Discipline and Other Sermons Part 3

SERMON VI.--FALSE CIVILIZATION

JEREMIAH x.x.xv. 19.

Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the G.o.d of Israel; Jonadab the son of Rechab shall not want a man to stand before me for ever.

Let us think a while this morning what this text has to do with us; and why this strange story of the Rechabites is written for our instruction, in the pages of Holy Scripture.

Let us take the story as it stands, and search the Scriptures simply for it. For the Bible will surely tell its own story best, and teach its own lesson best.

These Rechabites, who were they? Or, indeed we may ask--Who are they? For they are said to exist still.

They were not Israelites, but wild Arabs, a branch of the Kenite tribe, which claimed--at least its chiefs--to be descended from Abraham, by his wife Keturah. They joined the Israelites, and wandered with them into the land of Canaan.

But they never settled down, as the Israelites did, into farmers and townsfolk. They never became what we call civilized: though they had a civilization of their own, which stood them in good stead, and kept them--and keeps them, it would seem, to this day,--strong and prosperous, while great cities and mighty nations have been destroyed round about them. They kept their old simple Arab customs, living in their great black camels' hair tents, feeding their flocks and herds, as they wandered from forest to forest and lawn to lawn, living on the milk of the flock, and it would seem, on locusts and wild honey, as did John the Baptist after them. They had (as many Arab tribes have still) neither corn, seed-field, nor vineyard. Wild men they were in their ways, yet living a simple wholesome life; till in the days of Ahab and Jehu there arose among them a chief called Jonadab the son of Rechab, of the house of Hammath. Why he was called the son of Rechab is not clearly known. 'The son of the rider,' or 'the son of the chariot,' seems to be the most probable meaning of the name. So that these Rechabites, at least, had horses--as many Arab tribes have now--and whether they rode them, or used them to draw their goods about in carts, like many other wild tribes, they seem to have gained from Jonadab the name of Rechabim, the sons of Rechab, the sons of the rider, or the sons of the chariot.

Of Jonadab the son of Rechab, you heard three Sundays since, in that n.o.ble pa.s.sage of 2 Kings x. where Jehu, returning from the slaughter of the idolatrous kings, and going to slay the priests of Baal, meets Jonadab and asks him, Is thy heart right--that is, sound in the wors.h.i.+p of G.o.d, and determined to put down idolatry--as my heart is with thy heart? We hear of him and his tribe no more till the days of Jeremiah, 250 years after, in the story from which my text is taken. What Jonadab's reasons may have been for commanding his tribe neither to settle in towns, nor till the ground, it is not difficult to guess. He may have dreaded lest his people, by settling in the towns, should learn the idolatry of the Israelites. He may have dreaded, likewise, lest they should give way to that same luxury and profligacy in which the Israelites indulged--and especially lest they should be demoralized by that drunkenness of which the prophets speak, as one of the crying sins of that age. He may have feared, too, lest their settling down as landholders or townsmen would cause them to be absorbed and lost among the nation of the Israelites, and probably involved in their ruin. Be that as it may, he laid his command upon his tribe, and his command was obeyed.

Of the after-history of these simple G.o.d-fearing folk we know very little. But what we do know is well worth remembering. They were, it seems, carried away captive to Babylon with the rest of the Jews; and with them they came back to Jerusalem. Meanwhile, they had intermarried with the priests of the tribe of Levi; and they a.s.sisted at the wors.h.i.+p and sacrifices,--'standing before the Lord' (as Jeremiah had foretold) 'in the temple,' but living (as some say) outside the walls in their tents. And it is worth remembering, that we have one psalm in the Bible, which was probably written either by one of these Rechabites, or by Jeremiah for them to sing, and that a psalm which you all know well, the old man's psalm, as it has well been called--the 71st Psalm, which is read in the visitation of the sick; which says, 'O G.o.d, thou hast taught me from my youth: and hitherto have I declared thy wondrous works. Now also when I am old and grey-headed, O G.o.d, forsake me not; until I have shewed thy strength unto this generation, and thy power to every one that is to come.'

It was, moreover, a Rechabite priest, we are told--'one of the sons of the Rechabim spoken of by Jeremiah the prophet'--who when the Jews were stoning St. James the Just, one of the twelve apostles, cried out against their wickedness.

What befell the Rechabites when Jerusalem was destroyed, we know not: but they seem to have returned to their old life, and wandered away into the far east; for in the twelfth century, more than one thousand years after, a Jewish traveller met with them 100,000 strong under a Jewish prince of the house of David; still abstaining from wine and flesh, and paying t.i.thes to teachers who studied the law, and wept for the fall of Jerusalem. And even yet they are said to endure and prosper. For in our own time, a traveller met the Rechabites once more in the heart of Arabia, still living in their tents, still calling themselves the sons of Jonadab. With one of them, Mousa (i.e. Moses) by name, he talked, and Mousa said to him, 'Come, and I will show you who we are;' and from an Arabic bible he read the words of my text, and said, 'You will find us 60,000 in number still. See, the words of the prophet have been fulfilled--"Jonadab the son of Rechab shall not want a man to stand before me for ever."'

What lesson shall we learn from this story--so strange, and yet so beautiful? What lesson need we learn, save that which the Holy Scripture itself bids us learn? The blessing which comes upon reverence for our forefathers, and above all for G.o.d, our Father in Heaven.

Reverence for our forefathers. These are days in which we are too apt to sneer at those who have gone before us; to look back on our forefathers as very ignorant, prejudiced, old-fas.h.i.+oned people, whose opinions have been all set aside by the progress of knowledge.

Be sure that in this temper of mind lies a sin and a snare. If we wish to keep up true independence and true self-respect in ourselves and our children, we should be careful to keep up respect for our forefathers. A shallow, sneering generation, which laughs at those who have gone before it, is ripe for disaster and slavery. We are not bound, of course--as those old Rechabites considered themselves bound--to do in everything exactly what our forefathers did. For we are not under the law, but under grace; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty--liberty to change, improve, and develop as the world grows older, and (we may hope) wiser. But we are bound to do, not exactly what our forefathers did, but what we may reasonably suppose that they would have done, had they lived now, and were they in our places. We are to obey them, not in the letter, but in the spirit.

And whenever, in the prayer for the Church militant, we commemorate the faithful dead, and thank G.o.d for all his servants departed this life in his faith and fear, we should remember with honest pride that we are thanking G.o.d for our own mothers and fathers, and for those that went before them; ay, for every honest G.o.d-fearing man and woman, high or low, who ever did their duty by G.o.d and their neighbours, and left, when they died, a spot of this land somewhat better than they found it.

And for G.o.d; the Father of all fathers; our Father in heaven--Oh, my friends, G.o.d grant that it may never be said to any of us, Behold the words of Jonadab the son of Rechab, which he commanded his children, are performed: but ye have not hearkened unto me. I have sent also unto you, saith G.o.d, not merely my servants the prophets, but my only-begotten, Jesus Christ your Lord, saying, 'Return you now every man from his evil way, and amend your doings, and go not after other G.o.ds to serve them, and ye shall dwell in the land which I have given to you and to your fathers. But ye have not inclined your ear, nor hearkened unto me.'

G.o.d grant that that may never be said to any of us. And yet it is impossible to deny--impossible to shut our eyes to the plain fact-- that Englishmen now-a-days are more and more forgetting that there are any commandments of G.o.d whatsoever; any everlasting laws laid down by their Heavenly Father, which, if they break, will avenge themselves by our utter ruin. We do not go after other G.o.ds, it is true, in the sense of wors.h.i.+pping idols. But there is another G.o.d, which we go after more and more; and that is money; gain; our interest (as we call it):- not knowing that the only true interest of any man is to fear G.o.d and keep his commandments. We hold more and more that a man can serve G.o.d and mammon; that a man must of course be religious, and belong to some special sect, or party, or denomination, and stand up for that fiercely enough: but we do not hold that there are commandments of G.o.d which say for ever to the sinner, 'Do this and thou shalt live;' 'Do this or thou shalt die.'

We hold that because we are not under the law, but under grace, there is no condemnation for sin--at least for the special sort of sin which happens to be in fas.h.i.+on, which is now-a-days the sin of making money at all risks. We hold that there is one law of morality for the kingdom of heaven, and another for the kingdom of mammon.

Therefore we hold, more and more, that when money is in question anything and everything is fair. There are--we have reason to know it just now but too well--thousands who will sell their honour, their honesty, yea, their own souls, for a few paltry pounds, and think no shame. And if any one says, with Jeremiah the prophet, 'These are poor, they know not the way of the Lord, nor the judgment of their G.o.d. I will get me to the great men, for they have known the way of the Lord, and the judgment of their G.o.d:'--then will he find, as Jeremiah did, that too many of these great and wealthy wors.h.i.+ppers of mammon have utterly broken the yoke, and burst the bonds, of all moral law of right and wrong: heaping up vast fortunes amid the ruin of those who have trusted them, and the tears of the widow and the orphan, by means now glossed over by fine new words, but called in plain honest old English by a very ugly name.

How many there are in England now, my friends, who would laugh in their hearts at those worthy Rechabites, and hold them to be ignorant, old-fas.h.i.+oned, bigoted people, for keeping up their poor, simple, temperate life, wandering to and fro with their tents and cattle, instead of dwelling in great cities, and making money, and becoming what is now-a-days called civilized, in luxury and covetousness. Surely according to the wisdom of this world, the Rechabites were foolish enough. But it is the wisdom of this world itself--not simplicity and loyalty like theirs--which is foolishness with G.o.d.

My friends, let us all take warning, each man for himself. When a nation corrupts itself--as we seem inclined to do now, by luxury and covetousness, selfishness and self-will, forgetting more and more loyalty and order, honesty and high principle--then some wholesome, but severe judgment of G.o.d, is sure to come upon that nation: a day in which all faces shall gather blackness: a day of gloominess and thick darkness, like the morning spread upon the mountains.

For the eternal laws of G.o.d's providence are still at work, though we choose to forget them; and the Judge who administers them is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, even Jesus Christ the Lord, the everlasting Rock, on which all morality and all society is founded.

Whosoever shall fall on that Rock in repentance and humility, confessing, bewailing, and forsaking his worldliness and sinfulness, he shall indeed be broken: but of him it is written, 'The sacrifices of G.o.d are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O G.o.d, thou wilt not despise.' And he shall find that Rock, even Christ, a safe standing-ground amid the slippery mire of this world's temptations, and the storms and floods of trouble which are coming-- it may be in our children's days--it may be in our own.

But he who hardens his heart: he who says proudly, 'We are they that ought to speak; who is Lord over us?'--he who says carelessly, 'Soul, take thine ease; thou hast much goods laid up for many years'--he who halts between two opinions, and believes to the last that he can serve both G.o.d and mammon--he, especially, who fancies that falsehood, injustice, covetousness, and neglect of his fellow-men, can properly be his interest, or help his interest in any wise--of all such it is written, 'On whomsoever that Rock'--even the eternal laws of Christ the Judge--'On whomsoever that Rock shall fall, it shall grind him to powder.'

SERMON VII.--THE NAME OF G.o.d

ISAIAH l. 10.

Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness, and hath no light? Let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his G.o.d.

To some persons it may seem strange advice to tell them, that in the hour of darkness, doubt, and sorrow, they will find no comfort like that of meditating on the Name of the Ever-blessed Trinity. Yet there is not a prophet or psalmist of the Old Testament who does not speak of 'The Name of the Lord,' as a kind of talisman against all the troubles which can befall the spirit of man. And we, as Christians, know, or ought to know, far more of G.o.d than did even prophets or psalmists. If they found comfort in the name of G.o.d, we ought to find far more.

But some will say--Yes. Let us think of G.o.d, G.o.d's mercies, G.o.d's dealings with his people; but why think especially of the Name of the Ever-blessed Trinity?

For this simple reason. That it is by that Name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, that G.o.d has revealed himself. That is the name by which he bids us think of him; and we are more or less disregarding his commands when we think of him by any other. That is the name which G.o.d has given himself; and, therefore, it is morally certain that that is G.o.d's right name; that it expresses G.o.d's very self, G.o.d's very being, as he is.

Theology signifies, the knowledge of G.o.d as he is. And it is dying out among us in these days. Much of what is called theology now is nothing but experimental religion; which is most important and useful when it is founded on the right knowledge of G.o.d: but which is not itself theology. For theology begins with G.o.d: but experimental religion, right or wrong, begins with a man's own soul. Therefore it is that men are unaccustomed to theology. They shrink from it as something very abstruse, only fit for great scholars and divines, and almost given up now-a-days even by them. They do not know that theology, the knowledge of G.o.d, is full of practical every-day comfort, and guidance for their conduct and character; yea, that it is--so says the Bible--everlasting life itself. Therefore it is that some shrink from thinking of the Ever-blessed Trinity, not from any evil intent, but because they are afraid of thinking wrongly, and so consider it more safe not to think at all. They have been puzzled, it may be, by arguments which they have heard, or read, or which have risen up in their own minds, and which have made them doubt about the Trinity: and they say--I will not torment my soul, and perhaps endanger my soul, by doubts. I will take the doctrine of the Trinity for granted, because I am bidden to do so: but I leave what it means to be explained by wiser men. If I begin thinking about it I shall only confuse myself. So it is better for me not to think at all.

And one cannot deny that they are right, as far as they go. If they cannot think about the Trinity without thinking wrongly, it is better to take on trust what they are told about it. But they lose much by so doing. They lose the solid and real comfort which they may get by thinking of the Name of G.o.d. And, I believe, they lose it unnecessarily. I cannot see why they must think wrongly of the Trinity, if they think at all. I cannot see why they need confuse themselves. The doctrine of the Trinity is not really an unreasonable one. The doubts which come into men's minds concerning it do not seem to me sound and reasonable doubts. For instance, some say--How can there be three persons in one G.o.d? It is contrary to reason. One cannot be many. Three cannot be one. That is unreasonable.

I think, that if you will use your reason for yourselves, you will see that it is those words which are unreasonable, and not the doctrine of the Trinity.

First. A thing need not be unreasonable--that is, contrary to reason--because it is above and beyond reason--or, at least, beyond our human reason, which at best (as St. Paul says) sees as in a gla.s.s darkly, and only knows in part.

Consider how many things are beyond reason which are not contrary to it. I say that all things which G.o.d has made are so: but, without going so far, let us consider these simple examples.

Is it not beyond all reason that among animals, like should bring forth like? Why does an eagle's egg always produce an eagle, and a dove's egg a dove, and so forth? No man knows, no man can give any reason whatsoever. If a dove's egg produced an eagle, ignorant men would cry out at the wonder, the miracle. Wise men know that the real wonder, the real miracle is, that a dove's egg always produces a dove, and not any and every other bird.

Here is a common and notorious fact, entirely above our reason.

There is no cause to be given for it, save that G.o.d has ordained it so. But it is not contrary to our reason. So far from it, we are certain that a dove will produce a dove; and our reason has found out much of the laws of kind; and found out that they are reasonable laws, regular, and to be depended upon; so that we can, as all know, produce and keep up new breeds whether of plants or of animals.

So that the law of kind, though it is beyond our reason, is not contrary to our reason at all.

So much for things which have life. Take an equally notorious example from things which have not life.

Is it not above and beyond all our reason--that the seemingly weakest thing in the world, the most soft and yielding, the most frail and vanis.h.i.+ng, should be also one of the strongest things in the world?

That is so utterly above reason, that while I say it, it seems to some of you to be contrary to reason, to be unreasonable and impossible. It is so above reason, that till two hundred years ago, no one suspected that it was true. And yet it is strictly true.

What is more soft and yielding, more frail and vanis.h.i.+ng, than steam?

And what is stronger than steam? I know nothing. Steam it is which has lifted up the mountains from the sea into the clouds. Steam it is which tears to pieces the bowels of the earth with earthquakes and volcanoes, shaking down cities, rasping the solid rocks into powder, and scattering them far and wide in dust over the face of the land.

What gives to steam its enormous force is beyond our reason. We do not know. But so far from being contrary to our reason, we have learnt that the laws of steam are as reasonable as any other of G.o.d's laws. We can calculate its force, we can make it, use it, and turn its mighty powers, by reason and science, into our most useful and obedient slave, till it works ten thousand mills, and sends ten thousand s.h.i.+ps across the sea.

Above reason, I say, but not contrary to reason, is the mighty power of steam.

And G.o.d, who made all these wonders--and millions of wonders more-- must he not be more wonderful than them all? Must not his being and essence be above our reason? But need they be, therefore, contrary to our reason? Not so.

Nevertheless, some will say, How can one be many? How can one be three? Why not? Two are one in you, and every man. Your body is you, and your soul is you. They are two. But you know yourself that you are one being; that the Athanasian Creed speaks, at least, reason when it says, 'As the reasonable soul and the flesh are one man, so G.o.d and man is one Christ.'

And three are one in every plant in the field. Root, bark, leaves, are three. And yet--they are one tree; and if you take away any one of them, the tree will die. So it is in all nature. But why do I talk of a tree, or any other example? Wherever you look you find that one thing is many things, and many things one. So far from that fact being contrary to our reason, it is one which our reason (as soon as we think deeply about this world) a.s.sures us is most common.