Chapter 5

Virgil had said that the mouth of Tartarus was there in Italy, by the volcanic lake of Avernus; and after the first eruption of Vesuvius in the first century, nothing seemed more probable. Etna, Stromboli, Hecla, must be, likewise, all mouths of hell; and there were not wanting holy hermits who had heard within those craters, shrieks and clanking chains, and the shouts of demons tormenting endlessly the souls of the lost. And now, how has all this been shaken? How much of all this does any educated man, though he be pious, though he desire with all his heart to be orthodox—and is orthodox in fact—how much of all this does he believe, as he believes that the earth is round, or, that if he steals his neighbour’s goods he commits a crime?

For, since these days, the earth has been shaken, and with it the heavens likewise, in that very sense in which the expression is used in the text. Our conceptions of them have been shaken. The Copernican system shook them, when it told men that the earth was but a tiny globular planet revolving round the sun. Geology shook them, when it told men that the earth has endured for countless ages, during which whole continents have been submerged, whole seas become dry land, again and again. Even now the heavens and the earth are being shaken by researches into the antiquity of the human race, and into the origin and the mutability of species, which, issue in what results they may, will shake for us, meanwhile, theories which are venerable with the authority of nearly eighteen hundred years, and of almost every great Doctor since St. Augustine.

And as our conception of the physical universe has been shaken, the old theory of a Tartarus beneath the earth has been shaken also, till good men have been glad to place Tartarus in a comet, or in the sun, or to welcome the possible, but unproved hypothesis, of a central fire in the earth’s core, not on any scientific grounds, but if by any means a spot may be found in space corresponding to that of which Virgil, Dante, and Milton sang.

And meanwhile—as was to be expected from a generation which abhors torture, labours for the reformation of criminals, and even doubts whether it should not abolish capital punishment—a shaking of the heavens is abroad, of which we shall hear more and more, as the years roll on—a general inclination to ask whether Holy Scripture really endorses the Middle-age notions of future punishment in endless torment? Men are writing and speaking on this matter, not merely with ability and learning, but with a piety, and reverence for Scripture which (rightly or wrongly employed) must, and will, command attention. They are saying that it is not those who deny these notions who disregard the letter of Scripture, but those who assert them; that they are distorting the plain literal text, in order to make Scripture fit the writings of Dante and Milton, when they translate into ‘endless torments after death,’ such phrases as the outer darkness, the undying worm, the Gehenna of fire—which manifestly (say these men), if judged by fair rules of interpretation, refer to this life, and specially to the fate of the Jewish nation: or when they tell us that eternal death means really eternal life, only in torments. We demand, they say, not a looser, but a stricter; not a more metaphoric, but a more literal; not a more careless, but a more reverent interpretation of Scripture; and whether this demand be right or wrong, it will not pass unheard.

And even more severely shaken, meanwhile, is that mediæval conception of heaven and hell, by the question which educated men are asking more and more:—‘Heaven and hell—the spiritual world—Are they merely invisible places in space, which may become visible hereafter? or are they not rather the moral world—the world of right and wrong? Love and righteousness—is not that the heaven itself wherein God dwells? Hatred and sin—is not that hell itself, wherein dwells all that is opposed to God?’

And out of that thought, right or wrong, other thoughts have sprung—of ethics, of moral retribution—not new at all (say these men), but to be found in Scripture, and in the writings of all great Christian divines, when they have listened, not to systems, but to the voice of their own hearts.

‘We do not deny’ (they say) ‘that the wages of sin are death. We do not deny the necessity of punishment—the certainty of punishment. We see it working awfully enough around us in this life; we believe that it may work in still more awful forms in the life to come. Only tell us not that it must be endless, and thereby destroy its whole purpose, and (as we think) its whole morality. We, too, believe in an eternal fire; but we believe its existence to be, not a curse, but a Gospel and a blessing, seeing that that fire is God Himself, who taketh away the sins of the world, and of whom it is therefore written, Our God is a consuming fire.’

Questions, too, have arisen, of—‘What _is_ moral retribution? Should punishment have any end but the good of the offender? Is God so controlled that He must needs send into the world beings whom He knows to be incorrigible, and doomed to endless misery? And if not so controlled, then is not the other alternative as to His character more fearful still? Does He not bid us copy Him, His justice, His love? Then is that His justice, is that His love, which if we copied we should be unjust and unloving utterly? Are there two moralities, one for God, and quite another for man, made in the image of God? Can these dark dogmas be true of a Father who bids us be perfect as He is, in that He sends His sun to shine on the evil and the good, and His rain on the just and unjust? Or of a Son who so loved the world that He died to save the world and surely not in vain?’

These questions—be they right or wrong—educated men and women of all classes and denominations—orthodox, be it remembered, as well as unorthodox—are asking, and will ask more and more, till they receive an answer. And if we of the clergy cannot give them an answer which accords with their conscience and their reason; if we tell them that the words of Scripture, and the integral doctrines of Christianity, demand the same notions of moral retribution as were current in the days when men racked criminals, burned heretics alive, and believed that every Mussulman whom they slaughtered in a crusade went straight to endless torments,—then evil times will come, both for the clergy and the Christian religion, for many a yeas henceforth.

What then are we to believe? What are we to do, amid this shaking of the earth and heaven? Are we to degenerate into a lazy and heartless scepticism, which, under pretence of liberality and charity, believes that everything is a little true, everything is a little false—in one word, believes nothing at all? Or are we to degenerate into unmanly and faithless wailings, crying out that the flood of infidelity is irresistible, that the last days are come, and that Christ has deserted His Church?

Not if we will believe the text. The text tells us of something which cannot be moved, though all around it reel and crumble—of a firm standing-ground, which would endure, though the heavens should pass away as a scroll, and the earth should be removed, and cast into the midst of the sea.

We have a kingdom, the Scripture says, which cannot be moved, even the kingdom of Him whom it calls shortly after ‘Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day and for ever.’ An eternal and unchangeable kingdom, ruled by an eternal and unchangeable King. That is what cannot be moved.

Scripture does not say that we have an unchangeable cosmogony, an unchangeable theory of moral retribution, an unchangeable system of dogmatic propositions. Whether we have, or have not, it is not of them that Scripture reminds the Jews, when the heavens and the earth were shaken; when their own nation and worship were in their death-agony, and all the beliefs and practices of men were in a whirl of doubt and confusion, of decay and birth side by side, such as the world had never seen before. Not of them does it remind the Jews, but of the changeless kingdom, and the changeless King.

My friends, lay it seriously to heart, once and for all. Do you believe that you are subjects of that kingdom, and that Christ is the living, ruling, guiding King thereof? Whatsoever Scripture does not say, Scripture speaks of that, again and again, in the plainest terms. But do you believe it? These are days in which the preacher ought to ask every man whether he believes it, and bid him, of whatever else he repents of, to repent, at least, of not having believed this primary doctrine (I may almost say) of Scripture and of Christianity.

But if you do believe it, will it seem strange to you to believe this also,—That, considering who Christ is, the co-eternal and co-equal Son of God, He may be actually governing His kingdom; and if so, that He may know better how to govern it than such poor worms as we? That if the heavens and the earth be shaken, Christ Himself may be shaking them? if opinions be changing, Christ Himself may be changing them? If new truths and facts are being discovered, Christ Himself may be revealing them? That if those truths seem to contradict the truths which He has already taught us, they do not really contradict them, any more than those reasserted in the sixteenth century? That if our God be a consuming fire, He is now burning up (to use St. Paul’s parable) the chaff and stubble which men have built on the one foundation of Christ, that, at last, nought but the pure gold may remain? Is it not possible? Is it not most probable, if we only believe that Christ is a real, living King, an active, practical King,—who, with boundless wisdom and skill, love and patience, is educating and guiding Christendom, and through Christendom the whole human race?

If men would but believe that, how different would be their attitude toward new facts, toward new opinions! They would receive them with grace; gracefully, courteously, fairly, charitably, and with that reverence and godly fear which the text tells us is the way to serve God acceptably. They would say: ‘Christ (so the Scripture tells us) has been educating man through Abraham, through Moses, through David, through the Jewish prophets, through the Greeks, through the Romans; then through Himself, as man as well as God; and after His ascension, through His Apostles, especially through St. Paul, to an ever-increasing understanding of God, and the universe, and themselves. And even after their time He did not cease His education. Why should He? How could He, who said of Himself, “All power is given to me in heaven and earth;” “Lo, I am with you alway to the end of the world;” and again, “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work?”

‘At the Reformation in the sixteenth century He called on our forefathers to repent—that is, to change their minds—concerning opinions which had been undoubted for more than a thousand years. Why should He not be calling on us at this time likewise? And if any answer, that the Reformation was only a return to the primitive faith of the Apostles—Why should not this shaking of the hearts and minds of men issue in a still further return, in a further correction of errors, a further sweeping away of additions, which are not integral to the Christian creeds, but which were left behind, through natural and necessary human frailty, by our great Reformers? Wise they were,—good and great,—as giants on the earth, while we are but as dwarfs; but, as the hackneyed proverb tells us, the dwarf on the giant’s shoulders may see further than the giant himself.’

Ah! that men would approach new truth in that spirit; in the spirit of godly fear, which is inspired by the thought that we are in the kingdom of God, and that the King thereof is Christ, both God and man, once crucified for us, now living for us for ever! Ah! that they would thus serve God, waiting, as servants before a lord, for the slightest sign which might intimate his will! Then they would look at new truths with caution; in that truly conservative spirit which is the duty of all Christians, and the especial strength of the Englishman. With caution,—lest in grasping eagerly after what is new, we throw away truth which we have already: but with awe and reverence; for Christ may have sent the new truth; and he who fights against it, may haply be found fighting against God. And so would they indeed obey the Apostolic injunction—Prove all things, hold fast that which is good,—that which is pure, fair, noble, tending to the elevation of men; to the improvement of knowledge, justice, mercy, well-being; to the extermination of ignorance, cruelty, and vice. That, at least, must come from Christ, unless the Pharisees were right when they said that evil spirits could be cast out by Beelzebub, prince of the devils.

How much more Christian, reverent, faithful, as well as more prudent, rational, and philosophical, would such a temper be than that which condemns all changes _à priori_, at the first hearing, or rather, too often, without any hearing at all, in rage and terror, like that of the animal who at the same moment barks at, and runs away from, every unknown object.

At least that temper of mind will give us calm; faith, patience, hope, charity, though the heavens and the earth are shaken around us. For we have received a kingdom which cannot be moved, and in the King thereof we have the most perfect trust: for us He stooped to earth, was born, and died on the cross; and can we not trust Him? Let Him do what He will; let Him teach us what He will; let Him lead us whither He will. Wherever He leads, we shall find pasture. Wherever He leads, must be the way of truth, and we will follow, and say, as Socrates of old used to say, Let us follow the Logos boldly, whithersoever it leadeth. If Socrates had courage to say it, how much more should we, who know what he, good man, knew not, that the Logos is not a mere argument, train of thought, necessity of logic, but a Person—perfect God and perfect man, even Jesus Christ, ‘the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever,’ who promised of old, and therefore promises to us, and our children after us, to lead those who trust Him into all truth.

SERMON VII. THE BATTLE OF LIFE.

GALATIANS v. 16, 17.

I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.

A GREAT poet speaks of ‘Happiness, our being’s end and aim;’ and he has been reproved for so doing. Men have said, and wisely, the end and aim of our being is not happiness, but goodness. If goodness comes first, then happiness may come after. But if not, something better than happiness may come, even blessedness.

This it is, I believe, which our Lord may have meant when He said, ‘He that saveth his life, or soul’ (for the two words in Scripture mean exactly the same thing), ‘shall lose it. And he that loseth his life, shall save it. For what is a man profited if he gain the whole world, and lose his own life?’

How is this? It is a hard saying. Difficult to believe, on account of the natural selfishness which lies deep in all of us. Difficult even to understand in these days, when religion itself is selfish, and men learn more and more to think that the end and aim of religion is not to make them good while they live, but merely to save their souls after they die.

But whether it be hard to understand or not, we must understand it, if we would be good men. And how to understand it, the Epistle for this day will teach us.

‘Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.’ The Spirit, which is the Spirit of God within our hearts and conscience, says—Be good. The flesh, the animal, savage nature, which we all have in common with the dumb animals, says—Be happy. Please yourself. Do what you like. Eat and drink, for to-morrow you die.

But, happily for us, the Spirit lusts against the flesh. It draws us the opposite way. It lifts us up, instead of dragging us down. It has nobler aims, higher longings. It, as St. Paul puts it, will not let us do the things that we would. It will not let us do just what we like, and please ourselves. It often makes us unhappy just when we try to be happy. It shames us, and cries in our hearts—You were not meant merely to please yourselves, and be as the beasts which perish.

But how few listen to that voice of God’s Spirit within their hearts, though it be just the noblest thing of which they will ever be aware on earth!

How few listen to it, till the lusts of the flesh are worn out, and have worn them out likewise, and made them reap the fruit which they have sowed—sowing to the selfish flesh, and of the selfish flesh reaping corruption.

The young man says—I will be happy and do what I like; and runs after what he calls pleasure. The middle-aged man, grown more prudent, says—I will be happy yet, and runs after money, comfort, fame and power. But what do they gain? ‘The works of the flesh,’ the fruit of this selfish lusting after mere earthly happiness, ‘are manifest, which are these:’—not merely that open vice and immorality into which the young man falls when he craves after mere animal pleasure, but ‘hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies’—_i.e._, factions in Church or State—‘envyings, murders, and such like.’

Thus men put themselves under the law. Not under Moses’ law, of course, but under some law or other.

For why has law been invented? Why is it needed, with all its expense? Law is meant to prevent, if possible, men harming each other by their own selfishness, by those lusts of the flesh which tempt every man to seek his own happiness, careless of his neighbour’s happiness, interest, morals; by all the passions which make men their own tormentors, and which make the history of every nation too often a history of crime, and folly, and faction, and war, sad and shameful to read; all those passions of which St. Paul says once and for ever, that those who do such things ‘shall not inherit the kingdom of God.’

These are the sad consequences of giving way to the flesh, the selfish animal nature within us: and most miserable would man be if that were all he had to look to. Miserable, were there not a kingdom of God, into which he could enter all day long, and be at peace; and a Spirit of God, who would raise him up to the spiritual life of love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance; and a Son of God, the King of that kingdom, the Giver of that Spirit, who cries for ever to every one of us—‘Come unto Me, ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke on you, and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly of heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls.’

Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance; these are the fruits of the Spirit: the spirit of unselfishness; the spirit of charity; the spirit of justice; the spirit of purity; the Spirit of God. Against them there is no law. He who is guided by this Spirit, and he only, may do what he would; for he will wish to do nought but what is right. He is not under the law, but under grace; and full of grace will he be in all his words and works. He has entered into the kingdom of God, and is living therein as God’s subject, obeying the royal law of liberty—‘Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.’

‘The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh, so that ye cannot do the things that ye would,’ says St. Paul.

My friends, this is the battle of life.

In every one of us, more or less, this battle is going on; a battle between the flesh and the Spirit, between the animal nature and the divine grace. In every one of us, I say, who is not like the heathen, dead in trespasses and sins; in every one of us who has a conscience, excusing or else accusing us. There are those—a very few, I hope—who are sunk below that state; who have lost their sense of right and wrong; who only care to fulfil the lusts of the flesh in pleasure, ease, and vanity. There are those in whom the voice of conscience is lead for a while, silenced by self-conceit; who say in their prosperity, like the foolish Laodiceans, ‘I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing,’ and know not that in fact and reality, and in the sight of God, they are ‘wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.’

Happy, happy for any and all of us,—if ever we fall into that dream of pride and false security,—to be awakened again, however painful the awakening may be! Happy for every man that the battle between the Spirit and the flesh should begin in him again and again, as long as his flesh is not subdued to his spirit. If he be wrong, the greatest blessing which can happen to him is, that he should find himself in the wrong. If he have been deceiving himself, the greatest blessing is, that God should anoint his eyes that he may see—see himself as he is; see his own inbred corruption; see the sin which doth so easily beset him, whatever it may be. Whatever anguish of mind it may cost him, it is a light price to pay for the inestimable treasure which true repentance and amendment brings; the fine gold of solid self-knowledge, tried in the fire of bitter experience; the white raiment of a pure and simple heart; the eye-salve of honest self-condemnation and noble shame. If he have but these—and these God will give him, in answer to prayer, the prayer of a broken and a contrite heart—then he will be able to carry on the battle against the corrupt flesh, with its affections and lusts, in hope. In the assured hope of final victory. ‘For greater is He that is with us, than he that is against us? He that is against us is our self, our selfish self; our animal nature; and He that is with us is God; God and none other: and who can pluck us out of His hand?

My friends, the bread and the wine on that table are God’s own sign to us that He will not leave us to be, like the savage, the slaves of our own animal natures; that He will feed not merely our bodies with animal, but our souls with spiritual food; giving us strength to rise above our selfish selves; and so subdue the flesh to the Spirit, that at last, however long and weary the fight, however sore wounded and often worsted we may be, we shall conquer in the battle of life.

SERMON VIII. FREE GRACE.

(_Preached before the Queen at Windsor_, _March_ 12, 1865.)

ISAIAH lv. 1.

Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.

EVERY one who knows his Bible as he should, knows well this noble chapter. It seems to be one of the separate poems or hymns of which the Book of Isaiah is composed. It is certainly one of the most beautiful of them, and also one of the deepest. So beautiful is it, that the good men of old who translated the Bible into English, could not help catching the spirit of the words as they went on with their work, and making the chapter almost a hymn in English, as it is a hymn in Hebrew. Even the very sound of the words, as we listen to them, is a song in itself; and there is perhaps no more perfect piece of writing in the English language, than the greater part of this chapter.

This may not seem a very important matter; and yet those good men of old must have felt that there was something in this chapter which went home especially to their hearts, and would go home to the hearts of us for whose sake they translated it.