All Saints' Day and Other Sermons Part 17
We are apt to fancy that the world will always go on very much as it goes on now; that it will be guided, not by the will of G.o.d, but by the will of man; by man's craft; by man's ambition; by man's self-interest; by man's cravings after the luxuries, and even after the mere necessities of this life. In a word, we are apt to fancy that man, not G.o.d, is the master of this earth on which we live, and that men have no king over them in heaven.
The Lord's Prayer tells us that men HAVE a king over them in heaven, and that that king is a Father likewise--a Father whose name will one day be hallowed above all names. That the world will not always go on as it goes on now, but that the Father's kingdom will come. That above the will of man, there is a will of G.o.d, which must be done, and therefore will be done some day. In a word, the Lord's Prayer tells us that this world is under a Divine government; that the Lord, even Jesus Christ our Saviour, is King, be the people never so impatient. That He sitteth between the cherubim, master of all the powers of nature, be the earth never so unquiet. That His power loves justice. That He has prepared equity. That He has executed, and therefore will execute to the end, judgment and righteousness in the earth. That Christ reigns in justice and in love. That He has for those who disobey His laws the most terrible penalties; for those who obey them blessings such as eye hath not seen nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive. That He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet and delivered up the kingdom to G.o.d, even the Father. That on that great day He will prove His royalty, and His Father's royalty, in the sight of all heaven and earth, and make every soul of man aware, in a fashion which none shall mistake, that He is Lord and King. This is the message which the Lord's Prayer brings--a message of mingled fear and joy.
But a message of more joy than fear. Else why does our Lord bid us pray for it that it may come to pa.s.s?--pray daily, before we even pray for our daily bread, or the forgiveness of our sins--that His Father's name may be hallowed, His Father's kingdom come, His Father's will be done?
He bids us pray for that because it will bring blessings. Blessings to every soul of man who desires to be good and true. Because it will satisfy every aspiration which has ever risen up from the heart of man after what is n.o.ble, what is generous, what is just, what is useful, what is pure. Surely it is so. Consider but these short words of my text, and think what the world would be like if they were fulfilled; what the next world will actually be like when they are fulfilled.
"Hallowed be thy name." But what name? The name of Father. If that name were hallowed by men, there would be an end of all superst.i.tions.
The root of all superst.i.tions, fanaticisms, and false religions is this-- that they do not hallow the name of Father. They do not see that it is a Holy name, a beautiful and tender as well as an awful and venerable name.
They think of fathers, like too many among themselves, proud, and arbitrary, selfish and cruel. They say in their hearts, even such fathers as we are, such is G.o.d. Therefore, they shrink from G.o.d, and turn from Him to idols, to the Virgin Mary, or Saints, or any other beings who can deliver them (as they fancy) out of the hands of their Father in heaven. If men once learnt to hallow the name of Father, to think of a father as one who not only possessed power but felt love, who not only had rights which he would enforce, and issued commands which must be obeyed, but who felt yearning sympathy for his children's weakness, an active interest in their education, and was ready to labour for, to sacrifice himself for, his family--That would be truly to hallow the name of Father, and look on it as a holy thing, whether in heaven above or in earth beneath.
To hallow the Father's name would abolish all the superst.i.tion of the world. And so the coming of the Father's kingdom would abolish all the misrule and anarchy of the world. For the kingdom of G.o.d the Father is a kingdom of perfect order, perfect justice, perfect usefulness. Surely the first consequences of that kingdom's coming would be, that every one would be exactly in his right place, and that every one would get his exact deserts. That would indeed be the kingdom of G.o.d on earth. The prospect of such a kingdom would be painful enough to those who were in their wrong place, to those who were undeserving. All who were useless, taking wages either from man or from G.o.d, without doing any work in return, all these would have but too good reason to dread the coming of the kingdom of G.o.d.
But those who were trying earnestly to do their work, though amid many mistakes and failures, why should they dread the coming of the kingdom of G.o.d? Why should they shrink from remembering that, though G.o.d's kingdom is not come in perfection and fulness, it is here already, and they are in it? Why should they shrink from that thought? They will find it full of comfort, of strength, and hope, if they will but hallow their Father's name, and remember the fact of all facts--that they have a Father in heaven. There are thousands on earth, from the highest to the lowest, who can say honestly--to take the commonest instance--every parent can say it--"I have a heavy work to do, a heavy responsibility to fulfil.
G.o.d knows I did not seek it, thrust myself into it; it was thrust upon me. It came to me in the course of nature or of society, and circ.u.mstances over which I had no control. In one word it was MY DUTY.
But now that I have my duty to do, behold I cannot do it. I try my best, but I fail. I come short daily of my own low standard of duty. How much more of G.o.d's perfect standard of it! And the burden of responsibility, the regret for failure, is more than I can bear.
To such we may answer, hallow your Father's name, and be of good cheer.
YOUR FATHER has given you your work. Because He is a Father, He is surely educating you for your work. Because He is a Father, He will surely set you no task which you are unable to fulfil. Because He is a Father, He will help you to fulfil your task. Your station and calling is His will; and because it is a Father's will it is a good will.
And the Judge of your work--He is no stern taskmaster, no unfeeling tyrant, but Jesus Christ, your Lord, who died for you on the Cross. He knows what is in man. He remembereth that we are but dust. Else the spirit would fail before Him and the souls which He has made. He can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, seeing that He was tempted in all things like as we are, yet without sin. He can sympathise utterly; He can make all just allowances; He will judge not by outward results, but by the inward will and desire. He will judge not by the hearing of the ear, nor the seeing of the eye, as the shallow cruel world judges, but He will judge righteous judgment. Trust your cause to Him, and trust yourself to Him. Believe that if He can sympathise, He can also help; for from Him, as well as from His Father, proceeds the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of power and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord, and He will inspire you to see your duty, and do your duty, and rejoice in your duty, in spite of weariness and failure, and all the burdens of the flesh and of the spirit.
"Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." If that were done, it would abolish all the vice of the world, and therefore the misery which springs from vice. Ah, that G.o.d's will were but done on earth as it is in the material heaven overhead, in perfect order and obedience, as the stars roll in their courses, without rest, yet without haste; as all created things, even the most awful, fire and hail, snow and vapour, wind and storm, fulfil G.o.d's word, who hath made them sure for ever and ever, and given them a law which shall not be broken. But above them; above the divine and wonderful order of the material universe, and the winds which are G.o.d's angels, and the flames of fire which are His messengers; above all, the prophets and apostles have caught sight of another divine and wonderful order of RATIONAL beings, of races, loftier and purer than man--angels and archangels, thrones and dominions, princ.i.p.alities and powers, fulfilling G.o.d's will in heaven as it is not alas! fulfilled on earth.
And beside them, beside the innumerable company of angels, are there not the spirits of just men made perfect, freed from the fetters of the gross animal body, and now somewhere in that boundless universe in which this earth is but a tiny speck, doing G.o.d's will, as they longed to do it on earth, with clearer light, fuller faith, deeper love, mightier powers of usefulness? Ah, that we were like to them! Ah, that we could perform the least part of our day's work on earth as it is performed by saints and angels for ever in heaven! When we think of what this poor confused world is, and then what it might be, were G.o.d's will done therein as it is done in heaven; what it might be if even the little of G.o.d's will which we already know, the little of G.o.d's laws which are proved already to be certain, were carried out with any earnestness by the majority of mankind, or even of one civilized nation--when we think--to take the very lowest ground--of the health and wealth, the peace and happiness, which would cover this earth did men only do the will of G.o.d; then, if we have human hearts within us--if we care at all for the welfare of our fellow- men--ought not this to be the prayer of all our prayers, and ought we not to welcome any event, however awful, which would bring mankind to reason and to virtue, and to G.o.d, and abolish the sin and misery of this unhappy world?
To abolish the superst.i.tion, the misrule, the vice, the misery of this world. That is what Christ will do in the day when He has put all enemies under His feet. That is what Christ has been doing, step by step, ever since that day when first He came to do His Father's will on earth in great humility. Therefore, that is what we must do, each in our place and station, if we be indeed His subjects, fellow-workers with Him in the improvement of the human race, fellow-soldiers with Him in the battle against evil.
But what we wish to do for our fellow-creatures, we must do first for ourselves. We can give them nothing save what G.o.d has already given us.
We must become good before we can make them good, and wise before we can make them wise. Let us pray, then, the Lord's Prayer in spirit and in truth. Let us pray that we may hallow the name of G.o.d, our Father. Let us pray that His kingdom may come in our own hearts. Let us pray that we may do His will on earth as those whom we love and honour do it in heaven. Let us keep that before us, day and night, as the aim and purpose of our lives. Let us pray for forgiveness of our failures in that; for help to do that better as our years run on. So we shall be ready for the day in which Christ shall have accomplished the number of His elect, and hastened His kingdom. So we shall be found in that dread day, not on the side of evil, but of G.o.d; not on the side of darkness, anarchy, and vice, but on the side of light, of justice, and of virtue, which is the side of Christ and of G.o.d. And so we, with all those that are departed in the faith of His holy name, shall have our perfect consummation and bliss in His eternal and everlasting glory, to which may He, of His great mercy, bring us all. Amen.
SERMON x.x.xIX. THE DISTRACTED MIND
Eversley. 1871.
Matthew vi. 34. "Take no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."
Scholars will tell you that the words "take no thought" do not exactly express our Lord's meaning in this text. That they should rather stand, "Be not anxious about to-morrow." And doubtless they are right on the whole. But the truth is, that we have no word in English which exactly expresses the Greek word which St Matthew uses in his gospel, and which we are bound to believe exactly expresses our Lord's meaning, in whatever language He spoke. The nearest English word, I believe, is--distracted.
Be ye not distracted about to-morrow. I do not mean the vulgar sense of the word--which is losing one's senses. But the old and true sense, which is still used by those who speak good English.
To distract, means literally to pull a thing two different ways--even to pull it asunder. We speak of distracting a man's attention, when we call him off from looking at one thing to make him look at something else, and we call anything which interrupts us in our business, or puts a thought suddenly out of our heads, a distraction. Now the Greek word which St Matthew uses, means very nearly this--Be not divided in your thoughts--do not think of two things at once--do not distract your attention from to- day's work, by fearing and hoping about to-morrow. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof; and you will have quite trouble enough to get through to-day honestly and well, without troubling yourself with to- morrow--which may turn out very unlike anything which you can dream.
This, I think, is the true meaning of the text; and with it, I think, agrees another word of our Lord's which St Luke gives--And be ye not of doubtful mind. Literally, Do not be up in the air--blown helpless. .h.i.ther and thither, by every gust of wind, instead of keeping on the firm ground, and walking straight on about your business, stoutly and patiently, step after step. Have no vain fears or vain hopes about the future; but do your duty here and now. That is our Lord's command, and in it lies the secret of success in life.
For do we not find, do we not find, my friends, in practice, that our Lord's words are true? Who are the people who get through most work in their lives, with the least wear and tear, not merely to their bodily health, but to their tempers and their characters? Are they the anxious people? Those who imagine to themselves possible misfortunes, and ask continually--What if this happened--or that? What would become of me then? How should I be able to pull through such a trouble? Where shall I find friends? How shall I make myself safe against the chances and changes of life? Do we not know that those people are the very ones who do little work, and often less than none, by thus distracting their attention and their strength from their daily duty, daily business? That while they are looking anxiously for future opportunities, they are neglecting the opportunities which they have already. While they are making interest with others to help them, they forget to help themselves.
That in proportion as they lose faith in G.o.d and His goodness, they lose courage and lose cheerfulness; and have too often to find a false courage and a false cheerfulness, by drowning their cares in drink, or in mean cunning and plotting and planning, which usually ends in failure and in shame?
Are those who do most work, either the plotting or intriguing people? I do not mean base false people. Of them I do not speak here. But really good and kind people, honest at heart, who yet are full of distractions of another sort; who are of double mind--look two ways at once, and are afraid to be quite open, quite straightforward--who like to COMPa.s.s their ends, as the old saying is, that is to go round about, towards what they want, instead of going boldly up to it; who like to try two or more ways of getting the same thing done; and, as the proverb has it, have many irons in the fire; who love little schemes, and plots, and mysteries, even when there is no need for them. Do such people get most work done?
Far, far from it. They take more trouble about getting a little matter done, than simpler and braver men take about getting great matters done.
They fret themselves, they weary themselves, they waste their brains and hearts--and sometimes their honesty besides--and if they fail, as in the chances and changes of this mortal life they must too often fail, have nothing for all their schemings save vanity and vexation of spirit.
But the man who will get most work done, and done with the least trouble, whether for himself, for his family, or in the calling and duty to which G.o.d has called him, will be the man who takes our Lord's advice. Who takes no thought for the morrow, and leaves the morrow to take thought for itself. That man will believe that this world is a well-ordered world, as it needs must be, seeing that G.o.d made it, G.o.d redeemed it, G.o.d governs it; and that G.o.d is merciful in this--that He rewardeth every man according to his works. That man will take thought for to-day, earnestly and diligently, even at times anxiously and in fear and trembling; but he will not distract, and divide, and weaken his mind by taking thought for to-morrow also. Each day he will set about the duty which lies nearest him, with a whole heart and with a single eye, giving himself to it for the time, as if there was nothing else to be done in the world. As for what he is to do next, he will think little of that. Little, even, will he think of whether his work will succeed or not. That must be as G.o.d shall will. All that he is bound to do is to do his best; and his best he can only do by throwing his whole soul into his work. As his day, he trusts his strength will be; and he must not waste the strength which G.o.d has given him for to-day on vain fears or vain dreams about to-morrow.
To-day is quite full enough of anxiety, of care, of toil, of ignorance.
Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof. Yes; and sufficient for the day is the good thereof likewise. To-day, and to-morrow, too, may end very differently from what he hoped. Yes; but they may end, too, very differently from what he feared. Let him throw his whole soul into the thing which he is about, and leave the rest to G.o.d.
For so only will he come to the day's end in that wholesome and manful temper, contented if not cheerful, satisfied with the work he has had to do, if not satisfied with the way in which he has done it, which will leave his mind free to remember all his comforts, all his blessings, even to those commonest of all blessings, which we are all too apt to forget, just because they are as necessary as the air we breathe; which will show him how much light there is, even on the darkest day.
He has not got this or that fine thing, it may be, for which he longed: but he has at least his life, at least his reason, at least his conscience, at least his G.o.d. Are not they enough to possess? Are not they enough wherewith to lie down at night in peace, and rise to-morrow to take what comes to-morrow, even as he took what came to-day? And will he not be most fit to take what comes to-morrow like a Christian man, whether it be good or evil, with his spirit braced and yet chastened, by honest and patient labour, instead of being weakened and irritated by idling over to-day, while he dreamed and fretted about to-morrow?
Ah! I fancy that I hear some one say--perhaps a woman--"So easy to preach, but so difficult to practise. So difficult to think of one thing at a time. So difficult not to plot, not to fret, with a whole family of children dependent on you! What does the preacher know of a woman's troubles? How many things she has to think of, day by day, not one of which she dares forget--and yet can seldom or never, for all her recollecting, contrive to get them all done? How can she help being distracted by the thought of to-morrow? Can he feel for frail me? Does he know what I go through?" Yes. I do know; and I wonder, and admire.
To me the sight of any poor woman managing her family respectably and thriftily, is one of the most surprising sights on earth, as it is one of the most beautiful sights on earth. How she finds time for it, wit for it, patience for it, courage for it, I cannot conceive. I have wondered often why many a woman does not lie down and die, for sheer weariness of body and soul. I have fancied often that G.o.d must give some special grace to all good mothers, to enable them to do all that they do, and bear all they bear. But still, the women who do most, who bring up their families best, are surely those who obey their Lord's command, who give their whole souls to each day's work, and think as little as they can of to-morrow. With them, surely, the true wisdom is, not to fret, not to plot, to do the duty which lies nearest them, and leave the rest to G.o.d; to get each week's bill paid, trusting to G.o.d to send money for the week to come; to get their children every day to school; to correct in them each fault as it shews itself, without looking forward too much to how the child will turn out at last. For them, and for parents of all ranks, the wisest plan, I believe, is to make no far-fetched plans for their children's future, certainly no ambitious intrigues for their marriage: but simply to educate them--that is, to bring out in them, day by day, all that is purest and best, wisest and ablest, and leave the rest to G.o.d; sure that if they are worth anything, their Father in heaven will find them work to do, and a place at His table, in this life and in the life to come.
Yes, my dear friends, this is the true philosophy, the philosophy which Christ preaches to us all--to old and young, rich and poor, ploughman and scholar, maid, wife, and widow, all alike.
Fret not. Plot not. Look not too far ahead.
Fret not--lest you lose temper, and be moved to do evil. Plot not--lest you lose faith in G.o.d, and be moved to be dishonest. Look not too far ahead--So far only, as to keep yourselves out of open and certain danger- -lest you see what is coming before you are ready for the sight. If we foresaw the troubles which may be coming, perhaps it would break our hearts; and if we foresaw the happiness which is coming, perhaps it would turn our heads. Let us not meddle with the future, and matters which are too high for us, but refrain our souls, and keep them low, like little children, content with the day's food, and the day's schooling, and the day's play-hours, sure that the Divine Master knows that all is right, and how to train us, and whither to lead us, though we know not, and need not know, save this--that the path by which He is leading each of us--if we will but obey and follow, step by step--leads up to Everlasting Life.
SERMON XL. THE LESSON OF LIFE
Fifth Sunday in Lent.
Chester Training College, 1870. Windsor Castle, 1871.
Hebrews v. 7, 8. "Who in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears, unto Him that was able to save Him from death, and was heard in that He feared; though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered."
This is the lesson of life. This is G.o.d's way of educating us, of making us men and women worthy of the name of men and women, worthy of the name of children of G.o.d. As Christ learnt, so must we. If it was necessary for Him who know no sin, how much more for us who have sins enough and to spare. Though He was the eternal Son of G.o.d, yet He learnt obedience by the things which He suffered. Though we are G.o.d's adopted children, we must learn obedience by what we suffer. He had to offer up prayer with strong crying. So shall we have to do again and again before we die. He was heard in that He feared G.o.d, and said, "Father not my will, but Thine be done." And so shall we. He was perfected by sufferings. G.o.d grant that we may be so likewise. He had to do like us. G.o.d grant that we may do like Him.
G.o.d grant it. That is all I can say. I cannot be sure of it, for myself or for any of you. I can only hope, and trust in G.o.d. Life is hard work--any life at least which is worth being called life, which is not the life of a swine, who thinks of nothing but feeding himself, or of a b.u.t.terfly which thinks of nothing but enjoying itself. Those are easy lives enough: but the end thereof is death. The swine goes to the slaughter. The b.u.t.terfly dies of the frost--and there is an end of them.
But the manly life, the life of good deeds and n.o.ble thoughts, and usefulness, and purity, the life which is discontented with itself, and which the better it is, longs the more to be better still; the life which will endure through this world into the world to come, and on and upward for ever and for ever.--That life is not an easy life to live; it is very often not a pleasant life; very often a sad life--so sad that that is true of it which the great poet says--
"Who ne'er his bread in sorrow ate, Who never in the midnight hours Sat weeping on his lonely bed, He knows you not, you Heavenly Powers."
You may say this is bad news. I do not believe it is. I believe it is good news, and the very best of news: but if it is bad news, I cannot help it. I did not make it so. G.o.d made it so. And G.o.d must know best.
G.o.d is love. And we are His children, and He loves us. And therefore His ways with us must be good and loving ways, and any news about them must be good news, and a gospel, though we cannot see it so at first.
In any case, if it is so, it is better to remember that it is so. And Lent, and Pa.s.sion Week, and Good Friday are meant to put us in mind of it year by year, because we are all of us only too ready to forget it, and shut our eyes to it. Lent and Pa.s.sion Week, I say, are meant to put us in mind. And the preacher is bound to put you in mind of it now and then. He is bound, not too often perhaps, lest he should discourage young hearts, but now and then, to put you in mind of the old Greek proverb, the very words of which St. Paul uses in the text, that ta pa??aeata aea??aeata--sorrows are lessons; and that the most truly pitiable people often are those who have no sorrows, and ask for no man's pity.