Comfortable scholars and luxurious ladies may content themselves with a DEAD G.o.d, who does not interfere to help the oppressed, to right the wrong, to bind up the broken-hearted; but men and women who work, who sorrow, who suffer, who partake of all the ills which flesh is heir to--they want a LIVING G.o.d, an acting G.o.d, a G.o.d who WILL interfere to right the wrong. Yes--they want a living G.o.d.
And they have a living G.o.d--even the G.o.d who interfered to bring the Israelites out of Egypt with signs and wonders, and a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and executed judgment upon Pharaoh and his proud and cruel hosts. And when they read in the Bible of that G.o.d, when they read in their Bibles the story of the Exodus, their hearts answer, THIS is right. This is the G.o.d whom we need. This is what ought to have happened. This is true: for it must be true. Let comfortable folks who know no sorrow trouble their brains as to whether sixty or six hundred thousand fighting men came out of Egypt with Moses. We care not for numbers. What we care for is, not how many came out, but who brought them out, and that he who brought them out was G.o.d. And the book which tells us that, we will cling to, will love, will reverence above all the books on earth, because it tells of a living G.o.d, who works and acts and interferes for men; who not only hates wrong, but rights wrong; not only hates oppression, but puts oppressors down; not only pities the oppressed, but sets the oppressed free; a G.o.d who not only wills that man should have freedom, but sent freedom down to him from heaven.
Scholars have said that the old Greeks were the fathers of freedom; and there have been other peoples in the world"s history who have made glorious and successful struggles to throw off their tyrants and be free. And they have said, We are the fathers of freedom; liberty was born with us. Not so, my friends! Liberty is of a far older and far n.o.bler house; Liberty was born, if you will receive it, on the first Easter night, on the night to be much remembered among the children of Israel--ay, among all mankind--when G.o.d himself stooped from heaven to set the oppressed free. Then was freedom born. Not in the counsels of men, however wise; or in the battles of men, however brave: but in the counsels of G.o.d, and the battle of G.o.d--amid human agony and terror, and the shaking of the heaven and the earth; amid the great cry throughout Egypt when a first-born son lay dead in every house; and the tempest which swept aside the Red Sea waves; and the pillar of cloud by day, and the pillar of fire by night; and the Red Sea sh.o.r.e covered with the corpses of the Egyptians; and the thunderings and lightnings and earthquakes of Sinai; and the sound as of a trumpet waxing loud and long; and the voice, most human and most divine, which spake from off the lonely mountain peak to that vast horde of coward and degenerate slaves, and said, "I am the Lord thy G.o.d who brought thee out of the land of Egypt. Thou shalt obey my laws, and keep my commandments to do them." Oh! the man who would rob his suffering fellow-creatures of that story--he knows not how deep and bitter are the needs of man.
Then was freedom born: but not of man; not of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of the will of G.o.d, from whom all good things come; and of Christ, who is the life and the light of men and of nations, and of the whole world, and of all worlds, past, present, and to come.
From G.o.d came freedom. To be used as his gift, according to his laws; for he gave, and he can take away; as it is written, "He shall take the kingdom of G.o.d from you, and give it to a people bringing forth the fruits thereof." "For there be many first that shall be last; and last that shall be first." It is this which makes the Jews indeed a peculiar people: the thought that the living G.o.d had actually and really done for them what they could not do for themselves; that he had made them a nation, and not they themselves.
It is this which makes the Old Testament an utterly different book, with an utterly different lesson, to the written history of any other nation in the world.
And yet it is this which makes the history of the Jews the key to every other history in the world. For in it Jesus Christ our Lord, the living G.o.d who makes history, who governs all nations, reveals and unveils himself, and teaches not the Jews only, but us and all nations, that it is he who hath made us, and not we ourselves; that we got not the land in possession by our own sword, nor was it our own strength that helped us, but thou, O Lord, because thou hadst a favour unto us; that not to us, not to us is the praise of any national greatness or glory, but to G.o.d, from whom it comes as surely a free gift as the gift of liberty to the Jews of old.
I say, the history of the Jews is the history of the whole Church, and of every nation in Christendom.
As with the Jews, so with the nations of Europe; whenever they have trusted in themselves, their own power and wisdom, they have ended in weakness and folly. Whenever they have trusted in Christ the living G.o.d, and said, "It is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves," they have risen to strength and wisdom. When they have forgotten the living G.o.d, national life and patriotism have died in them, as they died in the Jews. When they have remembered that the most high G.o.d was their Redeemer, then in them, as in the Jews, have national life and patriotism revived.
And as it was with the Jews in the wilderness, so it has been with them since Christ"s resurrection. They fancied that they were going at once into the promised land. So did the first Christians. But the Jews had to wander forty years in the wilderness; and Christendom has had to wander too, in strange and bloodstained paths, for one thousand eight hundred years and more. For why? The Israelites were not worthy to enter at once into rest; no more have the nation of Christ"s Church been worthy. The Israelites brought out of Egypt base and slavish pa.s.sions, which had to be purged out of them; so have we out of heathendom. They brought out, too, heathen superst.i.tions, and mixed them up with the worship of G.o.d, bearing about in the wilderness the tabernacle of Moloch and the image of their G.o.d Remphan, and making the calf in h.o.r.eb; and so, alas! again and again, has the Church of Christ.
Nay, the whole generation, save two, who came out of Egypt, had to die in the wilderness, and leave their bones scattered far and wide.
And so has mankind been dying, by war and by disease, and by many fearful scourges besides what is called now-a-days, natural decay.
But all the while a new generation was springing up, trained in the wilderness to be bold and hardy; trained, too, under Moses" stern law, to the fear of G.o.d; to reverence, and discipline, and obedience, without which freedom is merely brutal license, and a nation is no nation, but a mere flock of sheep or a herd of wolves.
And so, for these one thousand eight hundred years have the generations of Christendom, by the training of the Church and the light of the Gospel, been growing in wisdom and knowledge; growing in morality and humanity, in that true discipline and loyalty which are the yoke-fellows of freedom and independence, to make them fit for that higher state, that heavenly Canaan, of which we know not WHEN it will come, nor whether its place will be on this earth or elsewhere; but of which it is written, "And I John saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from G.o.d out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of G.o.d is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and G.o.d himself shall be with them, and be their G.o.d. And G.o.d shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are pa.s.sed away. And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new.
"And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord G.o.d Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon to shine in it: for the glory of G.o.d did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it; and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it. And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day: for there shall be no night there. And they shall bring the glory and honour of the nations into it. And there shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb"s book of life."
That, the perfect Easter Day, seems far enough off as yet; but it will come. As the Lord liveth, it will come; and to it may Christ in his mercy bring us all, and our children"s children after us.
Amen.
SERMON XIII. KORAH, DATHAN, AND ABIRAM
(First Sunday after Easter, 1863.)
Numbers xvi. 32-35. And the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their houses, and all the men that appertained unto Korah, and all their goods. They, and all that appertained to them, went down alive into the pit, and the earth closed upon them: and they perished from among the congregation. And all Israel that were round about them fled at the cry of them: for they said, Lest the earth swallow us up also. And there came out a fire from the Lord, and consumed the two hundred and fifty men that offered incense.
I will begin by saying that there are several things in this chapter which I do not understand, and cannot explain to you. Be it so.
That is no reason why we should not look at the parts of the chapter which we can understand and can explain.
There are matters without end in the world round us, and in our own hearts, and in the life of every one, which we cannot explain; and therefore we need not be surprised to find things which we cannot explain in the life and history of the most remarkable nation upon earth--the nation whose business it has been to teach all other nations the knowledge of the true G.o.d, and who was specially and curiously trained for that work.
But the one broad common-sense lesson of this chapter, it seems to me, is one which is on the very surface of it; one which every true Englishman at least will see, and see to be true, when he hears the chapter read; and that is, the necessity of DISCIPLINE.
G.o.d has brought the Israelites out of Egypt, and set them free. One of the first lessons which they have to learn is, that freedom does not mean license and discord--does not mean every one doing that which is right in the sight of his own eyes. From that springs self-will, division, quarrels, revolt, civil war, weakness, profligacy, and ruin to the whole people. Without order, discipline, obedience to law, there can be no true and lasting freedom; and, therefore, order must be kept at all risks, the law obeyed, and rebellion punished.
Now rebellion may be and ought to be punished far more severely in some cases than in others. If men rebel here, in Great Britain or Ireland, we smile at them, and let them off with a slight imprisonment, because we are not afraid of them. They can do no harm.
But there are cases in which rebellion must be punished with a swift and sharp hand. On board a ship at sea, for instance, where the safety of the whole ship, the lives of the whole crew, depend on instant obedience, mutiny may be punished by death on the spot.
Many a commander has ere now, and rightly too, struck down the rebel without trial or argument, and ended him and his mutiny on the spot; by the sound rule that it is expedient that one man die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not.
And so it was with the Israelites in the desert. All depended on their obedience. G.o.d had given them a law--a const.i.tution, as we should say now--perfectly fitted, no doubt, for them. If they once began to rebel and mutiny against that law, all was over with them.
That great, foolish, ignorant mult.i.tude would have broken up, probably fought among themselves--certainly parted company, and either starved in the desert, or have been destroyed piecemeal by the wild warlike tribes, Midianites, Moabites, Amalekites--who were ready enough for slaughter and plunder. They would never have reached Canaan. They would never have become a great nation. So they had to be, by necessity, under martial law. The word must be, Obey or die. As for any cruelty in putting Korah, Dathan, and Abiram to death, it was worth the death of a hundred such--or a thousand--to preserve the great and glorious nation of the Jews to be the teachers of the world.
Now this Korah, Dathan, and Abiram rebel. They rebel against Moses about a question of the priesthood. It really matters little to us what that question was--it was a question of Moses" law, which, of course, is now done away. Only remember this, that these men were princes--great feudal n.o.blemen, as we should say; and that they rebelled on the strength of their rank and their rights as n.o.blemen to make laws for themselves and for the people; and that the mob of their dependents seem to have been inclined to support them.
Surely if Moses had executed martial law on them with his own hand, he would have been as perfectly justified as a captain of a ship of war or a general of an army would be now.
But he did not do so. And why? Because MOSES did not bring the people out of Egypt. Moses was not their king. G.o.d brought them out of Egypt. G.o.d was their king. That was the lesson which they had to learn, and to teach other nations also. They have rebelled, not against Moses, but against G.o.d; and not Moses, but G.o.d must punish, and show that he is not a dead G.o.d, but a living G.o.d, one who can defend himself, and enforce his own laws, and execute judgment--and, if need be, vengeance--without needing any man to fight his battles for him.
And G.o.d does so. The powers of Nature--the earthquake and the nether fire--shall punish these rebels; and so they do.
"And Moses said, Hereby ye shall know that the Lord hath sent me to do all these works; for I have not done them of mine own mind. If these men die the common death of all men, or if they be visited after the visitation of all men; then the Lord hath not sent me.
But if the Lord make a new thing, and the earth open her mouth and swallow them up, with all that appertain to them and they go down quick into the pit; then ye shall understand that these men have provoked the Lord."
Men have thought differently of the story; but I call it a righteous story, and a n.o.ble story, and one which agrees with my conscience, and my reason, and my notion of what ought to be, and my experience also of what is--of the way in which G.o.d"s world is governed unto this day.
What then are we to think of the earth opening and swallowing them up? What are we to think of a fire coming out from the Lord, and consuming two hundred and fifty men that offered incense?
This first. That discipline and order are so absolutely necessary for the well-being of a nation that they must be kept at all risks, and enforced by the most terrible punishments.
It seems to me (to speak with all reverence) as if G.o.d had said to the Jews, "I have set you free. I will make of you a great nation; I will lead you into a good land and large. But if you are to be a great nation, if you are to conquer that good land and large, you must obey: and you shall obey. The earthquake and the fire shall teach you to obey, and make you an example to the rest of the Israelites, and to all nations after you." But how hard, some may think, that the wives and the children should suffer for their parents" sins.
My friends, we do not know that a single woman or child died then for whom it was not better that he or she should die. That is one of the deep things which we must leave to the perfect justice and mercy of G.o.d.
And next--what is it after all, but what we see going on round us all the day long? G.o.d does visit the sins of the fathers on the children. There is no denying it. Wives do suffer for their husbands" sins; children and children"s children for whole generations after generations suffer for their parents" sins, and become unhealthy, or superst.i.tious, or profligate, or poor, or slavish, because their parents sinned, and dragged down their children with them in their fall. It is a law of the world; and therefore it is a law of G.o.d. And it is reasonable to be believed that G.o.d might choose to teach the Israelites, once and for all, that it WAS a law of his world. For by swallowing up those women and children with the men, G.o.d said to the Israelites, it seems to me in a way which could not be mistaken, "This is the consequence of lawlessness and disorder--that you not only injure yourselves, but your children after you, and involve your families in the same ruin as yourselves."
But there was another lesson, and a deep lesson, in the earthquake and in the fire. And what was this? that the earthquake and the fire came out from the Lord.
Earthquakes have swallowed up not hundreds merely, but many thousands, in many countries, and at many times.
Fire has come forth, and still comes forth from the ground, from the clouds, from the consequences of man"s own carelessness, and destroys beast and man, and the works of man"s hands. Then men ask in terror and doubt, "Who sends the earthquake and the fire? Do they come from the devil--the destroyer? Do they come by chance, from some brute and blind powers of nature?"
This chapter answers, "No. They come from the Lord, from whom all good things do come; from the Lord who delivered the Israelites out of Egypt; who so loved the world that he spared not his only begotten Son, but freely gave him for us."
Now I say that is a gospel, and good news, which we want now as much as ever men did; which the children of Israel wanted then, though not one whit more than we.
Many hundreds of years had these Israelites been in Egypt. Storm, lightning, earthquake, the fires of the burning mountains, were things unknown to them. They were going into Canaan--a good land and fruitful, but a land of storms and thunders; a land, too, of earthquakes and subterranean fires. The deepest earthquake-crack in the world is the valley of the Jordan, ending in the Dead Sea--a long valley, through which at different points the nether fires of the earth even now burst up at times. In Abraham"s time they had destroyed the five cities of the plain. The prophets mention them, especially Isaiah and Micah, as breaking out again in their own times; and in our own lifetime earthquake and fire have done fearful destruction in the north part of the Holy Land.
Now what was to prevent the Israelites worshipping the earthquake and the fire as G.o.ds?
Nothing. Conceive the terror and horror of the Jews coming out of that quiet land of Egypt, the first time they felt the ground rocking and rolling; the first time they heard the roar of the earthquake beneath their feet; the first time they saw, in the magnificent words of Micah, the mountains molten and the valleys cleft as wax before the fire, like water poured down a steep place; and discovered that beneath their very feet was Tophet, the pit of fire and brimstone, ready to burst up and overwhelm them they knew not when.
What could they do, but what the Canaanites did who dwelt already in that land? What but to say, "The fire is king. The fire is the great and dreadful G.o.d, and to him we must pray, lest he devour us up." For so did the Canaanites. They called the fire Moloch, which means simply the king; and they worshipped this fire-king, and made idols of him, and offered human sacrifices to him. They had idols of metal, before which an everlasting fire burned; and on the arms of the idol the priests laid the children who were to be sacrificed, that they might roll down into the fire and be burnt alive. That is actual fact. In one case, which we know of well, hundreds of years after Moses" time, the Carthaginians offered two hundred boys of their best families to Moloch in one day. This is that making the children pa.s.s through the fire to Moloch--burning them in the fire to Moloch--of which we read several times in the Old Testament; as ugly and accursed a superst.i.tion as men ever invented.
What deliverance was there for them from these abominable superst.i.tions, except to know that the fire-kingdom was G.o.d"s kingdom, and not Moloch"s at all; to know with Micah and with David that the hills were molten like wax BEFORE THE PRESENCE OF THE LORD; that it was the blast of his breath which discovered the foundations of the world; that it was HE who made the sea flee and drove back the Jordan stream; that it was before HIM that the mountains skipped like rams and the little hills like young sheep; that the battles of shaking were G.o.d"s battles, with which he could fight for his people; that it was he who ordained Tophet, and whose spirit kindled it. That it was he--and that too in mercy as well as anger--who visited the land in Isaiah"s time with thunder and earthquake, and great noise, and storm and tempest, and the flame of devouring fire.
That the earth opened and swallowed up those whom G.o.d chose, and no others. That if fire came forth, it came forth from the Lord, and burned where and what G.o.d chose, and nothing else. Yes. If you will only understand, once and for all, that the history of the Jews is the history of the Lord"s turning a people from the cowardly, slavish worship of sun and stars, of earthquakes and burning mountains, and all the brute powers of nature which the heathen worshipped, and teaching them to trust and obey him, the living G.o.d, the Lord and Master of all, then the Old Testament will be clear to you throughout; but if not, then not.