Chapter IX: Part 9

When we consider such sad figures on the page of history, we may have, I say, all respect for their private virtues. We may accept every excuse for their public mistakes. And yet we may feel a solemn satisfaction at their downfall, when we see it to have been necessary for the progress of mankind, and according to those laws and that will of God and of Christ, by which alone the human race is ruled. We may look back on old orders of things with admiration; even with a touch of pardonable, though sentimental, regret. But we shall not forget that the old order changes, giving place to the new;

And God fulfils Himself in many ways,
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.

And we shall believe, too, if we be wise, that all these things were written for our example, that we may see, and fear, and be turned to the Lord, each asking himself solemnly, What is the system on which I am governing my actions? Is it according to the laws and will of God, as revealed in facts? Let me discover that in time: lest, when it becomes bankrupt in God's books, I be involved--I cannot guess how far--in the common ruin of my compeers.

What is my duty? Let me go and work at it, lest a night come, in which I cannot work. What fruit am I expected to bring forth? Let me train and cultivate my mind, heart, whole humanity to bring it forth, lest the great Husbandman come seeking fruit on me, and find none. And if I see a man who falls in the battle of life, let me not count him a worse sinner than myself; but let me judge myself in fear and trembling; lest God judge me, and I perish in like wise.

SERMON XXI. THE WAR IN HEAVEN.

REV. XIX. 11-16.

And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat
upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth
judge and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head
were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he
himself. And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his
name is called The Word of God. And the armies which were in heaven
followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and
clean. And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he
should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron:
and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty
God. And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, KING
OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.

Let me ask you to consider seriously this noble passage. It was never more worth men's while to consider it than now, when various selfish and sentimental religions--call them rather superstitions--have made men altogether forget the awful reality of Christ's kingdom; the awful fact that Christ reigns, and will reign, till He has put all enemies under His feet.

Who, then, is He of whom the text speaks? Who is this personage, who appears eternally in heaven as a warrior, with His garments stained with blood, the leader of armies, smiting the nations, and ruling them with a rod of iron?

St John tells us that He had one name which none knew save Himself. But he tells us that He was called Faithful and True; and he tells us, too, that He had another name which St John did know; and that is, "The Word of God."

Now who the Word of God is, all are bound to know who call themselves Christians; even Jesus Christ our Lord, who was born of the Virgin Mary, crucified under Pontius Pilate, rose again the third day, ascended into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God.

He it is who makes everlasting war as King of kings and Lord of lords. But against what does He make war? His name tells us that. For it is--Faithful and True; and therefore He makes war against all things and beings who are unfaithful and false. He Himself is full of chivalry, full of fidelity; and therefore all that is unchivalrous and treacherous is hateful in His eyes; and that which He hates, He is both able and willing to destroy.

Moreover, He makes war in righteousness. And therefore all men and things which are unrighteous and unjust are on the opposite side to Him; His enemies, which He will trample under His feet. The only hope for them, and indeed for all mankind, is that He does make war in righteousness, and that He Himself is faithful and true, whoever else is not; that He is always just, always fair, always honourable and courteous; that He always keeps His word; and governs according to fixed and certain laws, which men may observe and calculate upon, and shape their conduct accordingly, sure that Christ's laws will not change for any soul on earth or in heaven. But, within those honourable and courteous conditions, He will, as often as He sees fit, smite the nations, and rule them with a rod of iron; and tread the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.

And if any say--as too many in these luxurious unbelieving days will say--What words are these? Threatening, terrible, cruel? My answer is,--The words are not mine. I did not put them into the Bible. I find them there, and thousands like them, in the New Testament as well as in the Old, in the Gospels and Epistles as well as in the Revelation of St John. If you do not like them, your quarrel must be, not with me, but with the whole Bible, and especially with St John the Apostle, who said--"Little children, love one another;" and who therefore was likely to have as much love and pity in his heart as any philanthropic, or sentimental, or superstitious, or bigoted, personage of modern days.

And if any one say,--But you must mistake the meaning of the text. It must be understood spiritually. The meek and gentle Jesus, who is nothing but love and mercy, cannot be such an awful and destroying being as you would make Him out to be. Then I must answer--That our Lord was meek and gentle when on earth, and therefore is meek and gentle for ever and ever, there can be no doubt. "I am meek and lowly of heart," He said of Himself. But with that meekness and lowliness, and not in contradiction to it, there was, when He was upon earth, and therefore there is now and for ever, a burning indignation against all wrong and falsehood; and especially against that worst form of falsehood--hypocrisy; and that worst form of hypocrisy--covetousness which shelters itself under religion.

When our Lord saw men buying and selling in the temple, He made a scourge of cords, and drove them out, and overthrew the tables of the money-changers, and said,--"It is written, my Father's house is a house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves."

When He faced the Pharisees, who were covetous, He had no meek and gentle words for them: but, "Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?"

And because His character is perfect and eternal: because He is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, we are bound by the Christian faith to believe that He has now, and will have for ever, the same Divine indignation against wrong, the same determination to put it down: and to cast out of His kingdom, which is simply the whole universe, all that offends, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.

And if any say, as some say now-a-days--"Ah, but you cannot suppose that our Lord would propagate His Gospel by the sword, or wish Christians to do so." My friends, this chapter and this sermon has nothing to do with the propagation of the Gospel, in the popular sense; nothing to do with converting heathens or others to Christianity. It has to do with that awful government of the world, of which the Bible preaches from beginning to end; that moral and providential kingdom of God, which rules over the destiny of every kingdom, every nation, every tribe, every family, nay, over the destiny of each human being; ay, of each horde of Tartars on the furthest Siberian steppe, and each group of savages in the furthest island of the Pacific; rendering to each man according to his works, rewarding the good, punishing the bad, and exterminating evildoers, even wholesale and seemingly without discrimination, when the measure of their iniquity is full. Christ's herald in this noble chapter calls men, not to repentance, but to inevitable doom. His angel--His messenger--stands in the sun, the source of light and life; above this petty planet, its fashions, its politics, its sentimentalities, its notions of how the universe ought to have been made and managed; and calls to whom?--to all the fowl that fly in the firmament of heaven--"Come and gather yourselves together, to the feast of the great God, that ye may eat the flesh of kings, and of captains, and of mighty men; and the flesh of horses and of them that sit on them; and the flesh of all men, both free and slave, both small and great."

What those awful words may mean I cannot say. But this I say, that the Apostle would never have used such words, conveying so plain and so terrible a meaning to anyone who has ever seen or heard of a battle-field, if he had really meant by them nothing like a battle-field at all.

It may be that these words have fulfilled themselves many times--at the fall of Jerusalem--at the wars which convulsed the Roman empire during the first century after Christ--at the final fall of the Roman empire before the lances of our German ancestors--in many another great war, and national calamity, in many a land since then. It may be, too, that, as learned divines have thought, they will have their complete fulfilment in some war of all wars, some battle of all battles; in which all the powers of evil, and all those who love a lie, shall be arrayed against all the powers of good, and all those who fear God and keep His commandments: to fight it out, if the controversy can be settled by no reason, no persuasion; a battle in which the whole world shall discover that, even in an appeal to brute force, the good are stronger than the bad; because they have moral force also on their side; because God and the laws of His whole universe are fighting for them, against those who transgress law, and outrage reason.

The wisest of living Britons has said,--"Infinite Pity, yet infinite rigour of Law. It is so that the world is made." I should add, It is so the world must be made, because it is made by Jesus Christ our Lord, and its laws are the likeness of His character; pitiful, because Christ is pitiful; and rigorous, because He is rigorous. So pitiful is Christ, that He did not hesitate to be slain for men, that mankind through Him might be saved. But so rigorous is Christ, that He does not hesitate to slay men, if needful, that mankind thereby may be saved. War and bloodshed, pestilence and famine, earthquake and tempest--all of them, as sure as there is a God, are the servants of God, doing His awful but necessary work, for the final benefit of the whole human race.

It may be difficult to believe this: at least to believe it with the same intense faith with which prophets and apostles of old believed it, and cried--"When Thy judgments, O Lord, are abroad in the earth, then shall the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness." But we must believe it: or we shall be driven to believe in no God at all; and that will be worse for us than all the evil that has happened to us from our youth up until now.

But most people find it very difficult to believe in such a God as the Scripture sets forth--a God of boundless tenderness; and yet a God of boundless indignation.

The covetous and luxurious find it very difficult to understand such a being. Their usual notion of tenderness is a selfish dislike of seeing any one else uncomfortable, because it makes them uncomfortable likewise. Their usual notion of indignation is a selfish desire of revenge against anyone who interferes with their comfort. And therefore they have no wholesome indignation against wrong and wrong-doers, and a great deal of unwholesome tenderness for them. They are afraid of any one's being punished; probably from a fellow-feeling; a suspicion that they deserve to be punished themselves. They hate and dread honest severity, and stern exercise of lawful power. They are indulgent to the bad, severe upon the good; till, as has been bitterly but too truly said,--"Public opinion will allow a man to do anything, except his duty."

Now this is a humour which cannot last. It breeds weakness, anarchy, and at last ruin to society. And then the effeminate and luxurious, terrified for their money and their comfort, fly from an unwholesome tenderness to an unwholesome indignation; break out into a panic of selfish rage; and become, as cowards are apt to do, blindly and wantonly cruel; and those who fancied God too indulgent to punish His enemies, will be the very first to punish their own.

But there are those left, I thank God, in this land, who have a clear understanding of what they ought to be, and an honest desire to be it; who know that a manful indignation against wrong-doing, a hearty hatred of falsehood and meanness, a rigorous determination to do their duty at all risks, and to repress evil with all severity, may dwell in the same heart with gentleness, forgiveness, tenderness to women and children; active pity to the weak, the sick, the homeless; and courtesy to all mankind, even to their enemies.

God grant that that spirit may remain alive among us. For without it we shall not long be a strong nation; not indeed long a nation at all. And it is alive among us. Not that we, any of us, have enough of it--God forgive us for all our shortcomings. And God grant it may remain alive among us; for it is, as far as it goes, the likeness of Christ, the Maker and Ruler of the world.

"Christian," said a great genius and a great divine,

"If thou wouldst learn to love,
Thou first must learn to hate."

And if any one answer--"Hate? Even God hateth nothing that He has made." The rejoinder is,--And for that very reason God hates evil; because He has not made it, and it is ruinous to all that He has made.

Go you and do likewise. Hate what is wrong with all your heart, and mind, and soul, and strength. For so, and so only, you will shew that you love God with all your heart, and mind, and soul, and strength, likewise.

Oh pray--and that not once for all merely, but day by day, ay, almost hour by hour--Strengthen me, O Lord, to hate what Thou hatest, and love what Thou lovest; and therefore, whenever I see an opportunity, to put down what Thou hatest, and to help what Thou lovest--That so, at the last dread day, when every man shall be rewarded according to his works, you may have some answer to give to the awful question--On whose side wert thou in the battle of life? On the side of good men and of God, or on the side of bad men and the devil? Lest you find yourselves forced to reply--as too many will be forced--with surprise, and something like shame and confusion of face--I really do not know. I never thought about the matter at all. I never knew that there was any battle of life.

Never knew that there was any battle of life? And yet you were christened, and signed with the sign of the Cross, in token that you should fight manfully under Christ's banner against sin, the world, and the devil, and continue Christ's faithful soldier and servant to your life's end. Did it never occur to you that those words might possibly mean something? And you used to sing hymns, too, on earth, about "Soldiers of Christ, arise, And put your armour on." What prophets, and apostles, and martyrs, and confessors meant by those words, you should know well enough. Did it never occur to you that they might possibly mean something to you? That as long as the world was no better than it is, there was still a battle of life; and that you too were sworn to fight in it? How many will answer--Yes--Yes--But I thought that these words only meant having my soul saved, and going to heaven when I died. And how did you expect to do that? By believing certain doctrines which you were told were true; and leading a tolerably respectable life, without which you would not have been received into society? Was that all which was needed to go to heaven? And was that all that was meant by fighting manfully under Christ's banner against sin, the world, and the devil? Why, Cyrus and his old Persians, 2,400 years ago, were nearer to the kingdom of God than that. They had a clearer notion of what the battle of life meant than that, when they said that not only the man who did a merciful or just deed, but the man who drained a swamp, tilled a field, made any little corner of the earth somewhat better than he found it, was fighting against Ahriman the evil spirit of darkness, on the side of Ormuzd the good god of light; and that as he had taken his part in Ormuzd's battle, he should share in Ormuzd's triumph.

Oh be at least able to say in that day,--Lord, I am no hero. I have been careless, cowardly, sometimes all but mutinous. Punishment I have deserved, I deny it not. But a traitor I have never been; a deserter I have never been. I have tried to fight on Thy side in Thy battle against evil. I have tried to do the duty which lay nearest me; and to leave whatever Thou didst commit to my charge a little better than I found it. I have not been good: but I have at least tried to be good. I have not done good, it may be, either: but I have at least tried to do good. Take the will for the deed, good Lord. Accept the partial self-sacrifice which Thou didst inspire, for the sake of the one perfect self-sacrifice which Thou didst fulfil upon the Cross. Pardon my faults, out of Thine own boundless pity for human weakness. Strike not my unworthy name off the roll-call of the noble and victorious army, which is the blessed company of all faithful people; and let me, too, be found written in the Book of Life: even though I stand the lowest and last upon its list. Amen.

SERMON XXII. NOBLE COMPANY.

HEBREWS XII. 22, 23.

Ye are come to the city of the living God, and to the spirits of just
men made perfect.

I have quoted only part of the passage of Scripture in which these words occur. If you want a good employment for All Saints' Day, read the whole passage, the whole chapter; and no less, the 11th chapter, which comes before it: so will you understand better the meaning of All Saints' Day. But sufficient for the day is the good thereof, as well as the evil; and the good which I have to say this morning is--You are come to the spirits of just men made perfect; for this is All Saints' Day.

Into the presence of this noble company we have come: even nobler company, remember, than that which was spoken of in the text. For more than 1800 years have passed since the Epistle to the Hebrews was written: and how many thousands of just men and women, pure, noble, tender, wise, beneficent, have graced the earth since then, and left their mark upon mankind, and helped forward the hallowing of our heavenly Father's name, the coming of His kingdom, the doing of His will on earth as it is done in heaven; and helped therefore to abolish the superstition, the misrule, the vice, and therefore the misery of this struggling, moaning world. How many such has Christ sent on this earth during the last 1800 years. How many before that; before His own coming, for many a century and age. We know not, and we need not know. The records of Holy Scripture and of history strike with light an isolated mountain peak, or group of peaks, here and here through the ages; but between and beyond all is dark to us now. But it may not have been dark always. Scripture and history likewise hint to us of great hills far away, once brilliant in the one true sunshine which comes from God, now shrouded in the mist of ages, or literally turned away beyond our horizon by the revolution of our planet: and of lesser hills, too, once bright and green and fair, giving pasture to lonely flocks, sending down fertilizing streams into now forgotten valleys; themselves all but forgotten now, save by the God who made and blessed them.

Yes: many a holy soul, many a useful soul, many a saint who is now at God's right hand, has lived and worked, and been a blessing, himself blest, of whom the world, and even the Church, has never heard, who will never be seen or known again, till the day in which the Lord counteth up His jewels.

Let us rejoice in that thought on this day, above all days in the year. On this day we give special thanks to God for all His servants departed this life in His faith and fear. Let us rejoice in the thought that we know not how many they are; only that they are an innumerable company, out of all tongues and nations, whom no man can number. Let us rejoice that Christ's grace is richer, and not poorer, than our weak imaginations can conceive, or our narrow systems account for. Let us rejoice that the goodly company in whose presence we stand, can be limited and defined by no mortal man, or school of men: but only by Him from whom, with the Father, proceeds for ever the Holy Spirit, the inspirer of all good; and who said of that Spirit--"The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth. So is every one who is born of the Spirit"--and who said again, "John came neither eating nor drinking, and ye said, He hath a devil. The Son of man came eating and drinking, and ye say, Behold a man gluttonous and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. But I say unto you, Verily wisdom is justified of all her children"--and who said again--when John said to Him, "Master, we saw one casting out devils in Thy name, and he followeth not us"--"Forbid him not. For I say to you, that he that doeth a miracle in My name will not lightly speak evil of Me"--and who said, lastly--and most awfully--that the unpardonable sin, either in this life or the life to come, was to attribute beneficent deeds to a bad origin, because they were performed by one who differed from us in opinion; and to say, "He casteth out devils by Beelzebub, prince of the devils."

These are words of our Lord, which we are specially bound to keep in our minds, with reverence and godly fear, on All Saints' Day, lest by arranging our calendar of saints according to our own notions of who ought to be a saint, and who ought not--that is, who agrees with our notions of perfection, and who does not--we exclude ourselves, by fastidiousness, from much unquestionably good company; and possibly mix ourselves up with not a little which is, to say the least, questionable.

Men in all ages, Churchmen or others, have fallen into this mistake. They have been but too ready to limit their calendar of saints; to narrow the thanksgivings which they offer to God on All Saints' Day.

The Romish Church has been especially faulty on this point. It has assumed, as necessary preliminaries for saintship--at least after the Christian era--the practice of, or at least the longing after, celibacy; and after the separation of the Eastern and Western Churches, unconditional submission to the Church of Rome. But how has this injured, if not spoiled, their exclusive calendar of saints. Amid apostles, martyrs, divines, who must be always looked on as among the very heroes and heroines of humanity, we find more than one fanatic persecutor; more than two or three clearly insane personages; and too many who all but justify the terrible sneer--that the Romish Calendar is the "Pantheon of Hysteria."

And Protestants, too--How have they narrowed the number of the spirits of just men made perfect; and confined the Paean which should go up from the human race on All Saints' Day, till a "saint" has too often meant with them only a person who has gone through certain emotional experiences, and assented to certain subjective formulas, neither of which, according to the opinion of some of the soundest divines, both of the Romish, Greek, and Anglican communions, are to be found in the letter of Scripture as necessary to salvation; and who have, moreover, finished their course--doubtless often a holy, beneficent, and beautiful course--by a rapturous death-bed scene, which is more rare in the actual experience of clergymen, and, indeed, in the conscience and experience of human beings in general, than in the imaginations of the writers of religious romances.

But we of the Church of England, as by law established--and I recognize and obey, and shall hereafter recognize and obey, no other--have no need so to narrow our All Saints' Day; our joy in all that is noble and good which man has said or done in any age or clime. We have no need to define where formularies have not defined; to shut where they have opened; to curse where they either bless, or are humbly, charitably, and therefore divinely, silent. With a magnificent faith in the justice of the Father, and in the grace of Christ, and in the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, our Church bids us--Judge not the dead, lest ye be judged. Condemn not the dead, lest ye be condemned. For she bids us commit to the earth the corpses of all who die not "unbaptized," "excommunicate," or wilful suicides, and who are willing to lie in our consecrated ground; giving thanks to God that our dear brother has been delivered from the miseries of this sinful world, and in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life.

At least: we of the Abbey of Westminster have a right to hold this; for we, thank God, act on it, and have acted on it for many a year. We have a right to our wide, free, charitable, and truly catholic conception of All Saints' Day. Ay, if we did not use our right, these walls would use it for us; and in us would our Lord's words be fulfilled--If we were silent, the very stones beneath our feet would cry out.

For hither we gather, as far as is permitted us, and hither we gather proudly, the mortal dust of every noble soul who has done good work for the British nation; accepting each and all of them as gifts from the Father of lights, from whom proceedeth every good and perfect gift, as sent to this nation by that Lord Jesus Christ who is the King of all the nations upon earth; and acknowledging--for fear of falling into that Pelagian heresy, which is too near the heart of every living man--that all wise words which they have spoken, all noble deeds which they have done, have come, must have come, from The One eternal source of wisdom, of nobleness, of every form of good; even from the Holy Spirit of God.

We make no severe or minute inquiries here. We leave them, if they must be made, to God the Judge of all things, and Christ who knows the secrets of the hearts; to Him who is merciful in this: that He rewardeth every man according to his works.

All we ask is--and all we dare ask--of divine or statesman, poet or warrior, musician or engineer--of Dryden or of Handel--of Isaac Watts or of Charles Dickens--but why go on with the splendid diversities of the splendid catalogue?--What was your work? Did we admire you for it? Did we love you for it? And why? Because you made us in some way or other better men. Because you helped us somewhat toward whatsoever things are pure, true, just, honourable, of good report. Because, if there was any virtue--that is, true valour and manhood; if there was any praise--that is, just honour in the sight of men, and therefore surely in the sight of the Son of man, who died for men; you helped us to think on such things. You, in one word, helped to make us better men.

Welcome then, friends unknown--and, alas! friends known, and loved, and lost--welcome into England's Pantheon, not of superstitious and selfish hysteria, but of beneficent and healthy manhood.

Your words and your achievements have gone out into all lands, and your sound unto the ends of the world; and let them go, and prosper in that for which the Lord of man has sent them. Our duty is, to guard your sacred dust. Our duty is, to point out your busts, your monuments around these ancient walls, to all who come, of every race and creed; as proofs that the ancient spirit is not dead; that Christ has not deserted the nation of England, while He sends into it such men as you; that Christ has not deserted the Church of England, while He gives her grace to recognize and honour such men as you, and to pray Christ that He would keep up the sacred succession of virtue, talent, beneficence, patriotism; and make us, most unworthy, at last worthy, one at least here and there, of the noble dead, above whose dust we now serve God.

Yes, so ought we in Westminster to keep our All Saints' Day; in giving thanks to God for the spirits of just men made perfect. Not only for those just men and women innumerable, who--as I said at first--have graced this earth during the long ages of the past: but specially for those who lie around us here; with whom we can enter, and have entered already, often, into spiritual communion closer than that, almost, of child with parent; whose writings we can read, whose deeds we can admire, whose virtues we can copy, and to whom we owe a debt of gratitude, we and our children after us, which never can be repaid.

And if ever the thought comes over us--But these men had their faults, mistakes--Oh, what of that?

Nothing is left of them
Now, but pure manly.

Let us think of them: not as they were, compassed round with infirmities--as who is not?--knowing in part, and seeing in part, as St Paul himself, in the zenith of his inspiration, said that he knew; and saw, as through a glass, darkly.

Let us think of them not as they were, the spirits of just men imperfect: but as the spirits of just men made, or to be made hereafter, perfect; when, as St Paul says, "that which is in part is done away, and that which is perfect is come." And let us trust Christ for them, as we would trust Him for ourselves; sure "that the path of the just is as a shining light, which shineth more and more unto the perfect day."

Ah, how many lie in this Abbey, to meet whom in the world to come, would be an honour most undeserved!

How many more worthy, and therefore more likely, than any of us here, to behold that endless All Saints' Day, to which may God in His mercy, in spite of all our shortcomings, bring us all. Amen.

SERMON XXIII. DE PROFUNDIS.

PSALM CXXX.

Out of the deep have I called unto Thee, O Lord: Lord, hear my voice.
O let Thine ears consider well the voice of my complaint. If Thou,
Lord, wilt be extreme to mark what is done amiss, O Lord, who may
abide it? For there is mercy with Thee, therefore shall Thou be
feared. I look for the Lord; my soul doth wait for Him: in His word
is my trust. My soul fleeth unto the Lord before the morning watch: I
say, before the morning watch. O Israel, trust in the Lord: for with
the Lord there is mercy, and with Him is plenteous redemption. And He
shall redeem Israel from all his sins.

Let us consider this psalm awhile, for it is a precious heirloom to mankind. It has been a guide and a comfort to thousands and tens of thousands. Rich and poor, old and young, Jews and Christians, Romans, Greeks, and Protestants, have been taught by it the character of God; and taught to love Him, and trust in Him, in whom is mercy, therefore He shall be feared.

The Psalmist cries out of the deep; out of the deep of sorrow, perhaps, and bereavement, and loneliness; or out of the deep of poverty; or out of the deep of persecution and ill-usage; or out of the deep of sin, and shame, and weakness which he hates yet cannot conquer; or out of the deep of doubt, and anxiety--and ah! how common is that deep; and how many there are in it that swim hard for their lives: may God help them and bring them safe to land;--or out of the deep of overwork, so common now-a- days, when duty lies sore on aching shoulders, a burden too heavy to be borne.

Out of some one of the many deeps into which poor souls fall at times, and find themselves in deep water where no ground is, and in the mire wherein they are ready to sink, the Psalmist cries. But out of the deep he cries--to God. To God, and to none else.

He goes to the fountain-head, to the fount of deliverance, and of forgiveness. For he feels that he needs, not only deliverance, but forgiveness likewise. His sorrow may not be altogether his own fault. What we call in our folly "accident" and "chance," and "fortune,"--but which is really the wise providence and loving will of God--may have brought him low into the deep. Or the injustice, cruelty, and oppression of men may have brought him low; or many another evil hap. But be that as it may, he dares not justify himself. He cannot lift up altogether clean hands. He cannot say that his sorrow is none of his own fault, and his mishap altogether undeserved. If Thou, Lord, wert extreme to mark what is done amiss, O Lord, who could abide it? "Not I," says the Psalmist. "Not I," says every human being who knows himself; and knows too well that--"If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us."

But the Psalmist says likewise, "There is forgiveness with Thee, therefore shall Thou be feared."

My friends, consider this; the key of the whole psalm; the gospel and good news, for the sake of which the psalm has been preserved in Holy Scripture, and handed down to us.

God is to be feared, because He is merciful. It is worth while to fear Him, because He is merciful, and of great kindness, and hateth nothing that He hath made; and willeth not the death of a sinner, but rather that he should turn from his wickedness and live.

Superstitious people, in all ages, heathens always, and sometimes, I am sorry to say, Christians likewise, have had a very different reason, an opposite reason, for fearing God.

They have said: Not--there is mercy: but there is anger with God: therefore shall He be feared. They have said--We must fear God, because He is wrathful, and terrible, and ready to punish; and is extreme to mark what is done amiss, and willeth the death of a sinner: and therefore they have not believed, when Holy Scripture told them, that God was love, and that God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, and sent Him to visit the world in great humility, that the world through Him might be saved.

God has seemed to them only a proud, stern, and formidable being; a condemning judge, and not a merciful Father; and therefore, when they have found themselves in the deep of misery, they have cried out of it to saints, angels, the Virgin Mary; or even to sun, moon, and stars, and all the powers of nature; or even, again--what is more foolish still,--to astrologers, wizards, mediums, and quacks of every shape and hue; to any one and any thing, rather than to God.

But do not you do so, my friends. Fix it in your hearts and minds; and fix it now, before you fall into the deep, as most are apt to do before they die; lest, when the dark day comes, you have no time to learn in adversity the lesson which you should have learnt in prosperity. Fix in your hearts and minds the blessed Gospel and good news--"There is mercy with Thee, O God; therefore shall Thou be feared." There is mercy with Him, pity, tenderness, sympathy; a heart which can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; which knoweth what is in man; which despiseth not the work of His own hands; which remembereth our weak frame, and knoweth that we are but dust: else the spirit would fail before Him, and the souls which He has made. Think of God as that which He is--a compassionate God, a long-suffering God, a generous God, a magnanimous God, a truly royal God; in one word, a Perfect God; who causeth His sun to shine on the evil and on the good, and sendeth His rain on the just and on the unjust; a God who cannot despise, cannot neglect, cannot lose His patience with any poor soul of man; who sets Himself against none but the insolent, the proud, the malicious, the mean, the wilfully stupid and ignorant and frivolous. Against those who exalt themselves, whether as terrible tyrants or merely contemptible boasters, He exalts Himself; and will shew them, sooner or later, whether He or they be the stronger; whether He or they be the wiser. But for the poor soul who is abased, who is down, and in the depth; who feels his own weakness, folly, ignorance, sinfulness, and out of that deep cries to God as a lost child crying after its father--even a lost lamb bleating after the ewe--of that poor soul, be his prayers never so confused, stupid and ill-expressed--of him it is written: "The Lord helpeth them that fall, and lifteth up all those that are down. He is nigh to all that call on Him, yea, to all that call upon Him faithfully. He will fulfil the desire of those that fear Him, He also will hear their cry and will help them."

Yes. To all such does God the Father, God who made heaven and earth, hold up, as it were, His only-begotten Son, Christ, hanging on the Cross for us; and say: Behold thy God. Behold the brightness of God's glory, and the express image of God's person. Behold what God gave for thee, even His only-begotten Son. Behold that in which God the Father was well pleased: in His Son; not condemning you, not destroying you, but humbling Himself, dying Himself awhile, that you may live for ever. Look; and by seeing the Son, see the Father also--your Father, and the Father of the spirits of all flesh; and know that His essence and His name is--Love.

Therefore, when you are in the deep of sorrow, whatever that depth may be, cry to God. To God Himself; and to none but God. If you can go to the pure fountain-head, why drink of the stream, which must have gathered something of defilement as it flows? If you can get light from the sun itself, why take lamp or candle in place of his clear rays? If you can go to God Himself, why go to any of God's creatures, however holy pure, and loving? Go to God, who is light of light, and life of life; the source of all light, the source of all life, all love, all goodness, all mercy. From Him all goodness flows. All goodness which ever has been, shall be, or can be, is His alone, the fruit of His Spirit. Go then to Him Himself. Out of the depth, however deep, cry unto God and God Himself. If David, the Jew of old, could do so, much more can we, who are baptized into Christ; much more can we, who have access by one Spirit to the Father; much more can we, who--if we know who we are and where we are--should come boldly to the throne of grace, to find mercy and grace to help us in the time of need.

Boldness. That is a bold word: but it is St Paul's, not mine. And by shewing that boldness, we shall shew that we indeed fear God. We shall shew that we reverence God. We shall shew that we trust God. For so, and so only, we shall obey God. If a sovereign or a sage should bid you come to him, would you shew reverence by staying away? Would you shew reverence by refusing his condescension? You may shew that you are afraid of him; that you do not trust him: but that is not to shew reverence, but irreverence.

If God calls, you are bound by reverence to come, however unworthy. If He bids you, you must obey, however much afraid. You must trust Him; you must take Him at His word; you must confide in His goodness, in His justice, in His wisdom: and since He bids you, go boldly to His throne, and find Him what He is, a gracious Lord.

My friends, to you, every one of you--however weak, however ignorant, ay, however sinful, if you desire to be delivered from those sins--this grace is given; liberty to cry out of the depth to God Himself, who made sun and stars, all heaven and earth; liberty to stand face to face with the Father of the spirits of all flesh, and cling to the one Being who can never fail nor change; even to the one immortal eternal God, of whom it is written, "Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of Thy hands. They shall perish, but Thou shalt endure. They all shall wax old, like a garment, and as a vesture shalt Thou change them, and they shall be changed. But Thou art the same, and Thy years shall not fail."

But it is written again, "My soul waits for the Lord." Yes, if you can trust in the God who cannot change, you can afford to wait; you need not be impatient; as it is written--"Fret not thyself, lest thou be moved to do evil;" and again--"He that believeth shall not make haste." For God, in whom you trust, is not a man that He should lie, nor a son of man that He should repent. Hath He promised, and shall He not do it? His word is like the rain and dew, which fall from heaven, and return not to it again useless, but give seed to the sower and bread to the eater. So is every man that trusteth in Him. His kingdom, says the Lord, is as if a man should put seed into the ground, and sleep and wake, and the seed should grow up, he knoweth not how. So the seed which we sow--the seed of repentance, the seed of humility, the seed of sorrowful prayers for help--it too shall take root, and grow, and bring forth fruit, we know not how, in the good time of God, who cannot change. We may be sad; we may be weary; our eyes may wait and watch for the Lord as the Psalmist says; more than they that watch for the morning: but it must be as those who watch for the morning, for the morning which must and will come, for the sun which will surely rise, and the day which will surely dawn, and the Saviour who will surely deliver, and the God who is merciful in this--that He rewardeth every man according to his work.

"Oh trust in the Lord. For with the Lord there is mercy, and with Him is plenteous redemption; and He shall deliver His people from all their sins."

From their sins. Not merely from the punishment of their sins; not always from the punishment of their sins in this life: but, what is better far, from the sins themselves; from the sins which bring them into fresh and needless troubles; and which make the old troubles, which cannot now be escaped, intolerable.

From all their sins. Not only from the great sins, which, if persisted in, will surely destroy both body and soul in hell: but from the little sins which do so easily beset us; from little bad habits, tempers, lazinesses, weaknesses, ignorances, which hamper and hinder us all every day when we try to do our duty. From all these will the Lord deliver us, by the blood of Christ, and by the inspiration of His Holy Spirit, that we may be able at last to say to children and friends, and all whom we love and leave behind us--

"Oh taste and see that the Lord is gracious. Blessed is the man that trusteth in Him."

Yes. This at least we may do--Trust in our God, and thank God that we may do it; for if men may not do that, then is that true of them which Homer said of old--that man is more miserable than all the beasts of the field. For the animals look neither forward nor back. They live but for the present moment; and pain and grief, being but for the moment, fall lightly upon them. But we--we who have the fearful power of looking back, and looking forward--we who can feel regret and remorse for the past, anxiety and terror for the future--to us at times life would be scarce worth having, if we had not a right to cry with all our hearts--

"O God, in Thee have I trusted, let me never be confounded."

SERMON XXIV. THE BLESSING AND THE CURSE.

Preached on Whit-Sunday.

DEUT. XXX. 19, 20.

I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have
set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose
life, that both thou and thy seed may live: that thou mayest love the
Lord thy God, and that thou mayest obey His voice, and that thou
mayest cleave unto Him: for He is thy life, and the length of thy
days: that thou mayest dwell in the land which the Lord sware unto thy
fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.

These words, the book of Deuteronomy says, were spoken by Moses to all the Israelites shortly before his death. He had led them out of Egypt, and through the wilderness. They were in sight of the rich land of Canaan, where they were to settle and to dwell for many hundred years. Moses, the book says, went over again with them all the Law, the admirable and divine Law, which they were to obey, and by which they were to govern and order themselves in the land of Canaan. He had told them that they owed all to God Himself; that God had delivered them out of slavery in Egypt; God had led them to the land of Canaan; God had given them just laws and right statutes, which if they kept, they would live long in their new home, and become a great and mighty nation. Then he calls heaven and earth to witness that he had set before them life and death, blessing and cursing. If they trusted in the one true God, and served Him, and lived as men should, who believed that a just and loving God cared for them, then they would live; then a blessing would come on them, and their children, on their flocks and herds, on their land and all in it. But if they forgot God, and began to worship the sun, and the moon, and the stars, the earth and the weather, like the nations round them, then they would die; they would grow superstitious, cowardly, lazy, and profligate, and therefore weak and miserable, like the wretched Canaanites whom they were going to drive out; and then they would die. Their souls would die in them, and they would become less than men, and at last--as the Canaanites had become--worse than brutes, till their numbers would diminish, and they would be left, Moses says, few in number and at last perish out of the good land which God had given them.

So, he says, you know how to live, and you know how to die. Choose between them this day.

They knew the road to wealth, health, prosperity and order, peace and happiness, and life: and they knew the road to ruin, poverty, weakness, disease, shame and death.

They knew both roads; for God had set them before them.

And you know both roads; for God has set them before you.

Then he says--I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing.

He called heaven and earth to witness. That was no empty figure of speech. If you will recollect the story of the Israelites, you will see plainly enough what Moses meant.

The heaven would witness against them. The same stars which would look down on their freedom and prosperity in Canaan, had looked down on all their slavery and misery in Egypt, hundreds of years before. Those same stars had looked down on their simple forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, wandering with their flocks and herds out of the mountains of the far north. That heaven had seen God's mercies and care of them, for now five hundred years. Everything had changed round them: but those stars, that sun, that moon, were the same still, and would be the same for ever. They were witnesses to them of the unchangeable God, those heavens above. They would seem to say--Just as the heavens above you are the same, wherever you go, and whatever you are like, so is the God who dwells above the heaven; unchangeable, everlasting, faithful, and true, full of light and love; from whom comes down every good and perfect gift, in whom is neither variableness nor shadow of turning. Do you turn to Him continually, and as often as you turn away from Him: and you shall find Him still the same; governing you by unchangeable law, keeping His promise for ever.

And the earth would witness against them. That fair land of Canaan whither they were going, with its streams and wells spreading freshness and health around; its rich corn valleys, its uplands covered with vines, its sweet mountain pastures, a very garden of the Lord, cut off and defended from all the countries round by sandy deserts and dreary wildernesses; that land would be a witness to them, at their daily work, of God's love and mercy to their forefathers. The ruins of the old Canaanite cities would be a witness to them, and say--Because of their sins the Lord drove out these old heathens from before you. Copy their sins, and you will share their ruin. Do as they did, and you will surely die like them. God has given you life, here in this fair land of Canaan; beware how you choose death, as the Canaanites chose it. They died the death which comes by sin; and God has given you life, the life which is by righteousness. Be righteous men, and just, and God-fearing, if you wish to keep this land, you, and your children after you.