about the laws of G.o.d"s world, which may enable him to enlighten and comfort ages yet unborn. Perhaps it has awakened many a slumbering heart, and brought many a careless sinner (for the first time in his life) face to face with G.o.d and his own sins. G.o.d"s judgments are manifold; they are meant to work in different ways on different hearts. But oh! believe and be sure that they are meant to work upon all hearts--that they are not the punishments of a capricious tyrant, but the rod of a loving Father, who is trying to drive us home into His fold, when gentle entreaties and kind deeds have failed to allure us home. Oh my friends! if you wish really to thank G.o.d for having preserved you from these pestilences, show your thankfulness by learning the lesson which they bring. G.o.d"s love has spoken of each and every one of us in the cholera. Be sure He has spoken so harshly only because a gentler tone of voice would have had no effect upon us. Thank Him for His severity. Thank Him for the cholera, the fever. Thank Him for anything which will awaken us to hear the Word of the Lord. But till you have learnt the lessons which these visitations are meant to teach you, there is no use thanking Him for taking them away. And therefore I beseech you solemnly, each and all, before you leave this church, now to pray to G.o.d to show you what lesson He means to teach you by this past awful visitation, and also by sparing you and me who are here present, not merely from cholera and fever, but from a thousand mishaps and evils, which we have deserved, and from which only His goodness has kept us. Oh may G.o.d stir up your hearts to ask advice of Him this day! and may He in His great mercy so teach us all His will on this day of joy, that we may not need to have it taught us hereafter on some day of sorrow.
XVII--THE COVENANT
The Lord hath chosen Jacob unto himself, and Israel for his own possession. For I know that the Lord is great, and that our Lord is above all G.o.ds. Whatsoever the Lord pleased, that did he in heaven and earth, and in the sea, and in all deep places.--PSALM cx.x.xv. 4, 5, 6.
Were you ever puzzled to find out why the Psalms are read every Sunday in Church, more read, indeed, than any other part of the Bible? If any of you say, No, I shall not think you the wiser. It is very easy not to be puzzled with a deep matter, if one never thinks about it at all. But when a man sets his mind to work seriously, to try to understand what he hears and sees around him, then he will be puzzled, and no shame to him; for he will find things every day of his life which will require years of thought to understand, ay, things which, though we see and know that they are true, and can use and profit by them, we can never understand at all, at least in this life.
But I do not think that G.o.d meant it to be so with these Psalms. He meant the Bible for a poor man"s book: and therefore the men who wrote the Bible were almost all of them poor men, at least at one time or other of their life; and therefore we may expect that they would write as poor men would write, and such things as poor men may understand, if they are fairly and simply explained. Therefore I do not think you need be puzzled long to find out why these Psalms are read every Sunday. For the men who wrote them had G.o.d"s spirit with them; and G.o.d"s spirit is the spirit in which G.o.d made and governs this world, and just as G.o.d cannot change, so G.o.d"s spirit cannot change; and therefore the rules and laws according to which the world runs on cannot change; and therefore these rules about G.o.d"s government of the world, which G.o.d"s spirit taught the old Hebrew Psalmists, are the very same rules by which He governs it now; and therefore all the rules in these Psalms, making allowance for the difference of circ.u.mstances, have just as much to do with France, and Germany, and England now, as they had with the Jews, and the Canaanites, and the Babylonians then.
St. Paul tells us so. He tells us that all that happened to the old Jews was written as an example to Christians, to the intent that they might not sin as the Jews did, and so (G.o.d"s laws and ways being the same now as then) be punished as the Jews were. Moreover, St. Paul says, that Christians now are just as much G.o.d"s chosen people as the Jews were. G.o.d told the Jews that they were to be a nation of kings and priests to Him. And St. John opens the Revelations by saying: "Unto Him that loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto G.o.d and His Father, to Him be glory." St. Paul tells the Ephesians, who had not a drop of Jewish blood in their veins, that through Jesus Christ both Jews and Gentiles had "access by one Spirit unto the Father. Now, therefore,"
he goes on, "ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow- citizens with the saints, and of the household of G.o.d." In fact, he tells the Christians of every country to which he writes, that all the promises which G.o.d made to the Jews belonged to them just as much, that there was no more any difference between Jew and Gentile, that the Lord Jesus Christ was just as really among them, and with them, ruling and helping each people in their own country, as He was in Jerusalem when Isaiah saw His glory filling the Temple, and when Zion was called the place of His inheritance. Indeed, the Lord Jesus said the same thing Himself, for He said that all power was given to Him in heaven and earth; that He was with His churches (that is, with all companies of Christian people, such as England) even to the end of the world; that wherever two or three were gathered together in His name, He would be in the midst of them; and if those blessed words and good news be true, we Englishmen have a right to believe firmly that we belong to Him just as much as the old Jews did; and when we read these Psalms, to take every word of their good news--and their warnings also--to ourselves, and to our own land of England.
And when we read in the text, that the Lord chose Jacob unto Himself and Israel for His own possession, we have a right to say: "And the Lord has chosen also England unto himself, and this favoured land of Britain for his own possession." When we say in the Psalm: "The Lord did what He pleased in heaven, and earth, and sea," to educate and deliver the people of the Jews, we have a right to say just as boldly: "And so He has done for England, for us, and for our forefathers."
This then is the reason, the chief reason, why these Psalms are appointed to be read every Sunday in church, and every morning and evening where there is daily service--to teach us that the Lord takes care not only of one man"s soul here, and another woman"s soul there, but of the whole country of England; of its wars and its peace; of its laws and government, its progress and its afflictions; of all, in short, that happens to it as a nation, as one body of men, which it is. It must be so, my good friends, else we should be worse off than the old Jews, and not better off, as all the New Testament solemnly a.s.sures us a thousand times over that we are.
For in the covenant which G.o.d made with the Jews, and in the strange events, good and bad, which He caused to happen to their nation, not only the great saints among them were taken care of, but all cla.s.ses, and all characters, good and bad, even those who had not wisdom or spiritual life enough to seek G.o.d for themselves, still had their share in the good laws, in the teaching and guiding, and in the national blessings which He sent on the whole nation. They had a chance given them of rising, and improving, and prospering, as the rest of their countrymen rose, and improved, and prospered. And when the Lord came to visit Judaea in flesh and blood, we find that He went on the same method. He did not merely go to such men as Philip and Nathaniel, to the holy and elect ones among the Jews, but to the whole people; to the LOST sheep, as well as to those who were not lost. He did not part the good from the bad before he healed their sicknesses, and fed them with the loaves and fishes. It was enough for Him that they were Jews, citizens of the Jewish nation. G.o.d"s promises belonged not to one Jew or another, but to the Jewish nation; and even the ignorant and the sinful had a share in the blessings of the covenant, great or small in proportion as they chose to live as Jews ought, or to forget and deny that they belonged to G.o.d"s people.
Now, surely the Lord cannot be less merciful now than He was then.
He cannot care less for poor orphans, and paupers, and wild untaught creatures, in England now, than he cared for them in Judaea of old.
And we see that in fact He does not. For as the wealth of England improves, and the laws improve, and the knowledge of G.o.d improves, the condition of all sorts of poor creatures improves too, though they had no share in bringing about the good change. But we are all members of one body, from the Queen on her throne to the tramper under the hedge; and as St. Paul says: "If one member suffers, all the members suffer with it, and if one member rejoices, all the others" sooner or later "rejoice with it." For we, too, are one of the Lord"s nations. He has made us one body, with one common language, common laws, common interest, common religion for all; and what He does for one of us He does for all. He orders all that happens to us; whether it be war or peace, prosperity or dearth, He orders it all; and He orders things so that they shall work for the good, not merely of a few, but of as many as possible--not merely for His elect, but for those who know Him not. As He has been from the beginning, when He heaped blessings on the stiff-necked and backsliding Israelites--as He was when He endured the cross for a world lying not in obedience, but in wickedness; so is He now; the perfect likeness of His father, who is no respecter of persons, but causes "His sun to shine alike on the evil on the good, and His rain to fall on the just and on the unjust."
But now, there is one thing against which I have to warn you most solemnly, and especially in such days as these. You may believe my words to your own ruin, or to your own salvation. They are "the Gospel," "the good news of the Kingdom of G.o.d"--that is, the good news that G.o.d has condescended to become our King, to govern and guide us, to order all things for our good. But as St. Paul says, the Gospel may be a savour of death unto death, as well as a savour of life unto life. And I will tell you now; that you have only to do what the Jews just before the coming of our Lord did, and give way to the same thoughts as they, and then, like them, it were better for you that you had never heard of G.o.d, and been like the savages, to whom little or no sin is imputed, because they are all but without law. How is this?
As I said before--take your covenant privileges as the Pharisees took theirs, and they will turn you into devils while you are fancying yourselves G.o.d"s especial favourites. Now this was what happened to the Pharisees: they could not help knowing that G.o.d had shown especial favour to them; and that He had taught them more about G.o.d than He had taught the heathen. But instead of feeling all the more humble and thankful for this, and of remembering day and night that because much had been given to them much would be required of them, they thought more about the honour and glory which G.o.d had put on them. They forgot what G.o.d had declared, namely, that it was not for their own goodness that He had taught them, for that they were in themselves not a whit better than the heathen around them. They forgot that the reason why He taught them was, that they were to do His work on earth, by witnessing for His name, and telling the heathen that G.o.d was their Lord, as well as Lord of the Jews. Now David, and the old Psalmists and Prophets, did not forget this.
Their cry is: "Tell it out among the heathen that the Lord is King."
"Worship the Son of G.o.d, ye kings of the earth, and make your peace with Him lest He be angry." "It was in vain," he told the heathen kings, "to try to cast away G.o.d"s government from them, and break His bonds from off them," for "the Lord was King, let the nations be never so unquiet."
But the Jews gradually forgot this, and their daily boast was, that G.o.d had nothing to do with the heathen; that He did not care for them, and actually hated them; that they, as it were, had the true G.o.d all to themselves for their own private property; and that He had neither love nor mercy, except for them and their proselytes, that is, the few heathens whom they could persuade and entice not to worship the true G.o.d after the customs of their own country--that would not have suited the Jews" bigotry and pride--but to turn Jews, and forget their own people among whom they were born, and ape them in everything. And so, as our Lord told them, after compa.s.sing sea and land to make one of these proselytes, they only made him after all twice as much the child of h.e.l.l as themselves. For they could not teach the heathen anything worth knowing about G.o.d, when they had forgotten themselves what G.o.d was like. They could tell them that there was one G.o.d, and not two--but what was the use of that? As St.
James says, the devils believe as much as that, and yet the knowledge does not make them holy, but only increases their fear and despair.
And so with these Pharisees. They had forgotten that G.o.d was love.
They had forgotten that G.o.d was merciful. They had forgotten that G.o.d was just. And therefore, while they were talking of G.o.d and pretending to worship G.o.d, they knew nothing of G.o.d, and they did not do G.o.d"s will, and act like G.o.d; for (as we find from the Gospels) they were unjust, tyrannous, proud, conceited, covetous themselves; and while they were looking down on the poor heathens, these very heathens, the Lord told them, would rise up in judgment against them: for they, knowing little, acted up to the light which they had, better than the Pharisees who knew so much. And so it will be with us, my friends, if we fancy that G.o.d"s great favours to us are a reason for our priding ourselves on them, and despising papists and foreigners instead of remembering that just because G.o.d has given us so much, He will require more of us. It is true, we do know more of the Gospel than the papists, how, though they believe in Jesus Christ, worship the Virgin Mary and the Saints, and idols of wood and stone. But if they, who know so little of G.o.d"s will, yet act faithfully up to what they do know, will they not rise up in judgment against us, who know so much more, if we act worse than they?
Instead of despising them, we had better despise ourselves. Instead of fancying that G.o.d"s love is not over them, and so sinning against G.o.d"s Holy Spirit by denying and despising the fruits of G.o.d"s Holy Spirit in them, we had much better, we Protestants, be repenting of our own sins. We had better pray G.o.d to open our eyes to our own want of faith, and want of love, and want of honesty, and want of cleanly and chaste lives; lest G.o.d in His anger should let us go on in our evil path, till we fall into the deep darkness of mind of the Pharisees of old. For then while we were boasting of England as the most Christian nation in the world, we might become the most unchristian, because the most unlike Christ; the most wanting in love and fellow-feeling, and self-sacrifice, and honour, and justice, and honesty; wanting, in short, in the fruits of the Spirit. And without them there is no use crying: "We are G.o.d"s chosen people, He Has put His name among us, we alone hate idols, we alone have the pure word of G.o.d, and the pure sacraments, and the pure doctrine;" for G.o.d may answer us, as he answered the Jews of old: "Think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham for our father: Verily, I say unto you, G.o.d is able of these stones to raise up children to Abraham." ...
"The Kingdom of G.o.d shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof." Oh! my friends, let us pray, one and all, that G.o.d will come and help us, and with great might succour us, "that whereas through our sins and wickedness we are sore let and hindered in running the race set before us, G.o.d"s bountiful grace and mercy may speedily help and deliver us," and enable us to live faithfully up to the glorious privileges which He has bestowed on us, in calling us "members of Christ, children of G.o.d, and inheritors of the Kingdom of Heaven;" in giving us His Bible, in allowing us to be born into this favoured land of England, in preserving us to this day, in spite of all that we have thought, and said, and done, unworthy of the name of Christians and Englishmen.
And then we may be certain that G.o.d will also fulfil to us the glorious promises which we find in another Psalm: "If thy children will keep my covenant and my testimonies, which I shall learn them, this land shall be my rest for ever. Here will I dwell, for I have a delight therein. I will bless her victuals with increase, and satisfy her poor with bread. I will deck her priests with health, and her holy people shall rejoice and sing."
XVIII--NATIONAL REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS
And that which cometh into your mind shall not be at all; that ye say, We will be as the heathen, as the families of the countries, to serve wood and stone. As I live, saith the Lord G.o.d, surely with a mighty hand, and with a stretched out arm, and with fury poured out, will I rule over you... . And ye shall know that I am the Lord.-- EZEKIEL xx. 32, 33, 38.
A father has two ways of showing his love to his child--by caressing it and by punishing it. His very anger may be a sign of his love, and ought to be. Just because he loves his child, just because the thing he longs most to see is that his child should grow up good, therefore he must be, and ought to be, angry with it when it does wrong. Therefore anger against sin is a part of G.o.d"s likeness in us; and he who does not hate sin is not like G.o.d. For if sin is the worst evil--perhaps the only real evil in the world--and the end of all sin is death and misery, then to indulge people in sin is to show them the very worst of cruelty.
To sit by and see iniquity going on without trying to stop it, is mere laziness. The parent, when his child does wrong, does not show his love to the child by indulging it, all he shows is, that he himself is carnal and fleshly; that he does not like to take the trouble of punishing it, or does not like to give himself the pain of punishing it; that, in short, he had sooner let his child grow up in bad habits, which must lead to its misery and ruin for years and years, if not for ever, than make himself uncomfortable by seeing it uncomfortable for a few minutes. That is not love, but selfishness.
True love is as determined to punish the sin as it is to forgive the sinner. Therefore, St. Paul tells us, that we can be angry without sinning; that is that there is an anger which comes from hatred of sin and love to the sinner. Therefore, Solomon tells us to punish our children when they do wrong, and not to hold our hands for their crying. It is better for them that they should cry a little now, than have long years of shame and sorrow hereafter. Therefore, in all countries which are properly governed, the law punishes in the name of G.o.d those who break the laws of G.o.d, and punishes them even with death, for certain crimes; because it is expedient that one man die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not.
And this is G.o.d"s way of dealing with each and every one of us. This is G.o.d"s way of dealing with Christian nations, just as it was His way of dealing with the Jews of old. He never allowed the Jews to prosper in sin. He punished them at once, and sternly, whenever they rebelled against Him; not because He hated them, but because He loved them. His love to them showed itself whenever they went well with Him, in triumphs and blessings; and when they rebelled against Him, and broke His laws, He showed that very same love to them in plague, and war, and famine, and a mighty hand, and fury poured out. His love had not changed--they had changed; and now the best and only way of showing His love to them, was by making them feel His anger; and the best and only way of being merciful to them, was to show them no indulgence.
Now the wish of the Jews all along, and especially in Ezekiel"s time, was to be like the heathen--like the nations round them. They said to themselves: "These heathen worship idols, and yet prosper very well. Their having G.o.ds of wood and stone, and their indulging their pa.s.sions, and being profligate and filthy, covetous, unjust, and tyrannical, does not prevent their being just as happy as we are--ay, and a great deal happier. They have no strict law of Moses, as we have threatening us and keeping us in awe, and making us uncomfortable, and telling us at every turn, "Thou shalt not do this pleasant thing, and thou shalt not do that pleasant thing." And yet G.o.d does not punish them, as Moses" law says He will punish us.
These a.s.syrians and Babylonians above all--they are stronger than we, and richer, and better clothed, and cleverer; they have horses and chariots, and all sorts of luxuries and comforts which we Jews cannot get. Instead of being like us, in continual trouble from earthquakes, and drought, and famine, and war, attacked, plundered by all the nations round us, one after another, they go on conquering, and spreading, and succeeding in all they lay their hand to. Look at Babylon," said these foolish Jews, perhaps, to themselves; "a few generations ago it was nothing of a city, and now it is the greatest, richest, and strongest nation in the whole world. G.o.d has not punished it for worshipping G.o.ds of wood and stone, why should He punish us? These Babylonians have prospered well enough with their G.o.ds, why should not we? Perhaps it is these very G.o.ds of wood and stone who have helped them to become so great. Why should they not help us? We will worship them, then, and pray to them. We will not give up worshipping our own G.o.d, of course, lest we should offend Him; but we will worship Him and the Babylonian idols at the same time; then we shall be sure to be right if we have Jehovah and the idols both on our side." So said the Jews to themselves. But what did Ezekiel answer them? "Not so, my foolish countrymen," said he, "G.o.d will not have it so. He has taught you that these Babylonian idols are nothing and cannot help you; He has taught you that He can and will help you, that He can and will be everything to you; He has taught you that He alone is G.o.d, who made heaven and earth, who orders all things therein, who alone gives any people power to get wealth; and He will not have you go back and fall from that for any appearances or arguments whatsoever, because it is true. He has chosen you to witness to these heathen about Him, to declare His name to them, that they may give up their idols and serve the true G.o.d, in whom alone is strength. He chose you to be these heathens" teachers, and He will not let you become their scholars. He meant the heathen to copy you, and He will not let you copy them. If He does, in His love and mercy, let these poor heathen prosper in spite of their idols, what is that to you? It is still the Lord who makes them prosper, and not the idols, whether they know it or not. They know no better, and He will not impute sin to them where He has given them no law. But you do know better; by a thousand mighty signs and wonders and deliverances, the Lord has been teaching you ever since you came up through the Red Sea, that He is all-sufficient for you, that all power is His in heaven and earth. He has promised to you, and sworn to you by Himself, that if you keep His law and walk in His commandments, you shall want no manner of good thing; that you shall have no cause to envy these heathen their riches and prosperity, for the Lord will bless you in house and land, by day and night, at home and abroad, with every blessing that a nation can desire. Moses" law tells you this, G.o.d"s prophets have been telling you this, G.o.d"s wonderful dealings with you have been telling you this, that the Lord G.o.d is enough for you. And if you, who are meant to be a nation of kings and priests to G.o.d, to teach all nations and serve solely Him, fancy that you will be allowed to throw away the high honour which G.o.d has put upon you, and lower yourselves to the follies and sins of these heathen round you, you are mistaken. You were meant to be above such folly, you can be above it; and you shall not prosper by serving G.o.d and idols at once; you shall not even prosper by serving idols alone. G.o.d will visit you with a mighty hand, and with fury poured out, and you shall know that He is the Lord."
Well, my friends, and what has this to do with us? This it has to do with us--that if G.o.d taught the Jews about Himself, He has taught us still more. If he has shown signs and wonders of His love, and wrought mightily for the Jews, He has wrought far more mightily for us; for He spared not His own Son, but gave Him freely for us. If He promised to teach the Jews, He has promised still more to teach us; for He has promised His Holy Spirit freely to young and old, rich and poor, to as many as ask Him, to guide us into all truth. If he expected the Jews to set an example to all the nations around, He expects us to do so still more. And if He punished the Jews, and drove them back again by shame, and affliction, and disappointment, whenever they went after other G.o.ds, and tried to be like the heathen around, and despised their high calling, and their high privileges, He will punish us, and drive us back again still more fiercely, and still more swiftly. G.o.d has called us to be a nation of Christians, and He will not let us be a nation of heathens. We are longing to do in these days very much as the Jews did of old; we are all too apt to say to ourselves: "Of course we must love G.o.d, or He might be angry with us; and besides, how else should we get our souls saved? But the old heathen nations, and a great many nations now, and a great many rich and comfortable people in England now, too, get on very well without G.o.d, by just worshipping selfishness, and money, and worldly cunning, and why should not we do the same?--why should we not worship G.o.d and Mammon at once, and serve G.o.d on Sundays, and the selfish ways of the world all the week? Surely then we should be doubly safe; we should have G.o.d and the world on our side both at once."
Now, my friends, G.o.d will not allow us to succeed on that plan. We are members of His Church, whose head is Jesus, who gave Himself for sinners; whose members are all brothers of His Church, which is held together by self-sacrifice and fellow-help. If we try to be like the heathens, and fancy that we can succeed by selfishness, and cunning, and covetousness, G.o.d will not let us fall from the honour which He has put on us, and trample our blessings under foot. He will bring our plans to nought. Whomsoever he may let prosper in sin, He will not let those who have heard the message prosper in it. Whatever nation He may let become great by covetousness, and selfish competing and struggling of man against man, He will not let England grow great by it. He loves her too well to let her fall so, and cast away her high honour of being a Christian nation. By great and sore afflictions, by bringing our cleverest plans to nothing, He will teach us that we cannot worship G.o.d and Mammon at once; that the sure riches, either for a man or for a nation, are not money, but righteousness love, justice, wisdom; that this new idol of selfish compet.i.tion which men worship nowadays, and fancy that it is the secret cause of all plenty, and cheapness, and civilisation, has no place in the church of Jesus Christ, who gave up His own life for those who hated Him, and came not to do His own will, but the will of His Father; not to enable men to go to heaven after a life of selfishness here; but by the power of His Spirit--the spirit of love and fellowship to sweep all selfishness off the face of G.o.d"s good earth. By sore trials and afflictions will G.o.d in His mercy teach this to England, and to every man in England who is deluded into fancying that he can serve G.o.d, and selfishness at once, till we learn once more, as our forefathers did of old, that He is the Lord.
Because we are His children G.o.d will chasten us; because He receives us, He will scourge us back to Him; because He has prepared for us things such as eye hath not seen, He will not let us fill our bellies with the husks which the swine eat, and like the dumb beasts, snarl and struggle one against the other for a place at His table, as if it were not wide enough for all His creatures, and for ten times as many more, forgetting that He is the giver, and fancying that we are to be the takers, and spoiling the gift itself in our hurry to s.n.a.t.c.h it out of our neighbours" hands. In one word, G.o.d will not give us false prosperity, as the children of the world, the flesh, and the devil, because he wishes to give us real prosperity as the sons of G.o.d, in the kingdom of his Son Jesus Christ, who died on the cross for us.
XIX--THE DELIVERANCE OF JERUSALEM