All Saints' Day and Other Sermons Part 2
Would He not, as in Judea of old, encounter not merely the active envy of the vain and the ambitious, which would follow one who spoke as never man spoke; not merely the active malignity of those who wish their fellow- creatures to be bad and not good; not merely the bigotry of every sect and party; but that mere restless love of new excitements, and that dull fear and suspicion of new truths, and even of old truths in new words, which beset the uneducated of every rank and cla.s.s, and in no age more than in our own? And therefore I must ask, in sober sadness, how long would His influence last? It lasted, we know, in Judea of old, for some three years. And then--. But I am not going to say that any such tragedy is possible now. It would be an insult to Him; an insult to the gracious influences of His Spirit, the gracious teaching of His Church, to say that of our generation, however unworthy we may be of our high calling in Christ. And yet, if He had appeared in any country of Christendom only four hundred years ago, might He not have endured an even more dreadful death than that of the cross?
But doubtless, no personal harm would happen to Him here. Only there might come a day, in which, as in Judea of old, "after He had said these things, many were offended, and walked no more with Him:" when his hearers and admirers would grow fewer and more few, some through bigotry, some through envy, some through fickleness, some through cowardice, till He was left alone with a little knot of earnest disciples; who might diminish, alas, but too rapidly, when they found at He, as in Judea of old, did not intend to become the head of a new sect, and to gratify their ambition and vanity by making them His delegates. And so the world, the religious world as well as the rest, might let Him go His way, and vanish from the eyes and minds of men, leaving behind little more than a regret that one so gifted and so fascinating should have proved--I hardly like to say the words, and yet they must be said--so unsafe and so unsound a teacher.
I shall not give now the reasons which have led me, and not in haste, to this melancholy conclusion. I shall only say that I have come to it, with pain, and shame, and fear. With shame and fear. For when I ask you the solemn question, Would you know Christ if He came among you? do I not ask myself a question which I dare not answer? How can I tell whether I should recognise, after all, my Saviour and my Lord? How do I know that if He said (as He but too certainly might), something which clashed seriously with my preconceived notions of what He ought to say, I should not be offended, and walk no more with Him? How do I know that if He said, as in Judea of old, "Will ye too go away?" I should answer with St Peter, "Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life, and we believe and are sure that thou art the Christ, the Son of the living G.o.d?" I dare not ask that question of myself. How then dare I ask it of you? I know not. I can only say, "Lord, I believe: help thou mine unbelief." I know not. But this I know--that in this or any other world, if you or I did recognise Him, it would be with utter shame and terror, unless we had studied and had striven to copy either Himself, or whatsoever seems to us most like Him. Yes; to study the good, the beautiful, and the true in Him, and wheresoever else we find it--for all that is good, beautiful, and true throughout the universe are nought but rays from Him, the central sun--to obey St. Paul of old, and "whatsoever things are true, venerable, just, pure, lovely, and of good report--if there be any virtue and if there be any praise, to think on these things,"--on these scattered fragmentary sacraments of Him whose number is not two, nor seven, "but seventy-times seven;" that is the way--I think, the only way--to be ready to recognise our Saviour, and to prepare to meet our G.o.d; that He may be to us, too, as a refiner's fire, and refine us--our thoughts, our deeds, our characters throughout.
And I think, too, that this is the way, perhaps the only way, to rid ourselves of the fancy that we can be accounted righteous before G.o.d for any works or deservings of our own. Those in whom that fancy lingers must have but a paltry standard of what righteousness is, a mean conception of moral--that is, spiritual--perfection. But those who look not inwards, but upwards; not at themselves, but at Christ and all spiritual perfection--they become more and more painfully aware of their own imperfections. The beauty of Christ's character shows them the ugliness of their own. His purity shows them their own foulness. His love their own hardness. His wisdom their own folly. His strength their own weakness. The higher their standard rises, the lower falls their estimate of themselves; till, in utter humiliation and self-distrust, they seek comfort ere alone it can be found--in FAITH--in utter faith and trust in that very moral perfection of Christ which shames and dazzles them, and yet is their only hope. To trust in Him for themselves and all they love. To trust that, just because Christ is so magnificent, He will pity, and not despise, our meanness. Just because He is so pure, and righteous, and true, and lovely, He will appreciate, and not abhor, our struggles after purity, righteousness, truth, love, however imperfect, however soiled with failure--and with worse. Just because He is so unlike us, He will smile graciously upon out feeblest attempts to be like Him. Just because He has borne the sins and carried the sorrows of mankind, therefore those who come to Him He will in no wise cast out.
Amen.
SERMON V. ADVENT LESSONS
Westminster Abbey, First Sunday in Advent, 1873.
Romans vii. 22-25. "I delight in the law of G.o.d after the inward man: but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank G.o.d through Jesus Christ our Lord."
This is the first Sunday in Advent. To-day we have prayed that G.o.d would give us grace to put away the works of darkness, and put on us the armour of light. Next Sunday we shall pray that, by true understanding of the Scriptures, we may embrace and hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life. The Sunday after that the ministers and stewards of G.o.d's mysteries may prepare His way by turning the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just--the next, that His grace and mercy may speedily help and deliver us from the sins which hinder us in running the race set before us. But I do not think that we shall understand those collects, or indeed the meaning of Advent itself, or the reason why we keep the season of Advent year by year, unless we first understand the prayer which we offered up last Sunday, "Stir up, O Lord, the wills of Thy faithful people,"--and we shall understand that prayer just in proportion as we have in us the Spirit of G.o.d, or the spirit of the world, which is the spirit of unbelief.
Worldly people say--and say openly, just now--that this prayer is all a dream. They say G.o.d will not stir up men's wills to do good any more than to do harm. He leaves men to themselves to get through life as they can. This Heavenly Father of whom you speak will not give His holy spirit to those who ask Him. He does not, as one of your Collects says, put into men's minds good desires--they come to a man entirely from outside a man, from his early teaching, his youthful impressions, as they are called now-a-days. He does not either give men grace and power to put these desires into practice. That depends entirely on the natural strength of a man's character; and that, again, depends princ.i.p.ally on the state of his brain. So, says the world, if you wish your own character to improve, you must improve it yourself, for G.o.d will not improve it for you. But, after all, why should you try to improve? why not be content to be just what you are? you did not make yourself, and you are not responsible for being merely what G.o.d has chosen to make you.
This is what worldly men say, or at least what they believe and act on; and this is the reason why there is so little improvement in the world, because men do not ask G.o.d to improve their hearts and stir up their wills. I say, very little improvement. Men talk loudly of the enlightenment of the age, and the progress of the species, and the spread of civilisation, and so forth: but when I read old books, and compare old times with these, I confess I do not see so much of it as all this hopeful talk would lead me to expect. Men in general have grown more prudent, more cunning, from long experience. They have found out that certain sins do not pay--that is, they interfere with people's comfort and their power of making money, and therefore they prudently avoid them themselves, and put them down by law in other men's cases. Men have certainly grown more good-natured, in some countries, in that they dislike more than their ancestors did, to inflict bodily torture on human beings; but they are just as ready, or even more ready, to inflict on those whom they dislike that moral and mental torture which to n.o.ble souls is worse than any bodily pain. As for any real improvement in human nature--where is it? There is just as much falsehood, cheating, and covetousness, I believe, in the world as ever there was; just as much cant and hypocrisy, and perhaps more; just as much envy, hatred, malice and all uncharitableness. Is not the condition of the ma.s.ses in many great cities as degraded and as sad as ever was that of the serfs in the middle ages? Do not the poor still die by tens of thousands of fevers, choleras, and other diseases, which we know perfectly how to prevent, and yet have not the will to prevent? Is not the adulteration of food just now as scandalous as it is unchecked? The sins and follies of human nature have been repressed in one direction only to break out another.
And as for open and coa.r.s.e sin, people complain even now, and I fear with justice, that there is more drunkenness in England at this moment than there ever was. So much for our boasted improvement.
Look again at the wars of the world. Five-and-twenty years ago, one used to be told that the human race was grown too wise to go to war any more, and that we were to have an advent of universal peace and plenty, and since then we have seen some seven great wars, the last the most terrible of all,--and ever since, all the nations of Europe have been watching each other in distrust and dread, increasing their armaments, working often night and day at forging improved engines of destruction, wherewith to kill their fellow-men. Not that I blame that. It is necessary. Yes!
but the hideous thing is, that it should be necessary. Does that state of things look much like progress of the human race? Can we say that mankind is much improved, either in wisdom or in love, while all the nations of Europe are spending millions merely to be ready to fight they know not whom, they know not why?
No, my good friends, obey the wise man, and clear your minds of cant-- man's pretensions, man's boastfulness, man's power of blinding his own eyes to plain facts--above all, to the plain fact that he does not succeed, even in this world of which he fancies himself the master, because he lives without G.o.d in the world. All this saddens, I had almost said, sickens, a thoughtful man, till he turns away from this noisy sham improvement of mankind--the wages of sin, which are death, to St John's account of the true improvement of mankind, the true progress of the species,--the gift of G.o.d which is eternal life. "And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were pa.s.sed away. And I saw the Holy City--New Jerusalem, coming down from G.o.d out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven, saying, Behold the tabernacle of G.o.d is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and G.o.d Himself shall be with them, and be their G.o.d. And G.o.d shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are pa.s.sed away."
Does that sound much like a general increase of armaments? or like bills for the prevention of pestilence, or of drunkenness,--which, even if they pa.s.s, will both probably fail to do the good which they propose? No.
And if this wicked world is to be mended, then G.o.d must stir up the wills of His faithful people, and we must pray without ceasing for ourselves, and for all for whom we are bound to pray, that He would stir them up.
For what we want is not knowledge; we have enough of that, and too much.
Too much; for knowing so much and doing so little, what an account will be required of us at the last day!
No. It is the will which we want, in a hundred cases. Take that of pestilential dwelling-houses in our great towns. Every one knows that they ought to be made healthy; every one knows that they can be made healthy. But the will to make them healthy is not here, and they are left to breed disease and death. And so, as in a hundred instances, shallow philosophers are proved, by facts, to be mistaken, when they tell us that man will act up to the best of his knowledge without G.o.d's help.
For that is exactly what man does not. What is wrong with the world in general, is wrong likewise more or less with you and me, and with all human beings; for after all, the world is made up of human beings; and the sin of the world is nothing save the sins of each and all human beings put together; and the world will be renewed and come right again, just as far and no farther, as each human being is renewed and comes right. The only sure method, therefore, of setting the world right, is to begin by setting our own little part of the world right--in a word, setting ourselves right.
But if we begin to try, that, we find, is just what we cannot do. When a man begins to hunger and thirst after righteousness, and, discontented with himself, attempts to improve himself, he soon begins to find a painful truth in many a word of the Bible and the Prayer Book to which he gave little heed, as long as he was contented with himself, and with doing just what pleased him, right or wrong. He soon finds out that he has no power of himself to help himself, that he is tied and bound with the burden of his sins, and that he cannot, by reason of his frailty, stand upright--that he actually is sore let and hindered by his own sins, from running the race set before him, and doing his duty where G.o.d has put him. All these sayings come home to him as actual facts, most painful facts, but facts which he cannot deny. He soon finds out the meaning and the truth of that terrible struggle between the good in him and the evil in him, of which St Paul speaks so bitterly in the text.
How, when he tries to do good, evil is present with him. How he delights in the law of G.o.d with his inward mind, and yet finds another law in his body, warring against the law of G.o.d, and bringing him into captivity to the law of sin. How he is crippled by old bad habits, weakened by cowardice, by laziness, by vanity, by general inability of will, till he is ready,--disgusted at himself and his own weakness,--to cry, Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
Let him but utter that cry honestly. Let him once find out that he wants something outside himself to help him, to deliver him, to strengthen him, to stir up his weak will, to give him grace and power to do what he knows instead of merely admiring it, and leaving it undone. Let a man only find out that. Let him see that he needs a helper, a deliverer, a strengthener--in one word, a Saviour--and he will find one. I verily believe that, sooner or later, the Lord Jesus Christ will reveal to that man what He revealed to St Paul; that He Himself will deliver him; and that, like St Paul, after crying "O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" he will be able to answer himself, I thank G.o.d--G.o.d will, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Christ will deliver me from the bonds of my sins, Christ will stir up this weak will of mine, Christ will give me strength and power, faithfully to fulfil all my good desires, because He Himself has put them into my heart not to mock me, not to disappoint me--not to make me wretched with the sight of n.o.ble graces and virtues to which I cannot attain, but to fulfil His work in me. What He has begun in me He will carry on in me. He has sown the seed in me, and He will make it bear fruit, if only I pray to Him, day by day, for strength to do what I know I ought to do, and cry morning and night to Him, the fount of life, Stir up my will, O Lord, that I may bring forth the fruit of good works, for then by Thee I shall be plentifully rewarded.
So the man gains hope and heart for himself, and so, if he will but think rationally and humbly, he may gain hope and heart for this poor sinful world. For what has come true for him may come true for any man. Who is he that G.o.d should care more for him than for others? Who is he that G.o.d should help him when he prays, more than He will help His whole church if it will but pray? He says to himself, all this knowledge of what is right; all these good desires, all these longings after a juster, purer, n.o.bler, happier state of things; there they are up and down the world already, though, alas! they have borne little enough fruit as yet. Be it so. But G.o.d put them into my heart. And who save G.o.d has put them into the world's heart? It was G.o.d who sowed the seed in me; surely it is G.o.d who has sowed it in other men? And if G.o.d has made it bear even the poorest fruit in me, why should He not make it bear fruit in other men and in all the world? All they need is that G.o.d should stir up their wills, that they may do the good they know, and attain the blessedness after which they long.
And then, if the man have a truly human, truly reasonable heart in him-- he feels that he can pray for others as well as for himself. He feels that he must pray for them, and cry,--Thou alone canst make men strong to do the right thing, and Thou wilt make them. Stir up their wills, O Lord! Thou canst not mean that all the good seed which is sown about the world should die and wither, and bring no fruit to perfection. Surely Thy word will not return to Thee void, but be like the rain which comes down from heaven, and gives seed to the sower and bread to the eater.
Oh, strengthen such as stand, and comfort and help the weak-hearted, and raise up them that fall, and, finally, beat down Satan and all the powers of evil under our feet, and pour out thy spirit on all flesh, that so their Father's name may be hallowed, His kingdom come, His will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And so will come the one and only true progress of the human race--which is, that all men should become faithful and obedient citizens of the holy city, the kingdom of G.o.d, which is the Church of Christ. To which may G.o.d in His mercy bring us all, and our children after us. Amen.
This, then, is the lesson why we are met together this Advent day. We are met to pray that G.o.d would so help us by His grace and mercy that we may bring forth the fruit of good works, and that when our Lord Jesus Christ shall come in His glorious majesty to judge the quick and the dead, we, and our descendants after us, may be found an acceptable people in His sight.
We are met to pray, in a National Church, for the whole nation of England, that all orders and degrees therein may, each in his place and station, help forward the hallowing of G.o.d's name, the coming of His kingdom, the doing of His will on earth. We are met to pray for the Queen and all that are in authority, that these Advent collects may be fulfilled in them, and by them, for the good of the whole people; for the ministers and stewards of Christ's mysteries, that the same collects may be fulfilled by them and in them, till they turn the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; for the Commons of this nation, that each man may he delivered, by G.o.d's grace and mercy, from the special sin which besets him in this faithless and worldly generation and hinders him from running the race of duty which is set before him, and get strength from G.o.d so to live that in that dread day he may meet his Judge and King, not in tenor and in shame, but in loyalty and in humble hope.
But more--we are here to worship G.o.d in Christ, both G.o.d and man. To confess that without Him we can do nothing, that unless He enlighten our understandings we are dark, unless He stir up our wills we are powerless for good. To confess that though we have forgotten Him, yet He has not forgotten us. That He is the same gracious and generous Giver and Saviour. That though we deny Him He cannot deny Himself. That He is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever as when He came to visit this earth in great humility. That the Lord is King, though the earth be moved. He sitteth upon His throne, be the nations never so unquiet. We are here to declare to ourselves and all men, and the whole universe, that we at least believe that the heavens and earth are full of His glory. We are here to declare that, whether or not the kings of the earth are wise enough, or the judges of it learned enough, to acknowledge Christ for their king, we at least will worship the Son lest He be angry, and so we perish from the right way; for if His wrath be kindled, yea but a little, then blessed are they, and they only, who put their trust in Him. We are here to join our songs with angels round the throne, and with those pure and mighty beings who, in some central sanctuary of the universe, cry for ever, "Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for Thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are and were created."
We do so in ancient words, ancient music, ancient ceremonies, for a token that Christ's rule and glory is an ancient rule and an eternal glory; that it is no new discovery of our own, and depends not on our own pa.s.sing notions and feelings about it, but is like Christ, the same now as in the days of our forefathers, the same as it was fifteen hundred years ago, the same as it has been since the day that He stooped to be born of the Virgin Mary, the same that it will be till He shall come in His glory to judge the quick and the dead. Therefore we delight in the ancient ceremonial, as like as we can make it, to that of the earlier and purer ages of the Church, when Christianity was still, as it were, fresh from the hand of its Creator, ere yet it had been debased and defiled by the idolatrous innovations of the Church of Rome. For so we confess ourselves bound by links of grat.i.tude to the Apostles, and the successors of the Apostles, and to all which has been best, purest, and truest in the ages since. So we confess that we worship the same G.o.d-man of whom Apostles preached, of whom fathers philosophised, and for whom martyrs died. That we believe, like them, that He alone is King of kings and Lord of lords; that there is no progress, civilization, or salvation in this life or the life to come, but through His undeserved mercy and His strengthening grace; that He has reigned from the creation of the world, reigns now, and will reign unto that last dread day, when He shall have put all enemies under His feet, and delivered up the kingdom to G.o.d, even the Father, that G.o.d may be all in all. Unto which day may He in His mercy bring us all through faith and good works: Amen.
SERMON VI. CAPITAL PUNISHMENT
Eversley. Quinquagesima Sunday, 1872.
Genesis ix. 1, 3, 4, 5, 6. "And G.o.d blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth... .
Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you ... But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat. And surely your blood of your lives will I require: at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man. Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of G.o.d made he man."
This is G.o.d's blessing on mankind. This is our charter from G.o.d, who made and rules this earth. This is the end and duty of our mortal life:- -to be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth, and subdue it. But is that all? Is there no hint in this blessing of G.o.d of something more than our mortal life--something beyond our mortal life? Surely there is.
Those words--"in the image of G.o.d made He man," must mean, if they mean anything, that man can, if he will but be a true man, share the eternal life of G.o.d. But I will not speak of that to-day, but rather of a question about his mortal life in this world, which is this:--What is the reason why man has a right over the lives of animals? why he may use them for his food? and at the same time, what is the reason why he has not the same right over the lives of his fellow-men? why he may not use them for food?
It is this--that "in the image of G.o.d made He man." Man is made in the image and likeness of G.o.d, therefore he is a sacred creature; a creature, not merely an animal, and the highest of all animals, only cunninger than all animals, more highly organised, more delicately formed than all animals; but something beyond an animal. He is in the likeness of G.o.d, therefore he is consecrated to G.o.d. He is the one creature on earth whom G.o.d, so far as we know, is trying to make like Himself. Therefore, whosoever kills a man, sins not only against that man, nor against society: he sins against G.o.d. And G.o.d will require that man's blood at the hand of him who slays him. But how? At the hand of every beast will He require it, and at the hand of every man.
What that first part of the law means I cannot tell. How G.o.d will require from the lion, or the crocodile, or the shark, who eats a human being, the blood of their victims, is more than I can say. But this I can say--that the feeling, not only of horror and pity, but of real rage and indignation, with which men see (what G.o.d grant you never may see) a wild beast kill a man, is a witness in man's conscience that the text is true somehow, though how we know not. I received a letter a few weeks since from an officer, a very remarkable person, in which he described his horror and indignation at seeing a friend of his struck down and eaten by a tiger, and how, when next day he stood over what had been but the day before a human being, he looked up to heaven, and kept repeating the words of the text, "in the image of G.o.d made He man," in rage and shame, and almost accusing G.o.d for allowing His image to be eaten by a brute beast. It shook, for the moment, his faith in G.o.d's justice and goodness. That man was young then, and has grown calmer and wiser now, and has regained a deeper and sounder faith in G.o.d. But the shock, he said, was dreadful to him. He felt that the matter was not merely painful and pitiable, but that it was a wrong and a crime; and on the faith of this very text, a wrong and a crime I believe it to be, and one which G.o.d knows how to avenge and to correct when man cannot. Somehow-- for He has ways of which we poor mortals do not dream--at the hand of every beast will He require the blood of man.
But more; at the hand of every man will He require it. And how? The text tells us, "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of G.o.d made He man." Now, I do not doubt but that the all-seeing G.o.d, looking back on what had most probably happened on this earth already, and looking forward to what would happen, and happens, alas! too often now, meant to warn men against the awful crime of cannibalism, of eating their fellow-men as they would eat an animal.
By so doing, they not only treated their fellow-men as beasts, but they behaved like beasts themselves. They denied that their victim was made in the likeness of G.o.d; they denied that they were made in the likeness of G.o.d; they willingly and deliberately put on the likeness of beasts, and as beasts they were to perish. Now, this is certain, that savages who eat men--and alas! there are thousands even now who do so--usually know in their hearts that they are doing wrong. As soon as their consciences are the least awakened, they are ashamed of their cannibalism; they lie about it, try to conceal it; and as soon as G.o.d's grace begins to work on them, it is the very first sin that they give up.
And next, this is certain, that there is a curse upon it. No cannibal people, so far as I can find, have ever risen or prospered in the world; and the cannibal peoples now-a-days, and for the last three hundred years, have been dying out. By their own vices, diseases, and wars, they perish off the face of the earth, in the midst of comfort and plenty; and, in spite of all the efforts of missionaries, even their children and grand-children, after giving up the horrid crime, and becoming Christians, seem to have no power of living and increasing, but dwindle away, and perish off the earth. Yes, G.o.d's laws work in strange and subtle ways; so darkly, so slowly, that the unG.o.dly and sinners often believe that there are no laws of G.o.d, and say--"Tush, how should G.o.d perceive it? Is there knowledge in the Most High?" But the laws work, nevertheless, whether men are aware of them or not. "The mills of G.o.d grind slowly," but sooner or later they grind the sinner to powder.
And now I will leave this hateful subject and go on to another, on which I am moved to speak once and for all, because it is much in men's minds just now--I mean what is vulgarly called "capital punishment," the punishing of murder by death. Now the text, which is the ancient covenant of G.o.d with man, speaks very clearly on this point. "Whosoever sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed." Man is made in the likeness of G.o.d. That is the ground of our law about murder, as it is the ground of all just and merciful law; that gives man his right to slay the murderer; that makes it his duty to slay the murderer. He has to be jealous of G.o.d's likeness, and to slay, in the name of G.o.d, the man who, by murder, outrages the likeness of G.o.d in himself and in his victim.
You all know that there is now-a-days a strong feeling among some persons about capital punishment; that there are those who will move heaven and earth to interfere with the course of justice, and beg off the worst of murderers, on any grounds, however unreasonable, fanciful, even unfair; simply because they have a dislike to human beings being hanged. I believe, from long consideration, that these persons' strange dislike proceeds from their not believing sufficiently that man is made in the image of G.o.d. And, alas! it proceeds, I fear, in some of them, from not believing in a G.o.d at all--believing, perhaps, in some mere maker of the world, but not in the living G.o.d which Scripture sets forth. For how else can they say, as I have known some say, that capital punishment is wrong, because "we have no right to usher a man into the presence of his Maker."
Into the presence of his Maker! Why, where else is every man, you and I, heathen and Christian, bad and good, save in the presence of his Maker already? Do we not live and move and have our being in G.o.d? Whither can we go from His spirit, or whither can we flee from His presence? If we ascend into heaven, He is there. If we go down to h.e.l.l He is there also.
And if the law puts a man to death, it does not usher him into the presence of his Maker, for he is there already. It simply says to him, "G.o.d has judged you on earth, not we. G.o.d will judge you in the next world, not we. All we know is, that you are not fit to live in this world. All our duty is to send you out of it. Where you will go in the other world is G.o.d's matter, not ours, and the Lord have mercy on your soul."
And this want of faith in a living G.o.d lies at the bottom of another objection. We are to keep murderers alive in order to convert and instruct and amend them. The answer is, We shall be most happy to amend anybody of any fault, however great: but the experience of ages is that murderers are past mending; that the fact of a man's murdering another is a plain proof that he has no moral sense, and has become simply a brute animal Our duty is to punish not to amend, and to say to the murderer, "If you can be amended; G.o.d will amend you, and so have mercy on your soul. G.o.d must amend you, if you are to be amended. If G.o.d cannot amend you, we cannot. If G.o.d will not amend you, certainly we cannot force Him to do so, if we kept you alive for a thousand years." That would seem reasonable, as well as reverent and faithful to G.o.d. But men now-a-days fancy that they love their fellow creatures far better than G.o.d loves them, and can deal far more wisely and lovingly with them than G.o.d is willing to deal. Of these objections I take little heed. I look on them as merely loose cant, which does not quite understand the meaning of its own words, and I trust to sound, hard, English common sense to put them aside.
But there is another objection to capital punishment, which we must deal with much more respectfully and tenderly; for it is made by certain good people, people whom we must honour, though we differ from them, for no set of people have done more (according to their numbers) for education, for active charity, and for benevolence, and for peace and good will among the nations of the earth. And they say, you must not take the life of a murderer, just because he is made in G.o.d's image. Well, I should have thought that G.o.d Himself was the best judge of that. That, if G.o.d truly said that man was made in His image, and said, moreover, as it were at the same moment, that, therefore, whoso sheds man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed--our duty was to trust G.o.d, to obey G.o.d, and to do our duty against the murderer, however painful to our feelings it might be. But I believe these good people make their mistake from forgetting this; that if the murderer be made in G.o.d's image and likeness, so is the man whom he murders; and so also is the jury who convict him, the judge who condemns him, and the nation (the society of men) for whom they act.
And this, my dear friends, brings us to the very root of the meaning of law. Man has sense to make laws (which animals cannot do), just because he is made in the likeness of G.o.d, and has the sense of right and wrong.
Man has the right to enforce laws, to see right done and wrong punished, just because he is made in the likeness of G.o.d. The laws of a country, as far as they are just and righteous, are the copy of what the men of that country have found out about right and wrong, and about how much right they can get done, and how much wrong punished. So, just as the men of a country are (in spite of all their sins) made in the likeness of G.o.d, so the laws of a country (in spite of all their defects) are a copy of G.o.d's will, as to what men should or should not do. And that, and no other, is the true reason why the judge or magistrate has authority over either property, liberty, or life. He is G.o.d's servant, the servant of Christ, who is King of this land and of all lands, and of all governments, and all kings and rulers of the earth. He sits there in G.o.d's name, to see G.o.d's will done, as far as poor fallible human beings can get it done. And, because he is, not merely as a man, but, by his special authority, in the likeness of G.o.d, who has power over life and death, therefore he also, as far as his authority goes, has power over life and death. That is my opinion, and that was the opinion of St.
Paul. For what does he say--and say not (remember always) of Christian magistrates in a Christian country, but actually of heathen Roman magistrates? "Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of G.o.d: the powers that be are ordained of G.o.d.
Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of G.o.d: and they that resist shall receive to themselves d.a.m.nation." Thus spoke out the tenderest-hearted, most Christ-like human being, perhaps, who ever trod this earth, who, in his intense longing to save sinners, endured a life of misery and danger, and finished it by martyrdom. But there was no sentimentality, no soft indulgence in him. He knew right from wrong; common sense from cant; duty from public opinion; and divine charity from the mere cowardly dislike of witnessing pain, not so much because it pains the person punished, as because it pains the spectator.
He knew that Christ was King of kings, and what Christ's kingdom was like. He had discovered the divine and wonderful order of men and angels. He saw that one part of that order was--"the soul that sinneth, it shall die."
But some say that capital punishment is inconsistent with the mild religion of Christ--the religion of mercy and love. "The mild religion of Christ!" Do these men know of Whom they talk? Do they know that, if the Bible be true, the G.o.d who said, "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed," is the very same Being, the very same G.o.d, who was born of the Virgin Mary, crucified under Pontius Pilate--the very same Christ who took little children up in His arms and blessed them, the very same Word of G.o.d, too, of whom it is written, that out of His mouth goeth a two-edged sword, that He may smite the nations, and He shall rule them with a rod of iron, and He treadeth the wine press of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty G.o.d? These are awful words, but, my dear friends, I can only ask you if you think them too awful to be true? Do you believe the Christian religion? Do you believe the Creeds? Do you believe the Bible? For if you do, then you believe that the Lord Christ, who was born of the Virgin Mary, and crucified under Pontius Pilate, is the Maker, the Master, the Ruler of this world, and of all worlds. By what laws He rules other worlds we know not, save that they are, because they must be--just and merciful laws. But of the laws by which He rules this world we do know, by experience, that His laws are of most terrible and unbending severity, as I have warned you again and again, and shall warn you, as long as there is a liar or an idler, a drunkard or an adulteress in this parish.
And if this be so--if Christ be a G.o.d of severity as well as a G.o.d of love, a G.o.d who punishes sinners as well as a G.o.d who forgives penitents- -what then? We are, He tells us, made in His likeness. Then, according to His likeness we must behave. We must copy His love, by helping the poor and afflicted, the weak and the oppressed. But we must copy His severity, by punishing whenever we have the power, without cowardice or indulgence, all wilful offenders; and, above all, the man who destroys G.o.d's image in himself, by murdering and destroying the mortal life of a man made in the image of G.o.d. And more; if we be made in the likeness of G.o.d and of Christ, we must remember, morning and night, and all day long, that most awful and most blessed fact. We must say to ourselves, again and again, "I am not a mere animal, and like a mere animal I must not behave; I dare not behave like a mere animal, for I was made in the likeness of G.o.d; and when I was baptised the Spirit of G.o.d took possession of me to restore me to G.o.d's likeness, and to call out and perfect G.o.d's likeness in me all my life long. Therefore, I am no mere animal; and never was intended to be. I am the temple of G.o.d; my body and soul belong to G.o.d, and not to my own fancies and pa.s.sions and l.u.s.ts, and whosoever defiles the temple of G.o.d, him will G.o.d destroy."