Charles Kingsley
Sermons for the times
The sky is the limit
ISBN: 9788893455985
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Table of contents
SERMON I. 'FATHERS AND CHILDREN'
SERMON II. SALVATION
SERMON III. A GOOD CONSCIENCE
SERMON IV. NAMES
SERMON V. SPONSORSHIP
SERMON VI. JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH
SERMON VII. DUTY AND SUPERSTITION
SERMON VIII. SONSHIP
SERMON IX. THE LORD'S PRAYER
SERMON X. THE DOXOLOGY
SERMON XI. AHAB AND NABOTH
SERMON XII. THE LIGHT OF GOD
SERMON XIII. PROVIDENCE
SERMON XIV. ENGLAND'S STRENGTH
SERMON XV. THE LIFE OF GOD
SERMON XVI. GOD'S OFFSPRING
SERMON XVII. DEATH IN LIFE
SERMON XVIII. SHAME
SERMON XIX. FORGIVENESS
SERMON XX. THE TRUE GENTLEMAN
SERMON XXI. TOLERATION
SERMON XXII. PUBLIC SPIRIT
SERMON I. 'FATHERS AND CHILDREN'
Malachi iv. 5, 6.
Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming
of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: And he shall
turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the
children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a
curse.
These words are especially solemn words. They stand in an
especially solemn and important part of the Bible. They are the
last words of the Old Testament. I cannot but think that it was
God's will that they should stand where they are, and nowhere else.
Malachi, the prophet who wrote them, did not know perhaps that he
was the last of the Old Testament prophets. He did not know that no
prophet would arise among the Jews for 400 years, till the time
when
John the Baptist came preaching repentance. But God knew. And by
God's ordinance these words stand at the end of the Old Testament,
to make us understand the beginning of the New Testament. For the
Old Testament ends by saying that God would send to the Jews Elijah
the prophet. And the New Testament begins by telling us of John the
Baptist's coming as a prophet, in the spirit and power of Elias;
and
how the Lord Jesus himself declared plainly that John the Baptist
was Elijah who was to come; that is, the Elijah of whom Malachi
prophesies in my text.
Therefore, we may be certain that this text tells us what John the
Baptist's work was; that John the Baptist came to turn the hearts
of
the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to the
fathers; lest the Lord should come and smite the land with a curse.
Some may be ready to answer to this, 'Of course John the Baptist
came to warn parents of behaving wrongly to their children, if they
were careless or cruel; and children to their parents, if they were
disobedient or ungrateful. Of course he would tell bad parents and
children to repent, just as he came to tell all other kinds of
sinners to repent. But that was only a part of John the Baptist's
work. He came to be the forerunner of the Messiah, the Saviour, the
Redeemer.'
Be it so, my friends. I only hope that you really do believe that
John the Baptist did come to proclaim that a Saviour was born into
the world--provided only that you remember all the while who that
Saviour was. John the Baptist tells you who He was. If you will
only remember that, and get the thought of it into your hearts, you
will not be inclined to put any words of your own in place of the
prophet Malachi's, or to fancy that you can describe better than
Malachi what John the Baptist's work was to be; and that turning
the
hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the
children to the fathers, was only a small part of John the
Baptist's
work, instead of being, as Malachi says it was, his principal work,
his very work, the work which must be done, lest the Lord, instead
of saving the land, should come and smite it with a curse.
Yes--you must remember who it was that John the Baptist came to
bear
record of, and to manifest or show to the Jews. The Angels on the
first Christmas Eve told us--they said it was _The Lord_, 'Unto
you,' they said, 'is born a Saviour, who is Christ, _The Lord_.'
John the Baptist told you and all mankind who it was--that it was
The Lord. 'The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye
the way of _the Lord_!'
_The Lord_. What Lord--Which Lord? John the Baptist knew. Simeon,
Anna, Nathaniel, all righteous and faithful hearts who waited for
the salvation of the Lord, knew. The Pharisees and Sadducees did
not know. The men who wrote our Creeds, our Prayer Book, our Church
Catechism, knew. The Pharisees and the Sadducees in our day, who
fancy themselves wiser than the Creeds, and the Prayer Book, and
the
Church Catechism, do not know. May God grant that we may all know,
not only with our lips, but with our hearts, our faith, our love,
our lives, who The Lord is.
Jesus Christ, the babe of Bethlehem, is The Lord. But who is He?
The Bible tells us; when we have heard what the Bible tells us we
shall be able better to understand the text. The Lord is He of whom
it is written, 'And God said, Let us make man in our image, after
our likeness.' And who is God's image and God's likeness? The New
Testament tells us--Jesus Christ. In Him man was made. He is the
Son of Man, who is in heaven--the true perfect pattern of man: but
He is also the image and likeness of God, the brightness of His
Father's glory, and the express image of His person. He is The
Lord. He is the Lord who instituted marriage, and said, 'It is not
good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help-meet for
him.' He is the Lord who said to man, 'Be fruitful and multiply:
fill the earth and subdue it.' He is the Lord who said to the first
murderer, 'Thy brother's blood crieth against thee from the
ground.'
He is the Lord who talked with Abraham face to face as a man talks
with his friend; who blest him by giving him a son in his old age,
that he might be the father of many nations. He is the Lord who, on
Mount Sinai, gave those Ten Commandments, the foundation of all law
and right order between man and God, between man and man:--'Thou
shalt honour thy father and thy mother. Thou shalt do no murder.
Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt
not bear false witness in courts of law or elsewhere. Thou shalt
not covet thy neighbour's property.'
This is The Lord. Not a God far away from men; who does not feel
for them, nor feel with them; not a God who despises men, or has an
ill-will to men, and must be won over to change his mind, and have
mercy on them, by many supplications and tears, and fear and
trembling, and superstitious ceremonies. But this is The Lord, this
is the babe of Bethlehem, this is He whose way John the Baptist
came
to prepare--even He of whom it is written, that He possessed
wisdom,
the simple, practical human wisdom, useful for this everyday
earthly
life of ours, which Solomon sets forth in his Proverbs, in the
beginning before His works of old; and that when He appointed the
foundations of the earth, that Wisdom was by Him, as one brought up
with Him, and she was daily His delight; rejoicing alway before
Him;
rejoicing in the _habitable_ parts of the earth; and her delights
were _with the sons of men_.
In one word, He is the Lord, in whose likeness man is made. Man's
justice is a pattern of His; man's love is a pattern of His; man's
industry a pattern of His; man's Sabbath-rest, in some unspeakable
and eternal way, a pattern of His. Man's family ties are patterns
of His. God the Father is He, said St. Paul, from whom every
fathership in heaven and earth is named, that we may be such
fathers
to our children as God is to us. God The Son is He who is not
ashamed to call us brethren, and to declare to us the glorious
news,
that in Him we, too, are the sons of God, that we may be such sons
to our heavenly Father--ay, and to our earthly fathers also, as the
Lord Jesus was to His Father.
Yes--and even more wonderful still, and more blessed still, the
Lord
is not ashamed to call himself a husband. Our human wedlock and
married love is a pattern of some divine mystery. 'Husbands love
your wives, as Christ also loved the Church, and gave Himself for
it, that He might present it to Himself a glorious Church, not
having spot or wrinkle, but that it should be holy and without
blemish.' Blessed words, which we cannot pretend to explain or
understand, but can only believe and adore, and find, as we shall
find, in proportion as we are loving and faithful in wedlock, that
God's Spirit bears witness with our spirit, that they are
reasonable, blessed, true; true for ever.
This, then, was the Lord who was coming to judge these Jews; not
merely a god, but _The_ God. The Lord, in whose likeness man was
made; who had appointed men to be fathers, sons, husbands, citizens
of a nation, owners of property, subject to laws, and yet _makers_
of laws; because all these things, in some wonderful way, are parts
of His likeness. He was coming to this nation of the Jews first,
and then to all the nations of the earth, to judge them, Malachi
said, with a great and terrible day. To lay the axe to the root of
the tree; to cut down from the very root the evil principles which
were working in society. His fan was in His hand; and He would
thoroughly purge His floor; and gather His wheat into the garner,
for the use of future generations: but the chaff, all that was
empty, light, and useless, He would burn up and destroy utterly out
of the way, with unquenchable fire. He would inquire of every man,
How have you kept my image; my likeness, in which I made you? What
sort of husbands, fathers, sons, neighbours, subjects, and
governors, have you been? And above all, Malachi says, the root
question of all would be, what sort of fathers have you been to
your
children? What sort of children to your fathers? Does that seem to
you a small question, my friends? Would you have rather expected to
hear John the Baptist ask, what sort of saints they had been? What
sort of doctrines they were professing?
A small question? Look at these two little words, Father and Son.
Father and Son! Are they not the most deep and awful, as well as
the most blessed and hopeful words on earth? Do they not tell us
the very mystery of God's being? Are they not the very name of God,
God The Father and God The Son, knit together by one Holy Spirit of
Love to each other and to all, who proceeds alike from The Father
and from The Son? And then, will you think it a light matter to ask
fallen creatures made in the likeness of that perfect Father and
that perfect Son, what sort of fathers and sons they have been? God
help us all, and give us grace to ask ourselves that question
morning and night, before the great and terrible day of the Lord
come, lest He come and smite this land with a curse.
I have been led to think deeply and to speak openly upon this
solemn
matter, my friends, by seeing, as who can help seeing, the great
division and estrangement between the old and the young which is
growing up in our days. I do not, alas! I cannot, deny the
complaints which old people commonly make. Old people complain that
young people are grown too independent, disobedient, saucy, and
what
not. It is too true, frightfully, miserably true, that there is not
the same reverence for parents as there was a generation
back;--that
the children break loose from their parents, spend their parents'
money, choose their own road in life, their own politics, their own
religion, alas! too often, for themselves;--that young people now
presume to do and say a hundred things which they would not have
dreamed in old times. And they are ready enough to cry out that all
this is a sign of the last days, of which, they say, St. Paul
speaks
in 2 Tim. iii. 4--when men 'shall be disobedient to parents,
unthankful, boasters, heady, high-minded, despisers of those who
are
good, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God.' My friends, my
friends, it is far better for us who have children, instead of
prying into the times and seasons which God has kept in His own
hand, to read our Bibles faithfully, and when we quote a text,
quote
the whole of it, and not just those bits of it which help us to
throw blame on other people. What St. Paul really says, is that 'in
the last days evil times will come;' just as they had come, he
shows, when he wrote; and what he means I will try and show you
presently. And, moreover, remember that Malachi says, that the
hearts of the parents in Judea needed turning to their children, as
well as the hearts of the children to their parents. Take care lest
it be not so in England now. Remember that St. Paul, in that same
solemn passage, gives other marks of 'last days,' which have to do
with parents as well as with children, and some which can only have
to do with parents--for they are the sins of grown-up and elderly
people, and not of young ones. He says, that in those days men
shall also be 'covetous, proud, without natural affection, breakers
of their word, blasphemers; having a form of godliness, but denying
the power thereof.' Will none of these hard words hit some grown
people in our day? Will not they fill some of us with dread, lest
the parents now-a-days should be as much in fault as the children
of
whom they complain; lest the parents' sins should be but too often
the cause of the children's sins? Read through St. Paul's sad list
of sins, and see how every young man's sin in it has some old man's
sin corresponding to it. St. Paul does not part his list, and I
dare not, and cannot. St. Paul mixes the parents' and the
children's sins together in his words, and I fear that we do the
same in our actions.
Oh! beware, beware, you who complain of the behaviour of children
now-a-days, lest your children have as much cause to complain of
you. Are your children selfish, lovers of themselves?--See that you
have not set them the example by your own covetousness or laziness.
Are they boastful?--See that your pride has not taught them.
Incontinent and profligate?--See that your own fierceness has not
taught them. If they see you unable to master your own temper, they
will not care to try to master their appetites. Are they
disobedient and unthankful?--See, well, then that your want of
natural affection to them, your neglect, and harshness, and want of
feeling and tenderness, has not made the balance of unkindness
fearfully even between you. Are your children disobedient to you?--
See that you have not taught them to be so, by breaking your word
to
them, by letting them see you deceitful to others, till they have
lost all trust in you, all reverence for you. Above all, are your
children lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God?--Oh! beware,
beware, lest you have made them so,--lest you have been blasphemers
against God, even when you have been fancying that you talked
religion. Beware lest you have been teaching them dark, cruel,
superstitious thoughts about God,--making them look up to Him not
as
their heavenly Father, but as a stern taskmaster whom they must
obey, not from gratitude, but from fear of hell, and so have made
God look so unlovely in their eyes that 'there is no beauty in Him
that they should desire Him.' Can you wonder at their loving
pleasure rather than loving God, when you show them nothing in
God's
character to love, but everything to dread and shrink from? And
last of all, are your children despisers of those who are good,
inclined to laugh at religion, to suspect and sneer at pious
people,
and call them hypocrites? Oh! beware, beware, lest your lip-
religion, your dead faith, your inconsistent practice, has not been
the cause of it. If you, as St. Paul says, have a form of
godliness, and yet in your life and actions deny the power of it,
by
living without God in the world, and following the lowest maxims of
the world in everything but what you call the salvation of your
souls, what wonder if your children grow up despisers of those who
are good? If they see you preaching one thing, and practising
another, they will learn to fancy that all godly people do the
same.
If they see your religion a sham, they will learn to fancy all
religion false also. Oh! woe, woe, most terrible, to those who thus
harden their own children's hearts, and destroy in them, as too
many
do, all faith in God and man, all hope, all charity! Woe to them!
for the Lord Himself, who came to lay the axe to the root of the
tree, said of such, 'If any man cause one of these little ones to
offend, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about
his neck, and that he were drowned in the depths of the sea.'
So it is too often now-a-days, and so it will be, until people
condescend to learn over again that simple old Church Catechism
which they were taught when they were little, and to teach it to
their children, not only with their lips but in their lives.
'The Church Catechism!' some here will say to themselves with a
smile, 'that is but a paltry medicine for so great a disease--a
pitiful ending, forsooth, to such a severe sermon as this, to
recommend just the Church Catechism!' Let those laugh who will, my
friends. If you think you can bring up your children to be
blessings to you,--if you think you can live so as to be blessings
to your children, without the Church Catechism, you can but try. I
think that you will fail. More and more, year by year, I find that
those who try do fail. More and more, year by year, I find that
even religious people's education of their children fails, and that
pious men's sons now-a-days are becoming more and more apt to be
scandals to their parents and to religion. If any choose to say
that the reason is, that the pious men's sons were not of the
number
of the elect, though their fathers were, I can only answer, that
God
is no respecter of persons, and that they say that He is; that God
is not the author of the evil, and that they say that He is. If a
child of mine turns out ill, I am bound to lay the fault first on
myself, and certainly never on God,--and so is every man, unless
the
inspired Scripture is wrong where it says, 'Train up a child in the
way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.'
And the fault _is_ in ourselves. Very few people really teach their
children now-a-days the Church Catechism; very few really believe
the Church Catechism; very few really believe that God is such an
one as the Church Catechism declares to us; very few believe in the
Lord, in whose image and likeness man is made, whose way John the
Baptist prepared by turning the hearts of the fathers to the
children. They put, perhaps, religious books into their children's
hands, and talk to them a great deal about their souls: but they do
not tell their children what the Church Catechism tells them,
because they do not believe what the Church Catechism tells them.
What that is; what the Church Catechism does tell us, which the
favourite religious books now-a-days do not tell us; and what that
has to do with turning the hearts of the fathers to the children, I
must tell you hereafter. God grant that my words may sink into all
hearts, as far as they are right and true; if sooner or later we
are
not all brought to understand the meaning of those two simple
words,
Father and Son, neither Baptism, nor Confirmation, nor Schools, nor
this Church, nor the very body and blood of Him who died for us, to
share which you are all called this day, will be of avail for the
well-being of this parish, or of this country, or any other country
upon earth. For where the root is corrupt, the fruit will be also;
and where family life and family ties, which are the root and
foundation of society, are out of joint, there the Nation and the
Church will decay also; as it is written, 'If the foundations be
cast down, what can the righteous do?'
And whensoever, in any family, or nation and church, the root of
the
tree (which is the conduct of parents to children, and of children
to parents) grows corrupt and rotten, then 'last days,' as St. Paul
calls them, are indeed come to it, and evil times therewith; for
the
Lord will surely lay the axe to the root of it, and cut it down and
cast it into the fire: neither will the days of that family, or
that people, or that Church, be long in the land which the Lord
their God has given them. So it has been as yet, in all ages and in
all countries on the face of God's earth, and so it will be until
the end. Wheresoever the hearts of the fathers are not turned to
the children, and the hearts of the children to the fathers, there
will a great and terrible day of the Lord come; and that nation,
like Judaea of old, like many a fair country in Europe at this
moment, will be smitten with a curse.
SERMON II. SALVATION
John xvii. 3.
This is life eternal, that they may know Thee, the only true
God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.
Before I can explain what this text has to do with the Church
Catechism, I must say to you a little about what it means.
Now if I asked any of you what 'salvation' was, you would probably
answer, 'Eternal life.'
And you would answer rightly. That is exactly what salvation is,
and neither more nor less. No more than that; for nothing greater
than that can belong to any created being. No less than that; for
God's love and mercy are eternal and without bound.
But what is eternal life?
Some will answer, 'Going to heaven when we die.' But what before
you die? You do not know? cannot tell?
Let us listen to what God Himself says. Let us listen to what the
Lord Jesus Christ, the Word of God, says. Let us listen to what He
who spake as man never spake, says. Surely His words must be the
clearest, the simplest, the most exact, the deepest, the widest;
the
exactly fit and true words, the complete words, the perfect words,
which cannot be improved on by adding to them or taking away one
jot
or tittle. What did the Lord Jesus Christ say that eternal life
was?
'This is eternal life, that they may know Thee the only true God,
and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.'
To know God and Jesus Christ; that is eternal life. That is all the
eternal life which any of us will ever have, my friends. Unless our
Lord's words are not complete and perfect, and do not tell us the
truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, about eternal
life, that is all the eternal life any one will ever have; and we
must make up our minds to be content therewith.
To which some will answer, almost angrily, 'Of course. The way to
obtain eternal life is to know God and Jesus Christ; for if we do
not, we cannot obtain it.'
What words are these, my friends? what rash words are these, which
men thrust into Scripture out of their own carnal conceits, as if
they could improve upon the speech of the Son of Man Himself? He
says, not that to know God is the way to eternal life: but rather
that eternal life is the way to know God. He does not say, This is
to know God and Jesus Christ, _in order that_ they may have eternal
life. Whatever He says, He does not say that. Nay, more, if we are
to be very exact (and can we be too exact?) with the Lord's words,
He says, that 'This is eternal life, _in order that_ they may know
God and Jesus Christ.' Not that we are to know God that we may
obtain eternal life, but that we must have eternal life in order
that we may know God; that eternal life is the means, and the
knowledge of God the end and purpose for which eternal life is
given
us. However this may be, at least He says what the noble collect
which we repeat every Sunday says, 'That our eternal life stands in
the knowledge of God,' depends on it, and will fall without it.
'That we may know God.' Not merely that we may know doctrines about
salvation, and the ways of winning God's favour, and turning away
His vengeance; not merely to know what God has done ages ago, or
may
do ages hence, for us: but to know God Himself; to know His person,
His likeness, His character; and what He is, and what He does, now
and always; to know His righteousness, His goodness, His truth, His
love, His mercy, His strength, His willingness and mightiness to
save; in a word, what the Bible calls His glory; and therefore to
admire and delight in Him utterly. That is what our eternal life
stands in; that is why God has given to us eternal life in His Son,
that we may know that. Oh, believe your Saviour simply, like little
children, and enter into the joy of your Lord. Acquaint yourselves
with God, and be at peace.
To know God; and also to know Jesus Christ whom He has sent. For
St. John, when he tells us that God has already given to us eternal
life, says also, that this life is in His Son. To know the Son of
God, in whom the Father is well pleased, because He is His perfect
Son; His exact likeness, the likeness of that glory of His, and the
express image of that person and character of His, which I
described
to you just now; One whose life was and is and ever will be
eternally all love, and mercy, and self-sacrifice, and labour, for
lost and sinful men; all trust and obedience to His Father. To know
Him and His life, and to come to Him, and receive from Him an
eternal life, which this world did not give us, and cannot take
away
from us; which neither man, devil, nor angel, nor the death of our
bodies, the ruin of empires, the destruction of the whole universe,
and of time, and space, and all things whereof man can conceive or
dream, can alter in the slightest, because it is a life of
goodness,
and righteousness, and love, which are eternal as the God from whom
they spring; eternal as Christ, who is the same yesterday, to-day,
and for ever; and nothing but our own sinful wills can rob us of
them.
This is eternal life, and therefore this is salvation. A very
different account of it (though it is the Bible account) from that
narrow and paltry one which too many have in their minds
now-a-days;
a narrow and paltry notion that it means only being saved from the
punishment of our sins after we die; and a very unbelieving, and
godless, and atheistical notion too; which, like all unbelief hurts
and spoils men's lives.
For too many say to themselves, 'God must save me after I am dead,
of course, for no one else can: but as long as I am alive I must
save myself. God must save me from hell; but I must save myself
from poverty, from trouble, from what the world may say of me or do
to me, if I offend it.' And so salvation seems to have to do
altogether with the next life, and not at all with this; and people
lose entirely the belief that God is our deliverer, our protector,
our guide, our friend, now, here, in this life; and do not really
think that they can get on better in this world by knowing God and
Jesus Christ; and so they set to work to help themselves by
cunning,
by covetousness, by cowardly truckling to the wicked ways of the
very world which they renounced at baptism, by following after a
multitude to do evil, and standing by, saying, 'I saw it not,' when
they see wrong and cruelty done upon the earth; afraid to fight
God's battles like men of God, because they say it is 'dangerous.'
And so, in these evil days, thousands who call themselves
Christians
live on, worldly and selfish, _without God in the world_; while
they
talk busily enough of 'preparing to meet God,' in the world to
come;
dreaming, poor souls, of arriving at what they call 'salvation'
after they die, while they are too often, I fear, deep enough in
what the Scripture calls 'damnation,' before they die.
'But,' say some, 'is not salvation going to a place called heaven?'
My friends, let the Bible speak. It tells us that salvation is not
in a place at all, but in a person, a living, moving, acting
person,
who is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. Let the Psalmists
speak, and shame us, who ought to know (being Christians) even
better than they, that The Lord Himself is Salvation. The whole
Book of Psalms, what is it but the blessed discovery that salvation
is not merely in a place, or a state, not even in some 'beatific
vision' after men die; but in the Lord Himself all day long in this
world; that salvation is a life in God and with God? 'The Lord is
my light, and my salvation, of whom then shall I be afraid? The
Lord is the strength of my life, and my portion for ever.' This is
their key-note. Shame on us Christians, that we should have
forgotten it for one so much lower. 'The name of the Lord,' says
Solomon, 'is a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it, and is
safe.' Into it: not merely into some pleasant place after he dies,
but all day long; and is safe: not merely after he dies, but in
every chance and change of this mortal life. My friends, I am
ashamed to have to put Christian men in mind of these things.
Truly, 'Evil communications have corrupted good manners; awake to
righteousness and sin not, for some have not the knowledge of God.'
I am ashamed, I say; for there are old hymns in the mouths of every
one to this day, which testify against their want of faith; which
say, 'Christ is my life,' 'Christ is my salvation;' and which were
written, I doubt not, by men who meant literally what they said,
whatever those who sing them now-a-days may mean by them. Now what
do those hymns mean by such words, if they mean anything at all?
Surely what I have been preaching to you, and what seems to some of
you, I fear, strange and new doctrine. And what else does the
Church Catechism mean, when it bids every child thank God for
having
brought him into a state of salvation? For mind, throughout the
whole Church Catechism there is not one word about what people
commonly call heaven and hell; not one word though 'heaven and
hell'
are now-a-days generally the first things about which children are
taught. Not one word is the child taught about what will happen to
him after death, except that his body will rise again, and that
Christ will be his Judge after he is dead as well as while he is
alive: but not one word about that salvation after he is dead,
which is almost the only thing of which one hears in many pulpits.
And why, but because the Catechism teaches the child to believe
that
Jesus Christ is his salvation now, in this life, and believes that
to be enough for him to know? For if Christ be eternal, His
salvation must be eternal also. If Christ's life be in the child,
eternal life must be in the child; for Christ's life must be
eternal, even as Christ Himself; and that is enough for the child,
and for us also.
And with this agrees that great text of Scripture, 'When the wicked
man turneth away from his wickedness, and doeth that which is
lawful
and right, he shall save his soul alive.' People now-a-days are apt
to make two mistakes about that one text. First they forget the
'when,' and read it as if it stood, 'If the wicked man turn away
from his wickedness in this life, he shall save his soul in the
next
life:' but the Bible says much more than that. It says, that when
he turns, then and there, that moment he shall save his soul alive.
And next, they read the text as if it stood, 'he shall save his
soul.' Here again, my friends, the Bible says a great deal more; it
says, that he shall save his soul alive. Perhaps that does not seem
to you any great difference? Alas, alas, my friends, I fear that
there are too many now, as there have been in all times, who do not
care for the difference. Provided 'their souls are saved,' by which
they mean, provided they escape torment after they die, it matters
nothing to them whether their souls are saved alive, or saved dead;
they do not even know the difference between a dead soul and a live
soul; because they know nothing about eternal death and eternal
life, which are the death and the life of eternal persons such as
souls are; they say to themselves, if they be Protestants, 'I hope
I
shall have faith enough to be saved;' or if they be Papists, 'I
hope
I shall have good works enough to be saved;' valuing faith and
works
not for themselves; yea, valuing--for I must say it--Almighty God
Himself, not for Himself and His own glory, but valuing faith and
works, and the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, only
because, as they dream, they are so many helps to a life of
pleasure
beyond the grave; not knowing this, that living faith and good
works
do not merely lead to heaven, but are heaven itself, that true,
real
eternal heaven wherein alone men really live; that true, real
eternal life which was with the Father, and was manifested in Jesus
Christ, whom St. John saw living upon earth that same Eternal Life,
and bore witness of Him that His life was the light of men; that
eternal life whereof it is written, that God hath brought us to
life
together with Christ, and raised us up, and made us sit together in
heavenly places in Christ Jesus:--not knowing this, that the only
life which any soul ought to live, is the life of God and of
Christ,
and of the Spirit of God and Christ; a life of righteousness, and
justice, and truth, and obedience, and mercy, and love; a life
which
God has given to us, that we may know and copy Him, and do His
works, and live His life, for ever:--not knowing this also that
eternal death is not merely some torture of fire and worms beyond
the grave: but that this is eternal death, not to live the eternal
life which is the only possible life for souls, the life of
righteousness and love; a death which may come on respectable
people, and high religious professors, while they are fancying
themselves sure to be saved, as easily and surely as it may on
thieves and harlots, wallowing in the mire of sins.
For what is this same eternal death? The opposite surely to eternal
life. Eternal life is to know God, and therefore to obey Him.
Eternal life is to know God, whose name is love; and therefore, to
rejoice to fulfil His law, of which it is written, 'Love is the
fulfilling of the law;' and therefore to be full of love ourselves,
as it is written, 'We know that we have passed from death unto
life,
because we love the brethren;' and again, 'Every one that loveth,
knoweth God, for God is love.' And on the other hand, eternal death
is not to know God, and therefore not to care for His law of love,
and therefore to be without love; as it is written on the other
hand, 'He that loveth not his brother abideth in death.' 'Whosoever
hateth his brother is a murderer;' and ye know that no murderer
hath
eternal life abiding in him; and again, 'He that loveth not,
knoweth
not God, for God is love.' Eternal death, then, is to love no one;
to be shut up in the dark prison-house of our own wilful and
wayward
thoughts and passions, full of spite, suspicion, envy, fear; in
fact, in one word, to be a devil. Oh, my friends, is not that
damnation indeed, to be a devil here on earth, and for aught we
know, for ever and ever?
Do you not know what frame of mind I mean? Thank God, none of us, I
suppose, is ever utterly without some grain of love left for some
one; none of us, I suppose, is ever utterly shut up in himself; and
as long as there is love there is life and as long as there is life
there is hope: but yet there have been moments when one has felt
with horror how near, and how terrible, and how easy was this same
eternal death which some fancy only possible after they die.
For, my friends, were you ever, any one of you, for one half hour,
completely angry, completely _sulky_? displeased and disgusted with
everybody and everything round you, and yet displeased and
disgusted
with yourself all the while; liking to think everyone wrong, liking
to make out that they were unjust to you; feeling quite proud at
the
notion that you were an injured person: and yet feeling in your
heart the very opposite of all these fancies: feeling that you were
wrong, that you were unjust to them, and feeling utterly ashamed at
the thought that they were the injured persons, and that you had
injured them. And perhaps, to make all worse, the person about whom
all this storm had arisen in your heart, was some dear friend or
relation whom you loved (strange contradiction, yet most true) at
the very moment that you were trying to hate. Oh, my friends, if
one such dark hour has ever come home to you; if you have ever let
the sun go down upon your wrath, and so given place to the devil,
then you know something at least of what eternal death is. You know
how, in such moments, there is a worm in the heart, and a fire in
the heart, compared with which all bodily torment would be light
and
bearable; a worm in the heart which does not die: and a fire in the
heart which you cannot quench: but which if they remained there
would surely destroy you. So intolerable are they, that you feel
that you will actually and really die, in some strange unspeakable
way, if you continue in that temper long. Do not there open at such
times within our hearts black depths of evil, a power of becoming
wicked, a chance of being swept off into sin if one gives way,
which
one never suspected till then; and yet with all these, the most
dreadful sense of helplessness, of slavery, of despair?--God grant
that may not remain, for then comes the mad hope to escape death by
death, to try by one desperate stroke to rid oneself of that self
which is for the time one's torment, worm, fire, death, and hell.
And what is this dark fight within us? What does the Bible call it?
It is death and life, eternal death and eternal life, salvation and
damnation, hell and heaven, fighting together within our hapless
hearts, to see which shall be our masters. It is the battle of the
evil spirit, who is the Devil, fighting with the good spirit, who
is
God. Nothing less than that, my friends. Yes, in those hateful and
shameful moments of pride, or spite, or contempt, or self-will, or
suspicion, or sneering, on which when they are past we look back
with shame and horror, and wonder how we could have been such
wretches even for a moment,--at such times, I say, our heart is a
battle-field, on which no less than the Devil himself, and God
Himself are fighting for our souls. On one side, Satan trying to
bring us into that state of eternal death in which he lives
himself;
Satan, the loveless one, the self-willed one, the accuser, the
slanderer, slandering God to us, slandering man to us, slandering
to
us the friends we love best and trust most utterly; yea, slandering
our own selves to us, trying to make us believe that we are as bad,
ought to be as bad, and must always be as bad as we seem for the
time to be; that we cannot shake off our evil passions, that we
cannot rise again out of the eternal death of sin into the eternal
life of righteousness. And on the other side, the Spirit of God and
of His Christ, the Spirit of eternal life, the Spirit of justice,
and righteousness, love, joy, peace, duty, self-sacrifice, trying
to
make us know Him and see His beauty, and obey Him, and be at peace;
trying to raise us again into that eternal life and state of
salvation which the Lord Jesus Christ has bought for us with His
most precious blood.
Oh, awful thought! Life and death, the Devil himself, and the Lord
Jesus Christ Himself, fighting in your heart and in mine, and in
the
heart of every human being round us! And yet most blessed thought,
hopeful, glorious,--full of the promise of eternal victory! For
greater is He that is with us, than he that is against us; and He
who conquered Satan for Himself, can and will conquer him for us
also. No thing can separate us from the love of Christ; no thing,
yea no angel, or devil, principality, or power; no thing, but only
ourselves, only our own proud and wayward will and determination to
the Devil's voice in our hearts, and not the voice of Christ, the
Word of Life, who is nigh us, in our hearts, even in our darkest
moments, loving us still, pitying us, ready, able and willing to
help all who cast themselves on Him, and raise us, there and then,
the very moment we cry to Him and renounce the Devil and our own
foolish will, out of self-will into God's will, out of darkness
into
light, out of hatred into love, out of despair into hope, out of
doubt into faith, out of tempest into peace, out of the death of
sin
into the life of righteousness, the life of love and charity, which
abideth for ever. Oh, listen not to the lying, slanderous Devil,
who tells you that by your own sin you have lost your share in
Christ, lost baptismal grace, lost Christ's love--Lost His love?
His, who, were you in the very lowest depths of hell, would pity
you
still? His love, who Himself went down into hell, and preached to
the spirits in prison, to show that he did care even for them? Not
so: into Him you have been baptized. His cross is on your
foreheads, His Father is your Father:--and can a father desert his
child, even though he sinned seventy and seven times, if seventy
and
seven times he turn and repent? Can man weary God? Can the
creature conquer and destroy the love of his Creator? Can Christ
deny Himself? Not so; whosoever thou art, however sorely tempted,
however deeply fallen, however disgusted and terrified at thyself,
turn only to that blessed face which wept over Jerusalem, to that
great heart which bled for thee upon the cross, and thou shalt find
him unchanged, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, the Lord
of
life and love, able and willing to save to the uttermost all who
come to God through Him, and the accusing Devil shall turn and
flee,
and thou shalt know that thy Redeemer liveth still, and in thy
flesh
thou shalt see the salvation of God, and cry, 'Rejoice not against
me, Satan, mine enemy; for when I fall I shall arise.'
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!