Chapter III: Front Matter (3)

‘Wherefore,’ he says, ‘putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another. Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: neither give place to the devil. Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: and be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.

Do that, he says, and you will be followers of God, as dear children; and thus will you surely save your souls alive. For they will be inspired by the Spirit of God, the spirit of goodness, who is the Lord and Giver of life; wherefore they cannot decay nor die, but must live and grow, develop and improve perpetually, becoming better and wiser,—and therefore more useful to their fellow-creatures, more blessed in themselves, and more pleasing to God their Father, through all eternity. And thus you will surely go to heaven. For heaven will begin on earth, and last on after this earth, and all that binds you to this earth, has vanished in the grave.

Heaven will begin on earth, I say. When St. Paul told these very Ephesians to whom my text was addressed, that God had made them sit, even then, in heavenly places with Christ Jesus, he did not mean in any wise—what they would have known was not true—that their bodies had been miraculously lifted up above the earth, above the clouds, or elsewhere: no, for he had told them before, in the first chapter, what he meant by heavenly places. God their Father, he says, had blessed them with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places, in Christ, in that He had chosen them in Christ before the foundation of the world—and for what end? For the very end which I have been preaching to you. ‘That they should be holy, and without blame before God, in Love.’ That was heaven. If they were that,—holy, blameless, loving, they were in heavenly places already,—in that moral and spiritual heaven in which God abides for ever. They were with God, and with all who are like God, as it is written, ‘He that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God, and God in him.’

My dear friends, this is the heaven for which we are all to strive—a heaven of goodness, wherein God dwells. And therefore an eternal and everlasting heaven, as eternal as goodness and as eternal as God himself; and if we are living in it, we have all we need. But we may begin to live in it here. To what particular place our souls go after death, Scripture does not tell us, and we need not know. To what particular place our souls and bodies go after the resurrection, Scripture tells us not, and we need not know. But this Scripture tells us, and that is enough for us, that they will be in heavenly places, in the presence of Christ and of God. And this Scripture tells us—and indeed our own conscience and reason tell us likewise—that though death may alter our place, it cannot alter our character; though it may alter the circumstances round us, it cannot alter ourselves. If we have been good and pure before death, we shall be good and pure after death. If we have been led and inspired by God’s Spirit before death, so shall we be after death. If we have been in heavenly places before death, thinking heavenly thoughts, feeling heavenly feelings, and doing heavenly deeds, then we shall be in heavenly places after death; for we shall have with us the Spirit of God, whose presence is heaven; and as long as we are holy, good, pure, unselfish, just, and merciful, we may be persuaded, with St. Paul, that wheresoever we go, all will be well; for ‘neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.’

SERMON IX. THE HUMANITY OF GOD.

ST. LUKE XV. 7.

I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner
that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which
need no repentance.

THERE are three parables in this chapter: all agree in one quality—in their humanity. God shows us in them that there is something in his character which is like the best and simplest parts of our characters. God himself likens himself to men, that men may understand him and love him.

Why there should be more joy over the repenting sinner than over the just man who needs no repentance, we cannot explain in words: but our hearts tell us that it is true, beautiful; that it is reasonable, though we can give no reason for it. You know that if you had lost a sheep; if you had lost a piece of money; if you had had a child run away from you, it would be far more pleasant to find that thing which you had lost, than never to have lost it at all. You do not know why. God tells you that it is a part of his image and likeness in you; that you rejoice over what you have lost and found again, because God rejoices over what he has lost and found again.

And is not this a gospel, and good news? Is it not good news that we need never be afraid or ashamed to give way to our tenderness and pity? for God does not think it beneath him to be tender and pitiful. Is it not good news that we need never be afraid or ashamed to forgive, to take back those who have neglected us, wronged us? for God does not think it beneath him to do likewise. That we need never show hardness, pride, sternness to our children when they do wrong, but should win them by love and tenderness, caring for them all the more, the less they care for themselves? for God does even so to us, who have sinned against him far more than our children ever can sin against us.

And is it not good news, again, that God does care for sinners, and for all kinds and sorts of sinners? Some go wrong from mere stupidity and ignorance, because they know no better; because they really are not altogether accountable for their own doings. They are like the silly sheep, who gets out over the fence of his own fancy: and yet no reasonable man will be angry with the poor thing. It knows no better. How many a poor young thing goes wandering away, like that silly sheep, and having once lost its way, cannot get back again, but wanders on further and further, till it lies down all desperate, tired out, mired in the bogs, and torn about with thorns!

Then the good shepherd does not wait for that sheep to come back. He goes and seeks it far and wide, up hill and down dale, till he finds it; and having found it, he does not beat it, rate it—not even drive it home before him. It is tired and miserable. If it has been foolish, it has punished itself enough for its folly; and all he feels for it is pity and love. It wants rest, and he gives it rest at his own expense. He lays it on his shoulders, and takes it home, calling on all heaven and earth to rejoice with him. Ah, my friends, if that is not the picture of a God whom you can love, of a God whom you can trust, what God would you have?

Some, again, go wrong from ignorance and bad training, bad society, bad education, bad example; and in other countries—though, thank God, not in this—from bad laws and bad government. How many thousands and hundreds of thousands are ruined, as it seems to us, thereby! The child born in a London alley, reared up among London thieves, taught to swear, lie, steal, never entering a school or church, never hearing the name of God save in oaths—There is the lost piece of money. It is a valuable thing; the King’s likeness is stamped on it: but it is useless, because it is lost, lying in the dust and darkness, hidden in a corner, unable to help itself, and of no use to any one. And so there is many a person, man and woman, who is worth something, who has God’s likeness on them, who, if they were brought home to God, might be of good use in the world; but they are lost, from ignorance and bad training. They lie in a corner in darkness, not knowing their own value in God’s eyes; not knowing that they bear his image, though it be all crusted over with the dust and dirt of barbarism and bad habits. Then Christ will go after them, and seek diligently till he finds them, and cleanses them, and makes them bright, and of good use again in his Church and his kingdom. They are worth something, and Christ will not let them be wasted; he will send clergymen, teachers, missionaries, schools, reformatories, penitentiaries, hospitals—ay, and other messengers of his, of whom we never dream, for his ways are as high above our ways as the heaven is above the earth: with all these he sweeps his house, and his blessing is on them all, for by them he finds the valuable coin which was lost.

But there is a third sort of sinner, spoken of in Christ’s next parable in this chapter, from which my text is taken, of whom it is not said that God the Father sends out to seek and to save him. That is the prodigal son, who left his father’s house, and strayed away of his own wantonness and free will. Christ does not go out after him. He has gone away of his own will; and of his own will he must come back: and he has to pay a heavy price for his folly—to taste hunger, shame, misery, all but despair. For understand—if any of you fancy that you can sin without being punished—that the prodigal son is punished, and most severely. He does not get off freely, the moment he chooses to repent, as false preachers will tell you: even after he does repent, and resolves to go back to his father’s house, he has a long journey home, in poverty and misery, footsore, hungry, and all but despairing. But when he does get home; when he shows that he has learnt the bitter lesson; when all he dares to ask is, ‘Make me as one of thy hired servants,’ he is received as freely as the rest. And it is worth while to remark, that our Lord spends on him tenderer words than on those who are lost by mere foolishness or ignorance. Of him it is not said, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found him,’—but, Bring out the best robe, for this my son—not my sheep, not my piece of money, but my son—was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.

In this is a great mystery; one of which one hardly dares to talk: but one which one must think over in one’s own heart, and say, ‘Oh the depth of the riches and of the knowledge and wisdom of God! How wonderful are his judgments, and his ways past finding out. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, or who hath been his counsellor? Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again?’ Who indeed? God is not a tyrant, who must be appeased with gifts; or a taskmaster, who must be satisfied with the labour of his slaves. He is a father who loves his children; who gives, and loveth to give; who gives to all freely, and upbraideth not. He truly willeth not the death of a sinner, but rather that he should turn from his wickedness and live. His will is a good will; and howsoever much man’s sin and folly may resist it, and seem for a time to mar it, yet he is too great and good to owe any man, even the worst, the smallest spite or grudge. Patiently, nobly, magnanimously, God waits; waits for the man who is a fool, to find out his own folly; waits for the heart which has tried to find pleasure in everything else, to find out that everything else disappoints, and to come back to him, the fountain of all wholesome pleasure, the well-spring of all life fit for a man to live. When the fool finds out his folly; when the wilful man gives up his wilfulness; when the rebel submits himself to law; when the son comes back to his father’s house—there is no sternness, no peevishness, no up-braiding, no pride, no revenge; but the everlasting and boundless love of God wells forth again as rich as ever. He has condescended to wait for his creature; because what he wanted was not his creature’s fear, but his creature’s love; not his lip-obedience, but his heart; because he wanted him not to come back as a trembling slave to his master, but as a son who has found out at last what a father he has left him, when all beside has played him false. Let him come back thus; and then all is forgiven and forgotten; and all that will be said will be, ‘This my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’

SERMON X. GOD’S WORLD.

(_Preached before the Prince of Wales_, _at Sandringham_, 1866.)

GENESIS I. 1.

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

IT may seem hardly worth while to preach upon this text. Every one thinks that he believes it. Of course—they say—we know that God made the world. Teach us something we do not know, not something which we do. Why preach to us about a text which we fully understand, and believe already?

Because, my friends, there are few texts in the Bible more difficult to believe than this, the very first; few texts which we need to repeat to ourselves again and again, in all the chances and changes of this mortal life; lest we should forget it just as we feel we are most sure of it.

We know that it was very difficult for people in olden times to believe it. Else why did all the heathens of old, and why do all heathens now, worship idols?

We know that the old Jews, after it had been revealed to them, found it very difficult to believe it. Else why were they always deserting the worship of God, and worshipping idols and devils, sun, moon, and stars, and all the host of heaven?

We know that the early Christians, in spite of the light of the Gospel and of God’s Spirit, found it very difficult to believe it. Doubtless they believed it a thousand times more fully than it had ever been believed before. They would have shrunk with horror from saying that any one but God had made the heavens and the earth. But Christians clung, for many hundred years, even almost up to our own day, to old heathen superstitions, which they would have cast away if their faith had been full, and if they had held with their whole hearts and souls and minds, that there was one God, of whom are all things. They believed that the Devil and evil spirits had power to raise thunderstorms, and blight crops, and change that course of nature of which the Psalmist had said, that all things served God, and continued this day as at the beginning, for God had given them a law which could not be broken. They believed in magic, and astrology, and a hundred other dreams, which all began from secret disbelief that God made the heaven and the earth; till they fancied that the Devil could and would teach men the secrets of nature, and the way to be rich and great, if they would but sell their souls to him. They believed, in a word, the very atheistic lie which Satan told to our blessed Lord, when he said that all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them were his, and to whomsoever he would he gave them—instead of believing our Lord’s answer, ‘Get thee behind me, Satan: it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.’

And therefore I tell you here—as the Church has told Christian people in all ages—that if any of you have any fancy for such follies, any belief in charms and magic, any belief that you can have your fortunes told by astrologers, gipsies, or such like, you must go back to your Bible, and learn better the first text in it. ‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.’ God’s is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, of all things visible and invisible; all the world round us, with its wonderful secrets, is governed, from the sun over our heads, to the smallest blade of grass beneath our feet, by God, and by God alone, and neither evil spirit nor magician has the smallest power over one atom of it; and our fortunes, in likewise, do not depend on the influences of stars or planets, ghosts or spirits, or anything else: but on ourselves, of whom it is written, that God shall judge every man according to his works.

Even now, in these very days, many good people are hardly able, it seems to me, to believe with their whole hearts that God made heaven and earth. They half believe it: but their faith is weak; and when it is tried, they grow frightened, and afraid of truth. This it is which makes so many good people afraid of what is now called Science—of all new discoveries about the making of this earth, and the powers and virtues of the things about us; afraid of wonders which are become matters of course among us, but of which our forefathers knew little or nothing. They are afraid lest these things should shake people’s faith in the Bible, and in Christianity; lest men should give up the good old faith of their forefathers, and fancy that the world is grown too wise to believe in the old doctrines. One cannot blame them, cannot even be surprised at them. So many wonderful truths (for truths they are), of which our fathers never dreamed, are discovered every year, that none can foretell where the movement will stop; what we shall hear next; what we shall have to believe next.

Only, let us take refuge in the text—‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.’ All that we see around us, however wonderful; all that has been found out of late, however wonderful; all that will be ever found out, however still more wonderful it may be, is the work of God; of that God who revealed himself to Moses; of that God who led the children of Israel out of their slavery in Egypt; of that God who taught David, in all his trouble and wanderings, to trust in him as his guide and friend; of that God who revealed to the old Prophets the fate of nations, and the laws by which he governs all the kingdoms and people of the earth; of that God, above all, who so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that the world by him might be saved.

This material world which we do see, is as much God’s world as the spiritual world we do not see. And, therefore, the one cannot contradict the other; and the true understanding of the one will never hurt our true understanding of the other.

But many good people have another fear, and that, I think, a far more serious one. They are afraid, in consequence of all these wonderful discoveries of science, that people will begin to trust in science, and not in God. And that fear is but too well founded. It is certain that if sinful man can find anything to trust in, instead of God, trust therein he surely will.

The old Jews preferred to trust in idols, rather than God; the Christians of the Middle Age, to their shame, trusted in magic and astrology, rather than God; and after that, some 200 years ago, when men had grown too wise to trust in such superstitions, they certainly did not grow wise enough, most of them, to trust in the living God. They relied, the rulers of the nations especially, in their own wit and cunning, and tried to govern the world and keep it straight, by falsehood and intrigue, envy and jealousy, plotting and party spirit, and the wisdom which cometh not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish,—that wisdom against which we pray, whenever we sing ‘God save the Queen,’—

‘Confound their politics,
Frustrate their knavish tricks,
On Thee our hopes we fix,
GOD save the Queen.’

And since that false wisdom has failed, and the wisdom of this world, and the rulers of this world, came to nought in the terrible crisis of the French Revolution, eighty years ago, men have been taking up a new idolatry. For as science has spread, they have been trusting in science rather than in the living God, and giving up the old faith that God’s judgments are in all the earth, and that he rewards righteousness and punishes iniquity; till too many seem to believe that the world somehow made itself, and that there is no living God ordering and guiding it; but that a man must help himself as he best can in this world, for in God no help is to be found.

And how shall we escape that danger?

I do not think we shall escape it, if we stop short at the text. We must go on from the Old Testament and let the New explain it. We must believe what Moses tells us: but we must ask St. John to show us more than Moses saw. Moses tells us that God created the heavens and the earth; St. John goes further, and tells us what that God is like; how he saw Christ, the Word of God, by whom all things were made, and without whom nothing was made that is made. And what was he like? He was the brightness of his Father’s glory, and the express image of his person. And what was that like? was there any darkness in him—meanness, grudging, cruelty, changeableness, deceit? No. He was full of grace and truth. Grace and truth: that is what Christ is; and therefore that is what God is.

There was another aspect of him, true; and St. John saw that likewise. And so awful was it that he fell at the Lord’s feet as he had been dead.

But the Lord was still full of grace and truth; still, however awful he was, he was as full as ever of love, pity, gentleness. He was the Lamb that was slain for the sins of the world, even though that Lamb was in the midst of the throne from which came forth thunderings and lightnings, and judgments against the sins of all the world. Terrible to wrong, and to the doers of wrong: but most loving and merciful to all true penitents, who cast themselves and the burden of their sins before his feet; perfect justice and perfect Love,—that is God. That is the maker of this world. That is he who in the beginning made heaven and earth. An utterly good God. A God whose mercy is over all his creatures. A God who desires the good of his creatures; who willeth not that one little one should perish; who will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth; who wages everlasting war against sin and folly, and wrong and misery, and all the ills to which men are heirs; who not only made the world, but loves the world, and who proved that—what a proof!—by not sparing his only-begotten Son, but freely giving him for us.

Therefore we can say, not merely,—I know that a God made the world, but I know what that God is like. I know that he is not merely a great God, a wise God, but a good God; that goodness is his very essence. I know that he is gracious and merciful, long suffering, and of great kindness. I know that he is loving to every man, and that his mercy is over all his works. I know that he upholds those who fall, and lifts up those who are down; I know that he careth for the fatherless and widow, and executes judgment and justice for all those who are oppressed with wrong. I know that he will fulfil the desire of those who call upon him; and will also hear their cry and will help them. I know, in short, that he is a living God, and a loving God; a God in whom men may trust, to whom they may open their hearts, as children to their father: and I am sure that those who come to him he will in no wise cast out; for he himself has said, with human voice upon this earth of ours,—‘Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.’

In him all can trust. The sick man on his bed can trust in him and say—In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth; and he is full of grace and truth. This sickness of mine comes by the laws of heaven and earth; and those laws are God’s laws. Then even this sickness may be full of grace and truth. It comes by no blind chance, but by the will of him who so loved me, that he stooped to die for me on the Cross. Christ my Lord and God has some gracious and bountiful purpose in it, some lesson for me to learn from it. I will ask him to teach me that lesson; and I trust in him that he will teach me; and that, even for this sickness and this sorrow, I shall have cause to thank him in the world to come. Shall I not trust him who not only made this world, but so loved it that he stooped to die for it upon the Cross?

The labourer and the farmer can trust in him, in the midst of short crops and bad seasons, and say, In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth; and he is full of grace and truth. Frost and blight obey his commands as well as sunshine and plenty. He knows best what ought to be. Shall we not trust in him, who not only made this world, but so loved it, that he stooped to die for it upon the Cross?

The scholar and the man of science, studying the wonders of this earth, can trust in him, and say, In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth; and he is full of grace and truth. Many things puzzle me; and the more I learn the less I find I really know; but I shall know as much as is good for me, and for mankind. God is full of grace, and will not grudge me knowledge; and full of truth, and will not deceive me. And I shall never go far wrong as long as I believe, not only in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of all things visible and invisible, but in one Lord Jesus Christ, his only-begotten Son, light of light, very God of very God, by whom all things were made, who for us men and our salvation came down, and died, and rose again; whose kingdom shall have no end; who rules over every star and planet, every shower and sunbeam, every plant and animal and stone, every body and every soul of man; who will teach men, in his good time and way, all that they need know, in order to multiply and replenish the earth, and subdue it in this life, and attain everlasting life in the world to come. And for the rest, puzzled though I be, shall I not trust him, who not only made this world, but so loved it, that he stooped to die for it upon the Cross?

SERMON XI. THE ARMOUR OF GOD.

(_Preached before the Prince of Wales_, _at Sandringham_, _January_
20_th_, 1867.)

EPHESIANS VI. 11.

Put on the whole armour of God.

ST. PAUL again and again compares himself and the Christians to whom he writes to soldiers, and their lives to warfare. And it was natural that he should do so. Everywhere he went, in those days, he would find Roman soldiers, ruling over men of different races from themselves, and ruling them, on the whole, well. Greeks, Syrians, Jews, Egyptians,—all alike in his days obeyed the Roman soldiers, who had conquered the then known world.

And St. Paul and his disciples wished to conquer the world likewise. The Roman soldier had conquered it for Cæsar: St. Paul would conquer it for Christ. The Roman soldier had used bodily force—the persuasion of the sword. St. Paul would use spiritual force—the persuasion of preaching. The Roman soldier wrestled against flesh and blood: St. Paul wrestled against more subtle and dangerous enemies—spiritual enemies, he calls them—who enslaved and destroyed the reason, and conscience, and morals of men.

St. Paul and his disciples, I say, had set before themselves no less a task than to conquer the world.

Therefore, he says, they must copy the Roman soldier, and put on their armour, as he put on his. He took Cæsar’s armour, and put on Cæsar’s uniform. They must take the armour of God, that they may withstand in the evil day of danger and battle, and having done all,—done their duty manfully as good soldiers,—stand; keep their ranks, and find themselves at the end of the battle not scattered and disorganized, but in firm and compact order, like the Roman soldiers, who, by drill and discipline, had conquered the irregular and confused troops of all other nations.

Let me, this morning, explain St. Paul’s words to you, one by one. We shall find them full of lessons—and right wholesome lessons—for in this parable of the armour of God St. Paul sketches what you and I and every man should be. He sketches the character of a good man, a true man, a man after God’s own heart.

First, the Christians are to gird their loins—to cover the lower part of their body, which is the most defenceless. That the Roman soldier did with a kilt, much like that which the Highlanders wear now. And that garment was to be Truth. Truthfulness, honesty, that was to be the first defence of a Christian man, instead of being, as too many so-called Christians make it, the very last. Honesty, before all other virtues, was to gird his very loins, was to protect his very vitals.

The breastplate, which covered the upper part of the body, was to be righteousness—which we now commonly call, justice. To be a just man, after being first a truthful man, was the Christian’s duty.

And his helmet was to be the hope of Salvation—that is, of safety: not merely of being saved in the next world—though of course St. Paul includes that—but of being saved in this world; of coming safe through the battle of life; of succeeding; of conquering the heathen round them, and making them Christians, instead of being conquered by them. The hope of safety was to be his helmet, to guard his head—the thinking part. We all know how a blow on the head confuses and paralyses a man, making him (as we say) lose his head. We know too, how, in spiritual matters, terror and despair deal a deadly blow to a man’s mind,—how if a man expects to fail, he cannot think clearly and calmly,—how often desperation and folly go hand in hand; for, if a man loses hope, he is but too apt to lose his reason. The Christian’s helmet, then,—that which would save his head, and keep his mind calm, prudent, strong, and active,—was the hope of success.

And for their feet—they must be shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace.

That is a grand saying, if you will remember that the key-word, which explains it all, is Peace, and the Gospel, that is, the good news, thereof.

The Roman soldier had his preparation, which kept him prepared and ready to march through the world; and of that St. Paul was thinking, and had need to think; for he had heard the sound of it in every street, on every high road, from Jerusalem to Ephesus, ever since he was a child—the tramp of the heavy nailed boot which the Roman soldier always wore. The Roman soldiers were proud of their boots,—so proud that, in St. Paul’s time, they nicknamed one of their royal princes Caligula, because, as a boy in camp, he used to wear boots like the common soldiers: and he bore that name when he became emperor, and bears it to this day. And they had reason to be proud, after their own notion of glory. For that boot had carried them through desert and through cities, over mountain ranges, through trackless forests, from Africa even into Britain here, to be the conquerors of the then known world; and, wherever the tramp of that boot had been heard, it had been the sound, not of the good news of peace, but of the evil news of war. Isaiah of old, watching for the deliverance of the Jews from captivity, heard in the spirit the footsteps of the messengers coming with the news that Cyrus was about to send the Jews home to their own land, and cried, ‘How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of them that bring good tidings, that publish peace!’ But the tramp of the Roman armies had as yet brought little but bad tidings, and published destruction. Men slain in battle, women and children driven off captive, villages burnt, towns sacked and ruined, till wherever their armies passed—as one of their own writers has said—they made a desert, and then called that peace.

So had the Roman soldier marched over the world, and conquered it. And now Christ’s soldiers were beginning their march over the world, that they might conquer it by fulfilling Isaiah’s prophecy. They were going forth, with their feet shod with the good news of Peace; to treat all men, not as their enemies, not as their slaves, but as their brothers; and to bring them good news, and bid them share in it,—the good news that God was at peace with them, and that they might now be at peace with their own consciences, and at peace with each other, for all were brothers in Jesus Christ their Lord.

Shod with that good news of peace, these Christians were going to conquer the world, and to penetrate into distant lands from which the Roman armies had been driven back in shameful defeat. To penetrate, too, where the Roman armies never cared to go,—among the miserable and crowded lanes of the great cities, and conquer there what the Roman armies could not conquer—the vice, the misery, the cruelty, the idolatry of the heathen.

The shield, again, guarded those parts of the soldier which the armour did not guard. It warded off the stones, arrows, and darts—fiery darts often, as St. Paul says, which were hurled at him from afar. And the Christian’s shield, St. Paul says, was to be Faith,—trust in God,—belief that he was fighting God’s battle, and not his own; belief that God was over him in the battle, and would help and guide him, and give him strength to do his work. To believe firmly that he was in the right, and on God’s side. To believe that, when he was wounded and struck down,—when men deserted him, cursed him, tried to take his life—perhaps did take his life—with torments unspeakable,—to have faith to say in his heart, ‘I am in the right.’ When he was writhing under the truly fiery darts of misrepresentation, slander, scorn, or under the equally fiery darts of remorse for his own mistakes, his own weaknesses, still to say after all, ‘I am in the right.’ That shield of faith, though it might not save him from wounds, torturing wounds, perhaps crippling wounds, would at least save his life,—at least protect his vitals; and, when he seemed stricken to the very earth, he could still shelter himself under that shield of faith, and cry, ‘Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy; when I fall, I shall arise.’

And they were to take a sword. They were to use only one weapon, as the Roman soldier used but one. For, though he went into battle armed with a short heavy pike, he hurled it at once against the enemy; then he closed in with his sword, and fought the real battle with that alone, hand to hand, and knee to knee. The short Roman sword, used by brave men in close fight, had defeated all the weapons of all the nations. St. Paul knew that fact, as well as we; and I cannot but suppose that he had it in his mind when he wrote these great words, and that he meant to bid Christians, when they fought God’s battle, to fight, like the Romans, hand to hand: not to indulge in cowardly stratagems, intrigues, and lawyers’ quibbles, fighting like the barbarians, cowardly and afar off, hurling stones, and shooting clouds of arrows, but to grapple with their enemies, looking them boldly in the face, as honest men should do, trying their strength against them fairly, and striking them to the heart. But with what? With that sword which, if it wound, heals likewise,—if it kills, also makes alive; the sword which slays the sins of a man, that he may die to sin, but rise again to righteousness; the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, the message of God, the speech of God, the commandment of God. They were to conquer the world simply by saying, ‘Thus saith the Lord.’ They were to preach God, and God alone, revealed in his Son, Jesus Christ, a God of love, who willed that none should perish, but that all should come to the knowledge of the truth.

But a God of wrath likewise. We must never forget that. A merely indulgent God would be an unjust God, and a cruel God likewise. If God be just, as he is, then he has boundless pity for those who are weak: but boundless wrath for the strong who misuse the weak. Boundless pity for those who are ignorant, misled, and out of the right way: but boundless wrath for those who mislead them, and put them out of the right way. All through St. Paul’s Epistles, as through our blessed Lord’s sayings and doings, you see this wholesome mixture of severity and mercy, of Divine anger and Divine love, very different from the sentimentalism of our own times, when men fancy that, because they dislike the pain and trouble of punishing evil-doers, God is even such a one as themselves, who sits still and takes no heed of the wrong which is done on earth.

No. The Christians were to tell men of both sides of God’s character; for both were working every day, and all day long, about them. They were to tell men that God had, by their mouths, revealed from heaven his wrath against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, at the same moment that he had revealed the good news that men might be purified by the blood of Christ, and saved from wrath through him. They were to tell men of a God who so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son to die for it; but of a God who so loved the world that he would not tolerate in it those sins which cause the ruin of the world. Tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth evil, and glory, honour, and peace to every man that worketh good—that was to be their message, that was to be their weapon, wherewith they were to strike, and did strike, through the hearts of sinners, and convert them to repentance that they might die to sin, and live again to righteousness.

With this armour, and that one weapon, the Word of God, the Christians conquered the souls of the men of the old world. Often they failed, often they were defeated, sadly and shamefully; for they were men of like passions with ourselves. But their defeats always happened when they tried other armour than the armour of God, and fancied that they could fight the world, the flesh, and the devil with the weapons which the world, the flesh, and the devil had forged.

Still they conquered at last—for God was with them, and the Spirit of God; and they put on again and again the armour of God, _after_ they had cast it off for a while to their own hurt.

And so shall we conquer in the battle of life just in proportion as we fight our battle with the armour of God.

My friends, each and all of you surely wish to succeed in life; and to succeed, not merely in getting money, still less merely in getting pleasure, but with a far nobler and far more real success. You wish, I trust, to be worthy, virtuous, respectable, useful Christian men and women; to be honoured while you live, and regretted when you die; to leave this world with the feeling that your life has not been a failure, and your years given you in vain: but that, having done some honest work at least in this world, you are going to a world where all injustice shall be set right.

Then here, in St. Paul’s words, are the elements of success in life. This, and this only, is the way to true success, to put on the whole armour of God. Truthfulness, justice, peaceableness, faith in God’s justice and mercy, hope of success, and the sword of the Spirit, even that word of God which, if you do not preach it to others, you can and should preach to yourselves all day long, continually asking yourselves, ‘What would God have me to do? What is likely to be his will and message upon the matter which I have in hand?’—all these qualities go to make up the character of the worthy man or woman, the useful person, the truly able person, who does what he can do, well, because he is what he ought to be, good; and all these qualities you need if you will fight the battle of life like men, and conquer instead of being conquered therein.

But some will say, and with truth, ‘It is easy to tell us to be good: we can no more change our own character than we can change our own bodies; the question is, who will make us good?’ Who indeed, save he who said, ‘Ask and ye shall receive?’ St. Paul knew well enough that if his armour was God’s armour, God alone could forge it, and God alone could bestow it; and therefore he ends his commands with this last command—‘Praying always, with all prayer and supplication in the spirit, and watching thereto with all perseverance, and supplication for all saints.’ Those who wrote the Church Catechism knew it likewise, and have said to us from our very childhood: ‘My good child, know this: that thou canst not do these things of thyself, nor walk in the commandments of God and serve him without his special grace; which thou must learn at all times to call for by diligent prayer.’

Yes, my friends, there is but one way to obtain that armour of God, which will bring us safe through the battle of life; and that is, pray for it. Ask, and it shall be given to you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. You who wish for true success in life, pray. Pray, if you never prayed before, morning and evening, with your whole hearts, for that Spirit of God which is truth, justice, peace, faith, and hope—and you shall not pray in vain.

SERMON XII. PAUL AND FELIX.

ACTS XXIV. 25.

And as he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to
come, Felix trembled, and answered, Go thy way for this time; when I
have a convenient season, I will call for thee.

THIS is a well-known text, on which many a sermon has been preached, and with good reason, for it is an important text. It tells us of a man who, like too many men in all times, trembled when he heard the truth about his wicked life, but did not therefore repent and mend; and a very serious lesson we may draw from his example.

But even a more important fact about the text is, that it tells us what were really the fundamental doctrines of the Christian religion in those early times, about twenty-five years, seemingly, after our Lord’s death; what St. Paul used to preach about; what he considered was the first thing which he had to tell men.

Let us take this latter question first. About what did St. Paul reason before Felix?

About righteousness (which means justice), temperance, and judgment to come.

I beg you to remember these words. If you believe the Bible to be inspired, you are bound to take its words as they stand. And therefore I beg you to remember that St. Paul preached not about _un_righteousness, but righteousness; not about _in_temperance, but about temperance; not about hell, but about judgment to come; in a word, not about wrong, but about right. I hope that does not seem to you a small matter. I hope that none of you are ready to say, ‘It comes to the same thing in the end.’ It does not come to the same thing. There is no use in telling a man what is wrong, unless you first tell him what is right. There is no use rebuking a man for being bad, unless you first tell him how he may become better, and give him hope for himself, or you will only drive him to recklessness and despair. You must show him the right road, before you can complain of him for going the wrong one.

But if St. Paul had reasoned with Felix about injustice, intemperance, and hell, one could not have been surprised. For Felix was a thoroughly bad man, unjust and intemperate, and seemingly fitting himself for hell.

He had begun life as a slave of the emperor in a court which was a mere sink of profligacy and villainy. Then he had got his freedom, and next, the governorship of Judæa, probably by his brother Pallas’s interest, who had been a slave like him, and had made an enormous fortune by the most detestable wickedness.

When in his governorship, Felix began to show himself as wicked as his brother. The violence, misrule, extortion, and cruelty which went on in Judæa was notorious. He caused the high-priest at Jerusalem to be murdered out of spite. Drusilla, his wife, he had taken away from a Syrian king, who was her lawful husband. Making money seems to have been his great object; and the great Roman historian of those times sums up his character in a few bitter words thus: ‘Felix,’ he says, ‘exercised the power of a king with the heart of a slave, in all cruelty and lust.’

Such was the wicked upstart whom God, for the sins of the Jews, had allowed to rule them in St. Paul’s time; and before him St. Paul had to plead for his life.

The first time that St. Paul came before him Felix seems to have seen at once that Paul was innocent, and a good man; and that, perhaps, was the reason why he sent for him again, and, strangely enough, heard him concerning the faith in Christ.

There was some conscience left, it seems, in the wretched man. He was not easy, amid his ill-gotten honour, ill-gotten wealth, ill-gotten pleasures; and perhaps, as many men are in such a case, he was superstitious, afraid of being punished for his sins, and looking out for false prophets, smooth preachers, new religions which would make him comfortable in his sins, and drug his conscience by promising the wicked man life, where God had not promised it. So he wanted, it seems, to know what this new faith in Christ was like; and he heard.

And what he heard we may very fairly guess, because we know from St. Paul’s writings what he was in the habit of saying.

St. Paul told him of righteousness—a word of which he was very fond. He told Felix of a righteous and good God, who had manifested to man his righteousness and goodness, in the righteousness and goodness of his Son Jesus; a righteous God, who wished to make all men righteous like himself, that they might be happy for ever. Perhaps St. Paul called Felix to give up all hopes of having his own righteousness—the false righteousness of forms, and ceremonies, and superstitions—and to ask for the righteousness of Christ, which is a clean heart and a right spirit; and then he set before him no doubt, as was his custom, the beauty of righteousness, the glory of it, as St. Paul calls it; how noble, honourable, divine, godlike a thing it is to be good.

Then St. Paul told Felix of temperance. And what he said we may fairly guess from his writings. He would tell Felix that there were two elements in every man, the flesh and the spirit, and that those warred against each other: the flesh trying to drag him down, that he may become a brute in fleshly lusts and passions; the spirit trying to raise him up, that he may become a son of God in purity and virtue. But if so, what need must there be of temperance! How must a man be bound to be temperate, to keep under his body and bring it into subjection, bound to restrain the lower and more brutal feelings in him, that the higher and purer feelings may grow and thrive in him to everlasting life! Truly the temperate man, the man who can restrain himself, is the only strong man, the only safe man, the only happy man, the only man worthy of the name of man at all. This, or something like this, St. Paul would have said to Felix. He did not, as far as we know, rebuke him for his sins. He left him to rebuke himself. He told him what ought to be, what he ought to do, and left the rest to his conscience. Poor Felix, brought up a heathen slave in that profligate court of Rome, had probably never heard of righteousness and temperance, had never had what was good and noble set before him. Now St. Paul set the good before him, and showed him a higher life than any he had ever dreamed of—higher than all his viceregal power and pomp—and bade him see how noble and divine it was to be good.

But it is written St. Paul reasoned with Felix about judgment to come.

We must not too hastily suppose that this means that he told Felix that he was in danger of hell-fire. For that is an argument which St. Paul never uses anywhere in his writings or speeches, as far as we know them. He never tries, as too many do now-a-days, to frighten sinners into repentance, by telling them of the flames of hell; and therefore we have no right to fancy that he did so by Felix. He told him of judgment to come; and we can guess from his writings what he would have said. That there was a living God who judged the earth always by his Son Jesus Christ, and that he was coming then, immediately, to punish all the horrible wickedness which was then going on in those parts of the world which St. Paul knew. St. Paul always speaks of the terrible judgments of God as about to come in his own days, we know that they did come.