Town and Country Sermons Part 11

(First Sunday after Trinity.)

1 John iv. 16, 18. And we have known and believed the love that G.o.d hath to us. G.o.d is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in G.o.d, and G.o.d in him. Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.

The text tells us how to get one of the greatest blessings; a blessing which all long for, but all do not find; and that is a happy death. All wish to die happily; even bad men. Like Balaam when he was committing a great sin, they can say, 'Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his.' But meanwhile, like Balaam, they find it too hard to live the life of the righteous, which is the only way to die the death of the righteous. But something within them (if false preachers will but leave them alone) tells them that they will not succeed. Reason and common sense tell them so: for how can a man expect to get to a place without travelling the road which leads to it? And the Spirit of G.o.d, the Spirit of truth and right, tells them that they will not succeed: for how can a man win happiness, save by doing right?

Every one shall 'receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.' So says Scripture; and so say men's own hearts, by the inspiration of G.o.d's Holy Spirit. And therefore such men's fear of death continues. And why?

The text tells us the secret. As long as we do not love G.o.d, we shall be tormented with fear of death. And as long as we do not love our neighbour, we shall not love G.o.d. We may try, as thousands have tried, and as thousands try still, to love G.o.d without loving their neighbour; to be very religious, and wors.h.i.+p G.o.d, and sing His praises, and think over all His mercy to them, and all that he has done for them, by the death of His blessed Son Jesus Christ; and so to persuade themselves and G.o.d that they love Him, while they keep in their hearts selfishness, pride, spite, uncharitableness: but they do not succeed. If they think they succeed, they are only deceiving themselves. So says St. John. 'He who loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love G.o.d whom he hath not seen?' But they cannot deceive themselves long. You will see, if you watch such people, and still more if you watch yourselves, that if you do not love your neighbours in spirit and in truth, then those tormenting fears soon come back again, worse than ever. Ay, whenever we indulge ourselves in hard words and cruel judgments, the thought of G.o.d seems darkened to us there and then; the face of G.o.d seems turned from us; and peace of mind and brightness of spirit, and lightness of soul, do not come back to us, till we have confessed our sins, and have let the kindly, the charitable, the merciful thoughts rise up in us once more, as, by the grace of Christ, they will rise up.

Yes, my friends, as far as I can see, people are filled with the peace of G.o.d just in as far as they are at peace with their fellow- men. They are bright, calm, and content, looking forward with cheerfulness to death, and with a humble and holy boldness to judgment, just in as far as their hearts are filled with love, gentleness, kindness, to all that G.o.d has made. They dwell in G.o.d, and G.o.d in them, and perfect love has cast out fear.

But if a man does not live in love, then sooner or later he will hear a voice within him, which whispers, Thou art going wrong; and, if thou art going wrong, how canst thou end at the right place?

None but the right road can end there. The wrong road must lead to the wrong place.

Then the man gets disturbed and terrified in his mind, and tormented with fears, as the text says. He knows that the day of judgment is coming, and he has no boldness to meet it. He shrinks from the thought of death, of judgment, of G.o.d. He thinks--How shall I meet my G.o.d? I do not love my neighbour. I do not love G.o.d; and G.o.d does not love me. The truth is, that the man cannot love G.o.d even if he will. He looks on G.o.d as his enemy, whom he has offended, who is coming to take vengeance on him. And, as long as we are afraid of any one, and fancy that they hate us, and are going to hurt us, we cannot love them. So the man is tormented with fear; fear of death, fear of judgment, fear of meeting G.o.d.

Then he takes to superst.i.tion; he runs from preacher to preacher; and what not?--There is no folly men have not committed, and do not commit still, to rid themselves of that tormenting fear. But they do not rid themselves of it. Sermons, church-goings, almsgivings; leaving the Church and turning Dissenters or Roman Catholics; joining this sect and that sect; nothing will rid a man of his superst.i.tious fear: nothing but believing the blessed message of the text.

And what does the text say? It says this,--'G.o.d is love.' G.o.d does not hate thee, He loves thee. He willeth not thy death, O sinner, but rather that thou shouldest turn from thy wickedness and live.

Thy sins have not made Him hate thee: but only pity thee; pity thy folly, which will lead on the road to death, when He wishes to put thee on the road to life, that thou mayest have boldness in the day of judgment, instead of shrinking from G.o.d like a guilty coward.

And what is the way of life? Surely the way of Christ, who _is_ the life. Live like Him, and thou wilt not need to fear to die. So says the text. We are to have boldness in the day of judgment, because as Christ is, so are we in this world. And how was, and is, and ever will be, Christ in this world? Full of love; of brotherly- kindness, charity, forgiveness, peace, and good will to men. That, says St. John, is the life which brings a joyful death; for G.o.d is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in G.o.d, and G.o.d in him.

Oh consider this, my good friends. Consider this; lest when you come to die the ghosts of all your sins should rise up at your bedside, and torment you with fear--the ghosts of every cruel word which you ever spoke against your fellow men; of every kind action which you neglected; as well as of every unjust one which you ever committed. And, if they do rise up in judgment against you, what must you do?

Cast yourself upon the love of G.o.d, and remember that G.o.d is love, and so loved us that He sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Ask Him to forgive you your sins, for the sake of that precious blood which was shed on the cross: but not that you may keep your sins, and may escape the punishment of them. G.o.d forbid.

What use in having your past sins forgiven, if the sinful heart still remains to run up fresh sins for the future? No. Ask Him not merely to forgive the past, but to mend the future; to create in you a new heart, which wishes no ill to any human being, and a right spirit, which desires first and utterly to do right, and is filled with the Holy Spirit of G.o.d, the Spirit of love, by which G.o.d made and redeemed the world, and all that therein is.

So will all tormenting fears cease. You will feel yourself in the right way, the way of charity, the way in which Christ walked in this world, and have boldness in the day of judgment, facing death without conceit, indeed, but also without superst.i.tious fear.

SERMON XXIII. THE FLESH AND THE SPIRIT

(Eighth Sunday after Trinity.)

Romans viii. 12. Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh; for if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die.

What does walking after the flesh mean? St. Paul tells us himself, in Gal. v., where he uses exactly the same form of words which he does here. 'The works of the flesh,' he says, 'are manifest.' When a man gives way to his pa.s.sions and appet.i.tes--when he cares only about enjoying his own flesh, and the pleasures which he has in common with the brutes, then there is no mistake about the sort of life which he will lead--'Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like.' An ugly list, my friends; and G.o.d have mercy on the man who gives way to them. For disgraceful as they are to him, and tormenting also to him in this life, the worst is, that if he gives way to them, he will die.

I do not mean that he will bring his mortal body to an untimely end; that he will ruin his own health; or that he will get himself hanged, though that is likely enough--common enough. I think St.

Paul means something even worse than that. The man himself will die. Not his body merely: but his soul, his character, will die.

All in him that G.o.d made, all that G.o.d intended him to be, will die.

All that his father and mother loved in him, all that they watched over, and hoped and prayed that it might grow up into life, in order that he might become the man G.o.d meant him to be, all that will die.

His soul and character will become one ma.s.s of disease. He will think wrong, feel wrong, about everything of which he does think and feel: while, about the higher matters, of which every man ought to know something, he will not think or feel at all. Love to his country, love to his own kinsfolk even; above all, love to G.o.d, will die in him, and he will care for nothing but himself, and how to get a little more foul pleasure before he goes out of this world, he dare not think whither. All power of being useful will die in him.

Honour and justice will die in him. He will be shut up in himself, in the ugly prison-house of his own l.u.s.ts and pa.s.sions, parted from his fellow-men, caring nothing for them, knowing that they care nothing for him. He will have no faith in man or G.o.d. He will believe no good, he will have no hope, either for himself or for the world.

This, this is death, indeed; the death of sin; the death in which human beings may go on for years, walking, eating, and drinking; worse than those who walk in their sleep, and see nothing, though their eyes are staring wide.

Oh pitiable sight! The most pitiable sight in the whole world, a human soul dead and rotten in sin! It is a pitiable sight enough, to see a human body decayed by disease, to see a poor creature dying, even quietly and without pain. Pitiable, but not half so pitiable as the death of a human soul by sin. For the death of the body is not a man's own fault. But that death in life of sin, is a man's own fault. In a Christian country, at least, it is a man's own fault, if he goes about the world, as I have seen many a one go, having a name to live, and yet dead in trespa.s.ses and sins, while his soul only serves to keep his body alive and moving. How shall we escape this death in life? St. Paul tells us, 'If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.'

Through the Spirit. The Spirit of G.o.d and of Christ. Keep that in mind, for that is the only way, the right way, to mortify and kill in us these vices and pa.s.sions, which, unless we kill them, will kill us. The only way. For men have tried other ways in old times, do try other ways now: but they fail. I could mention many plans which they have tried. But I will only mention the one which you and I are likely to try.

A young man runs wild for a few years, as young men are too apt to do: but at last he finds that ill-living does not _pay_. It hurts his health, his pocket, his character. He makes himself ill; he cannot get employed; he has ruin staring him in the face, from his wild living. He must mend. If he intends to keep out of the workhouse, the gaol, the grave, he must mortify the deeds of the body. He must bridle his pa.s.sions, give up lying about, drinking, swearing, cheating, running after bad women: and if he has a strong will, he does it from mere selfish prudence. But is he safe? I think not, as long as he loves still the bad ways he has given up.

He has given them up, not because he hates them, because he is ashamed of them, because he knows them to be hateful to G.o.d, and ruinous to his own soul: but because they do not pay. The man himself is not changed. His heart within is not converted. The outside of his life is whitewashed; but his heart may be as foul as ever; as full as ever of selfishness, greediness, meanness. And what happens to him? Too often, what happened to the man in the parable, when the unclean spirit went out of him, and came back again. The unclean spirit found his home swept and garnished: but empty. All very neat and respectable: but empty. There was no other spirit dwelling there. No good spirit, who could fight the unclean spirit and keep him out. So he took to himself seven other spirits worse than himself--hypocrisy, cant, cunning, covetousness, and all the smooth-shaven sins which beset middle-aged and elderly men; and they dwell there, and so does the unclean spirit of youth too.

Alas! How often have I seen men whom that description would fit but too well--men who have kept themselves respectable till they have got back their character in the world's eyes: and when they get into years, and have risen perhaps in life, and made money, are looked up to by their fellows: but what are they at heart? As great scoundrels as they were thirty years before--cunning, false, covetous, and hypocritical--and indulging, perhaps, the unclean spirit of youth, as much as they dare without being found out. G.o.d help them! for their last state is worse than their first. But that is the fruit of trying to mortify and kill their own vices by mere worldly prudence, and not by the Spirit of G.o.d, which alone can cleanse the heart of any man, or make him strong enough really to conquer and kill his sins.

And what is this spirit of G.o.d? We may know in this way. What says our Lord in the Gospel? 'The tree is known by its fruits.' Then if we know the fruits of the Spirit, we shall surely know something at least of what the Spirit is like. What then says St. Paul, 'The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.' Therefore the Spirit is a loving spirit--a peaceable, a gentle, a good, a faithful, a sober and temperate spirit. And if you follow it, you will live. If you give yourselves up honestly, frankly, and fully, to be led by that good spirit, and obey it when it prompts you with right feelings, you, your very self, will live. You will be what G.o.d intended you to be; you will grow as G.o.d intended you to grow; grow as Christ did, in grace; in all which is graceful, amiable, worthy of respect and love; and therefore in favour with G.o.d and man. Your character will improve and strengthen day by day; and rise day by day to fuller, stronger, healthier spiritual life. You will be able more and more to keep down low pa.s.sions, evil tempers, and all the works of the flesh, when they tempt you; you will despise and hate them more and more; for having seen the beauty of goodness, you will see the ugliness of sin. So the bad pa.s.sions and tempers, instead of being merely put to sleep for a while to wake up all the stronger for their rest, will be really mortified and killed in you. They will die out of you; and you, the real _you_ whom G.o.d made, will live and grow continually. And, instead of having your character dragged down, diseased, and at last ruined, it will rise and progress, as you grow older, in the sure and safe road of eternal life. To which G.o.d bring us all in his mercy! Amen.

SERMON XXIV. THE UNRIGHTEOUS MAMMON

(Ninth Sunday after Trinity.)

Luke xvi. 1-8. And he said also unto his disciples, There was a certain rich man, which had a steward; and the same was accused unto him that he had wasted his goods. And he called him, and said unto him, How is it that I hear this of thee? give an account of thy stewards.h.i.+p; for thou mayest be no longer steward. Then the steward said within himself, What shall I do? for my lord taketh away from me the stewards.h.i.+p: I cannot dig; to beg I am ashamed. I am resolved what to do, that, when I am put out of the stewards.h.i.+p, they may receive me into their houses. So he called every one of his lord's debtors unto him, and said unto the first, How much owest thou unto my lord? And he said, An hundred measures of oil. And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and sit down quickly, and write fifty.

Then said he to another, And how much owest thou? And he said, An hundred measures of wheat. And he said unto him, Take thy bill and write fourscore. And the lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely: for the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light.

This parable has always been considered a difficult one to understand. Fathers and Divines, in all ages, have tried to explain it in different ways; and have never, it seems to me, been satisfied with their own explanations. They have always felt it strange, that our Lord should seem to hold up, as an example to us, this steward who, having been found out in one villainy, escapes, (so it seems, from the common explanation) by committing a second. They have not been able to see either, how we are really to copy the steward. Our Lord says, that we are to copy him by making ourselves friends of the Mammon of unrighteousness: but how? By giving away a few alms, or a great many? Does any rational man seriously believe, that if his Mammon was unrighteous, that is, if his wealth were ill-gotten, he would save his soul, and be received into eternal life, for giving away part of it, or even the whole of it?

No doubt, there always have been men who will try. Men who, having cheated their neighbours all their lives, have tried to cheat the Devil at last, by some such plan as the unjust steward's, but that plan has never been looked on as either a very honourable or a very hopeful one. I think, that if I had been an usurer or a grinder of the poor all my life, I should not save my soul by founding almshouses with my money when I died, or even ten years before I died. It might be all that I was able to do: but would it justify me in the sight of G.o.d? That which saves a soul alive is repentance; and of repentance there are three parts, contrition, confession, and satisfaction--in plain English, making the wrong right, and giving each man back, as far as one can, what one has taken from him. To each man, I say; for I have no right to rob one man and then give to another. I ought to give back again to the man whom I have robbed. I have no right to cheat the rich for the sake of the poor; and after I have cheated the rich, I do not make satisfaction, either to G.o.d or man, by giving that money to the poor. Good old Zaccheus, the publican, knew better what true satisfaction was like. He had been gaining money not altogether in an unjust way, but in a way which did him no credit; he had been farming the taxes, and he was dissatisfied with his way of life.

Therefore, Behold, Lord, he says, the half of my goods, of what I have a right to in the world's eyes--what is my own, and I could keep if I liked--I give to the poor. But if I have done wrong to any man, I restore to him fourfold. Then said the Lord, 'This day is salvation come to this man's house; forsomuch as he also is a son of Abraham;' a just and faithful man, who knows what true repentance is.

But now, my friends, suppose that this was just what our Lord tells us to do in this parable. Suppose that this was just what the unjust steward did. I only say, suppose; for I know that more learned men than I explain the difficulty otherwise. Only I ask you to hear my explanation.

The steward is accused of wasting his lord's goods.

He will be put out of his stewards.h.i.+p.

He goes to his lord's debtors, and bids them write themselves down in debt to him at far less sums than they had thought that they owed.

Now, suppose that these debtors were the very men whom he had been cheating. Suppose that he had been overcharging these debtors; and now, in his need, had found out that honesty was the best policy, and charged them what they really owed him. They were, probably, tenants under his lord, paying their rents in kind, as was often the custom in the East. One rented an olive garden, and paid for it so many measures of oil; another rented corn-land, and paid so many measures of meal. Now suppose that the steward, as he easily might, had been setting these poor men's rents too high, and taking the surplus himself. That while he had been charging one tenant a hundred, he had been paying to his lord only fifty, and so forth.

What does he do, then, in his need? He does justice to his lord's debtors. He tells them what their debts really are. He sets their accounts right. Instead of charging the first man a hundred, he charges him fifty; instead of charging the second a hundred, he charges him eighty; and he does not, as far as we are told, conceal this conduct from his lord. He rights them as far as he can now.

So he shews that he honestly repents. He has found out that honesty is the best policy; that the way to make true friends is to deal justly by them; and, if he cannot restore what he has taken from them already (for I suppose he had spent it), at least to confess his sin to them, and to set the matter right for the time to come.

This, I think, is what our Lord bids us do, if we have wronged any man, and fouled our hands with the unrighteous mammon, that is, with ill-gotten wealth. And I think so all the more from the verses which come after. For, when he has said, 'Make yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness,' he goes on in the very next verse to say, 'He that is faithful in that which is least, is faithful also in that which is much. If, therefore, ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches?' Now, surely, this must have something to do with what goes before. And, if it has, what can it mean but this--that the way to make friends out of the mammon of unrighteousness, is to be faithful in it, just in it, honest in it?

But some one may say, If mammon be unrighteous, how can a man be righteous and upright in dealing with it? If money be a bad thing in itself, how can a man meddle with it with clean hands?

So some people will say, and so some will be glad to say. But why?

Because they do not want to be righteous, upright, just, and honest in their money dealings; and, therefore, they are glad to make out that they could not be upright if they tried; because money being a bad thing altogether, a man must needs, if he has to do with money, do things which he knows are wrong. I say some people are glad to believe that. I do not mean any one in this congregation. G.o.d forbid! I mean in the world in general. We do see people, religious people too, do things about money which they know are mean, covetous, cruel, and then excuse themselves by saying,--'Well, of course I would not do so to my own brother; but, in the way of business, one can't help doing these things.' Now, I do not quite believe them. I have seldom seen the man who cheated his neighbour, who would not cheat his own brother if he had a chance: but so they say. And, if they be religious people, they will quote Scripture, and say,--Ah! it is the fault of the unrighteous mammon; and, in dealing with the unrighteous mammon, we cannot help these little failings, and so forth: till they seem to have two quite different rules of right and wrong; one for the saving of their own souls, which they keep to when they are hearing sermons, and reading good books; and the other for money, which they keep to when they have to pay their debts or transact business.

Now, my dear friends, be not deceived: G.o.d is not mocked. G.o.d tempts no man. Man tempts himself by his own l.u.s.ts and pa.s.sions.

G.o.d does not tempt us when he gives us money, puts us in the way of earning money, or spending money. Money is not bad in itself; wealth is not bad in itself. If mammon be unrighteous, we make money into mammon, when we make an idol of it, and wors.h.i.+p it more than G.o.d's law of right and justice. We make it unrighteous, by being unrighteous, and unjust ourselves.

Money is good; for money stands for capital; for money's worth; for houses, land, food, clothes, all that man can make; and they stand for labour, employment, wages; and they stand for human beings, for the bodily life of man. Without wealth, where should we be now? If G.o.d had not given to man the power of producing wealth, where should we be now? Not here. Four-fifths of us would not have been alive at all. Instead of eight hundred people in this parish, all more or less well off, there would be, perhaps, one hundred--perhaps far less, living miserably on game and roots. Instead of thirty millions of civilized people in Great Britain, there would be perhaps some two or three millions of savages. Money, I say, stands for the lives of human beings. Therefore money is good; an ordinance and a gift of G.o.d; as it is written, 'It is G.o.d that giveth the power to get wealth.' But, like every other good gift of G.o.d, we may use it as a blessing; or we may misuse it, and make it a snare and a curse to our own souls. If we let into our hearts selfishness and falsehood; if we lose faith in G.o.d, and fancy that G.o.d's laws are not well-made enough to prosper us, but that we must break them if we want to prosper; then we turn G.o.d's good gift into an idol and a snare; into the unrighteous Mammon.