Chapter 18

But, now, to return to what I was dwelling on before. It is not only for children, that the revelation of God in Christ is so valuable; it is fitted to the wants of us all, at all times, and under all circumstances. Say, that we are in joy; say, that we are enjoying some of the festivities of this season. It is quite plain, that, at whatever moment the thought of God is unwelcome to us, that moment is one of sin or unbelief: yet, how can we dare to mix up the notion of the most high God with any earthly merriment, or festivity? Then, if we think of him who was present at the marriage in Cana of Galilee, and who worked a miracle for no other object than to increase the enjoyment of that marriage supper, do we not feel how the highest thoughts may be joined with the most common occasions? how we may bring Christ home with, us to our social meetings, to bless us, and to sanctify them? Imagine him in our feasts as he was in Cana:--we may do it without profaneness; being sure, from that example, that he condemns not innocent mirth; that it is not merely because there is a feast, or because friends and neighbours are gathered together, that Christ cannot, therefore, be in the midst of us. This alone does not drive him away; but, oh consider, with what ears would he have listened to any words of unkindness, of profaneness, or of impurity! with what eyes would he have viewed any intemperance, or revelling; any such, immoderate yielding up of the night to pleasure, that a less portion of the next day can be given to duty and to God! Even as he would have heard or seen such things in Cana of Galilee, so does he hear and see them amongst us; the same gracious eye of love is on our moderate and permitted enjoyments; the same turning away from, the same firm and just displeasure at every word or deed which turns pleasure into sin.

But if I seek for instances to show how God in Christ is brought very near to us, what can I choose more striking than that most solemn act of Christian communion to which we are called this day? For, what is there in our mortal life, what joy, what sorrow, what feeling elated or subdued, which is not in that communion brought near to Christ to receive his blessing? What is the first and outward thing of which it reminds us? Is it not that last supper in Jerusalem, in which men,--the twelve disciples, the first members of our Christian brotherhood,--were brought into such solemn nearness to God, as seems to have begun the privileges of heaven upon earth? They were brought near at once to Christ and to one another: united to one another in him, in that double bond which, is the perfection at once of our duty and of our happiness. And so in our communion we, too, draw near to Christ and to each other; we feel--who is there at that moment, at least, that does not feel?--what a tie there is to bind each of us to his brother, when we come to the table of our common Lord. So far, the Lord's Supper is but a type of what every Christian meeting should be: never should any of us be gathered together on any occasion of common life, in our families or with our neighbours; we should sit down to no meal, we should meet in no company, without having Christ also in the midst of us; without remembering what we all are to him, and what we each therefore are to our brethren. But when we further recollect what there is in the Lord's Supper beyond the mere meeting of Christ and his disciples; what it is which the bread and the wine commemorate; of what we partake when, as true Christians, we eat of that bread, and drink of that cup; then we shall understand that God indeed is brought very near to us; inasmuch, as he who is a Christian, and partakes sincerely of Christian communion, is a partaker also of Christ: and as belonging to his body, his living spiritual body, the universal Church, receives his share of all those blessings, of all that infinite love which the Father shows continually to the head of that body, his own well-beloved Son.

Say not then in your hearts, Who can ascend up into heaven, that is, to bring Christ down? As on this day, when he took our nature upon him, he came down to abide with us for ever; to abide with, us, even when we should see him with our eyes no more: for whilst he was on earth he so took part in all the concerns of life, in all its duties, its sorrows, and its joys, that memory, when looking back on the past, can fancy him present still; and then let the liveliest fancy do its work to the utmost, it cannot go beyond the reality; he is present still, for that belongs to his almightiness; he is present with us, because he is God; and we can fancy him with us, because he is man. This is the way to lessen our distance from God and heaven, by bringing Christ continually to us on earth: the sky is closed, and shows no sign; all things continue as they were from the beginning of the world; evil abounds, and therefore the faith of many waxes cold; but Christ was and is amongst us; and we need no surer sign than that sign of the prophet Jonah--Christ crucified and Christ risen--to make us feel that we may live with God daily upon earth, and doing so, shall live with him for an eternal life, in a country that cannot pass away.

LECTURE XXIII.

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SUNDAY NEXT BEFORE EASTER.

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MATTHEW xxvi. 40, 41.

_What, could ye not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak_.

These words, we cannot doubt, have an application to ourselves, and to all Christians, far beyond the particular occasion on which they were actually spoken. They are, in fact, the words which Christ addresses daily to all of us. Every day, when he sees how often we have gone astray from him, he repeats to us, Could ye not watch with me one hour? Every day he commands us to watch and pray, that we enter not into temptation; every day he reminds us, that however willing may be our spirits, yet our flesh is weak; and that through that weakness, sin prevails over it, and having triumphed over our flesh, proceeds to enslave our spirit also.

And as the words are applicable to us every day, so also are they in a particular manner suitable now, when the season of Lent is so nearly over, and Easter is so fast approaching. Have we been unable to watch, with Christ one hour? Already are the good resolutions with which, we, perhaps, began Lent, broken in many instances; and the impressions, if any such were made in us, are already weakened. They have been a burden, which we have shaken off, because the weakness of our nature found it too heavy to bear. Sad it is to think how often this same process has been repeated in all time, how often it will be repeated to the end.

Let us just review what the course of this process has probably been. Now, as the parable of the Sower describes three several sorts of persons, who never bring forth, fruit; so in the very same persons, there is at different times something of each of the three characters there described. We, the very same persons, are at one time hard, at another careless, and at another over-busy; although, if compared with, other persons, and in the general form of their characters, some are hard, and others are careless, and others over-busy; different persons having different faults predominantly. But even the hardness of the road side, although God forbid that it should be our prevailing temper, yet surely it does sometimes exist in too many of us. In common speech, we talk of a person showing a hard temper, meaning, generally, a hard temper towards other men. We have done wrong, but being angry when we are reproved for it, we will not acknowledge it at all, and cheat our consciences, by dwelling upon the supposed wrong that has been done to us in some over-severity of reproof or punishment, instead of confessing and repenting of the original wrong which we ourselves did. But is it not true, that a hard temper towards man is very often, even consciously, a hard temper towards God? Does it never happen, that if conscience presents to us the thought of God, whether as a God of judgment to terrify us, or as a God of love to melt us, we repel it with impatience, or with sullenness? Does not the heart sometimes almost speak aloud the language of blasphemy: Who is God, that I should mind him? I do not care what may happen, I will not be softened. Do not all sorts of unbelieving thoughts pass rapidly through the mind at such moments; first in their less daring form, whispering, as the serpent did to Eve, that we shall not surely die; that we shall have time to repent by and by; that God will not be so strict a judge as to condemn us for such a little; that by some means or other, we shall escape? But then they come, also, in their bolder form: What do I or any man know about another world, or God's judgments? may it not be all a fiction, so that I have, in reality, nothing to fear? In short, under one form or another, is it not true, that our hearts have sometimes displayed actually hardness towards God; that the thought of God has been actually presented to our minds, but that we have turned it aside, and have not suffered it to make any impression upon us? And thus, we have not only not watched with Christ according to his command, but have actually told him that we would not. But this has been in our worst temper, certainly; it may not have happened,--I trust that it has not happened often. More commonly, I dare say, the fault has been carelessness. We have gone out of this place; sacred names have ceased to sound in our ears; sights in any degree connected with, holy things have been all withdrawn from us. Other sounds and other sights have been before us, and our minds have yielded to them altogether. There are minds, indeed, which have no spring of thought in themselves; which are quiet, and in truth empty, till some outward objects come to engage them. Take them at a moment when they are alone, or when there is no very interesting object before them, and ask them of what they are thinking. If the answer were truly given, such a mind would say, "Of nothing." Certain images may be faintly presented to it; it may be that it is not altogether a blank; yet it could not name anything distinctly. No form had been vivid enough to produce any corresponding resolution in us; we were, as it were, in a state between sleeping and waking, with neither thoughts nor dreams definite enough to affect us. This state finds exactly all that it desires in the presence or the near hope of outward objects; the mind lives in its daily pursuits, and companions, and amusements. What impressions have been once produced are soon worn away; and in a soil so shallow nothing makes a durable impression: everything can, as it were, scratch upon its surface, while nothing can strike deeply down within.

Or, again, take the rarer case of those who are over-busy. There are minds, undoubtedly, which are as incapable of rest as those of the generality of men are prone to it; there are minds which enter keenly into everything presented to them by their outward senses, and which, when their senses cease to supply them, have an inexhaustible source of thought within, which furnishes them with abundant matter of reflection or of speculation. To such a mind, doing is most delightful; whether it be outward doing, or the mere exercise of thought, either supplies alike the consciousness of power. Where, then, is there room for the less obtruding things of God? Into that restless water, another and another image is for ever stepping down, pushing aside and keeping at a distance the sobering reflections of God and of Christ. Alas! the thorns grow so vigorously in such a soil, that they altogether choke and kill the seed of God's word.

So, then, we are either asleep, or, if we are awake, we are not waking with Christ. On one side, in that garden of Gethsemane were the disciples sleeping; below, and fast ascending the hill,--not sleeping, certainly, but with lanterns and torches and weapons,--were those whose waking was for evil. Where were they who watched with Christ one hour then,--or where are those who watch with him now?

HOW gently, yet how earnestly, does he call upon us to "watch and pray, lest we enter into temptation." To watch and to pray: for of all those around him some were sleeping, and none were praying; so that they who watched were not watching with him, but against him. In our careless state of mind the call to us is to watch; in our over-busy state the call to us is to pray; in our hard state there is equal need for both. And even in our best moods, when we are not hard, nor careless, nor over-busy, when we are at once sober and earnest and gentle, then not least does Christ call upon us to watch and to pray, that we may retain that than which else no gleam of April sunshine was ever more fleeting; that we may perfect that which else is of the earth, earthly, and when we lie down in the dust will wither and come to dust also.

Jesus Christ brought life and immortality, it is said, to light through the gospel. He brought life and immortality to light:--is this indeed true as far as we are concerned? What do we think would be the difference in this point between many of us--who will dare say how many?--and a school, I will not say of Jewish, but even of Greek or Roman or Egyptian boys, eighteen hundred, or twenty-four hundred, or three or four thousand years ago? Compare us at our worship with them, and then, I grant, the difference would appear enormous. We have no images, making the glory of the incorruptible God like to corruptible man; we have no vain stream of incense; no shedding of the blood of bulls and calves in sacrifice: the hymns which are sung here are not vain repetitions or impious fables, which gave no word of answer to those questions which it most concerns mankind to know. Here, indeed, Jesus Christ is truly set forth, crucified among us; here life and immortality are brought to light. But follow us out of this place,--to our respective pursuits and amusements, to our social meetings, or our times of solitary thought,--and wherein do we seem to see life and immortality more brightly revealed than to those heathen schools of old? Do we enjoy any worldly good less keenly, or less shrink from any worldly evil? Death, which to the heathen view was the end of all things, is to us (so our language goes) the gate of life. Do we think of it with more hope and less fear than the heathen did? Christ has risen, and has reconciled us to God. Is God more to us?--God now revealed to us as our reconciled Father--do we oftener think of him, do we love him better, than he was thought of and loved in those heathen schools, which had Homer's poetry for their only gospel? We talk of light, of revelation, of the knowledge of God, while verily and really we are walking, not in light, but in darkness: not in knowledge of God, but in blindness and hardness of heart.

"The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." How great is the loving-kindness of these words,--how gently does Christ bear with the weakness of his disciples! But this thought may be the most blessed or the most dangerous thought in the world; the most blessed if it touches us with love, the most dangerous if it emboldens us in sin. He is full of loving-kindness, full of long-suffering; for days, and weeks, and months, and years he bears with us: we grieve him, and he entreats; we crucify him afresh, yet he will not come down from the cross in power and majesty; he endures and spares. So it is for days, and months, and years; for some years it may be to most of us,--for many years to some of the youngest. There may be some here who may go on grieving Christ, and crucifying him afresh, for as much as seventy years; and he will bear with them all that time, and his sun will daily shine upon them, and his creatures and his word will minister to their pleasure; and he himself will say nothing to them but to entreat them to turn and be saved. This may last, I say, to some amongst us for seventy years; to others it may last fifty; to many of us it may last for forty, or for thirty; none of us, perhaps, are so old but that it may last with us twenty, or at the least ten. Such is the prospect before us, if we like it: not to be depended upon with certainty, it is true, but yet to be regarded as probable. But as these ten, or twenty, or fifty, or seventy years pass on, Christ will still spare us, but his voice of entreaty will be less often heard; the distance between him and us will be consciously wider. From one place after another where we once used sometimes to see him, he will have departed; year after year some object which used once to catch the light from heaven, will have become overgrown, and will lie constantly in gloom; year after year the world will become to us more entirely devoid of God. If sorrow, or some softening joy ever turns our minds towards Christ, we shall be startled at perceiving there is something which keeps us from him, that we cannot earnestly believe in him; that if we speak of loving him, our hearts, which can still love earthly things, feel that the words are but mockery. Alas, alas! the increased weakness of our flesh, has destroyed all the power of our spirit, and almost all its willingness: it is bound with chains which it cannot break, and, indeed, scarcely desires to break. Redemption, Salvation, Victory,--what words are these when applied to that enslaved, that lost, that utterly overthrown and vanquished soul, which sin is leading in triumph now, and which will speedily be given over to walk for ever as a captive in the eternal triumph of death!

Not one word of what I have said is raised beyond the simplest expression of truth; this is our portion if we will not watch with Christ. We know how often we have failed to do so, either sleeping in carelessness, or being busy and wakeful, but not with him or for him. Still he calls us to watch and pray, lest we enter into temptation; to mark our lives and actions; to mark them often; to see whether we have done well or ill in the month past, or in the week past, or in the day past; to consider whether we are better than we were, or worse; whether we think Christ loves us better, or worse; whether we are more or less cold towards him. I know not what else can be called watching with Christ than such a looking into ourselves as we are in his sight. It is very hard to be done;--yes, it is hard--harder than anything probably which we ever attempted before; and, therefore, we must pray withal for his help, whose strength is perfected in our weakness. And if it be so hard, and we have need so greatly to pray for God's help, should we not all also be anxious to help one another? And knowing, as we do from our own consciences, how difficult it is to watch with Christ, and how thankful we should be to any one who were to make it easier to us, should we not be sure that our neighbour is in like case with ourselves; that our help may be as useful to him as we feel that his would be to us? This is our bounden duty of love towards one another; what then should be said of us if we not only neglect this duty, but do the very contrary to it; if we actually help the evil in our brother's heart to destroy him more entirely; if we will not watch with Christ ourselves, and strive to prevent others from doing so?

LECTURE XXIV.

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GOOD FRIDAY.

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ROMANS v. 8.

_God commendeth his love towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us_.

We all remember the story in the Gospel, of the different treatment which our Lord met with in the same house, from the Pharisee, who had invited him into it, and from the woman who came in and knelt at his feet, and kissed them, and bathed them with her tears. Our Lord accounted for the difference in these words, "To whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little;" which means to speak of the sense or feeling in the person's own mind, "He who feels that little is or needs to be forgiven him, he also loves little." And this same difference which existed toward him when he was present on earth, exists no less now, whenever he is brought before our thoughts. The same sort of persons who saw him with indifference, think of him also with indifference; they who saw him with love, think of him also with love. There is no art, no power in the world, which can give an interest to words spoken concerning him, for those who feel that little is and that little needs to be forgiven them, or to those who never consider about their being forgiven at all. To such, this day, with its services, what they hear from the Scriptures, or what they hear from men, must be alike a matter of indifference: it is not possible that it should be otherwise. Yet, God forbid that we should design what we are saying this day only for a certain few of our congregation, as if the rest neither would nor could be interested in it. So long as any one is careless, he cannot, it is true, be interested about the things of Christ; but who can say at what moment, through God's grace, he may cease to be careless? Is it too much to say, that scarcely a service is performed in any congregation in the land, which does not awaken an interest in some one who before was indifferent? I do rot say a deep interest, nor a lasting one, but an interest; there is a thought, a heeding, an inclination of the mind to listen, created probably by the Church services in some one or other, every time that they are performed. As we never can know in whom this may be so created, as all have great need that it should be created, as all are deeply concerned whether they feel that they are so or no, so we speak to all alike; and if the language does pass over their ears like an unknown or indistinct sound, the fault and the loss are theirs; but the Church has borne her witness, and has so far done her duty.

But again, for ears not careless, but most interested; for hearts to whom Christ is more than all in the world besides; for minds, before whom the wisdom of the gospel is ever growing, rising to a loftier height, and striking downwards to a depth more profound,--yet without end in its height or its depth; is there not, also, a difficulty in speaking to them of that great thing which the Church celebrates to-day? Is there no difficulty in awakening their interest, or rather how can we escape even from wearying or repelling them, when their own affections and deep thoughts must find all words of man, whether of themselves or others, infinitely unworthy to express either the one or the other? To such, then, the words of the preacher may be no more than music without any words at all; which does but serve to lead and accompany our own thoughts, without distinctly suggesting any thoughts of another to interrupt the workings of our own minds. We would speak of Christ's death; most good it is for us and for you to think upon it; so far as our words suit the current of your own thoughts, use them and listen to them; so far as they are a too unworthy expression of what we ought to think and feel, follow your own reflections, and let the words neither offend you nor distract you.

I would endeavour just to touch, upon some of the purposes for which the Scripture tells us that Christ died, and for which his death was declared to be the great object of our faith. This done in the simplest and fewest words will best show the infinite greatness of the subject; and how truly it is, so to speak, the central point of Christianity.