Town and Country Sermons Part 4

When a man has made up his mind that he knows all doctrines, and is fully instructed in religion, and can afford to look down on all who differ from him; then is that man ripe and ready for doing something plainly wrong and wicked, which will blunt his conscience from that day forth, and teach him to call evil good, and good evil more and more; till, in the midst of all his fine religious professions, he knows not plain right from plain wrong--full of the form of G.o.dliness, but denying the power of it in scandal of his every-day life.

Yes, my friends, our only safeguard is humility. Be not high- minded, but fear. Avoid every appearance of evil. Believe that in every temptation heaven and h.e.l.l may be at stake: and that the only way to be safe is to do nothing wilfully wrong at all, for you never know how far downward one wilful sin may lead you. The devil is not simple enough to let you see the bottom of his pitfall: but it is so deep, nevertheless, that he who falls in, may never get out again.

And do not say in your hearts about this thing and that, 'Well, it is wrong: but it is such a little matter.' A little draught may give a great cold; and a great cold grow to a deadly decline. A little sin may grow to a great bad habit; and a great bad habit may kill both body and soul in h.e.l.l. A little bait may take a great fish; and the devil fishes with a very fine line, and is not going to let you see his hook. The only way to be safe is to avoid all appearance of evil, lest when you fancy yourself most completely your own master, you find yourself the slave of sin.

Oh, may G.o.d give us all the spirit of watchfulness and G.o.dly fear!

Of watchfulness, lest sin overtake us unawares; and of G.o.dly fear, that we may have strength to say with Joseph, 'How can I do this great wickedness, and sin against G.o.d?' Of watchfulness, too, not only against sin, but for G.o.d; of G.o.dly fear, not only fear of G.o.d's anger, but fear of G.o.d's love.

Do you ask what I mean? This, my friends; that as we cannot tell at any moment what danger may be coming on us, so we cannot tell at any moment what blessing from G.o.d may be coming on us. Those Jews, in the day of their visitation, were blind, and they rejected Christ: but recollect, that it was _Christ_ whom they rejected; that Christ was there, not in anger, but in love; not to judge, but to save; that the power of the Lord was present, not to destroy, but to heal them. They would have none of him. True; but they might have had him if they had chosen. They denied him; but he could not deny himself. He was there to teach and to save, as he comes to teach and to save every man.

Therefore, I say, be watchful. Believe that Christ is looking for you always, and expect to meet him at any moment. I do not mean in visible form, in vision or apparition. No. He comes, not by observation, that a man may say, 'Lo, here; and lo, there;' but he comes within you, to your hearts, with the still, small voice, which softens a man and sobers him for a moment, and makes him yearn after good, and say in his heart, 'Ah, that I were as when I was a child upon my mother's knee.' Oh! listen to that softening, sobering voice. Through very small things it may speak to you: but it is Christ himself who speaks. Whenever your heart is softened to affection toward parent, or child, or your fellowman, then Christ is speaking to you, and showing you the things which belong to your peace. Whenever the feeling of justice, and righteous horror of all meanness rises strong in you, then Christ is speaking to you.

Whenever your heart burns within you with admiration of some n.o.ble action, then Christ is speaking to you. Whenever a chance word in sermons or in books touches your conscience, and reproves you, then Christ is speaking to you. Oh turn not a deaf ear to those instincts. They may be the very turning-points of your lives. One such G.o.dly motion, one such pure inspiration of the Spirit of G.o.d listened to humbly, and obeyed heartily, may be the means of putting you into the right path thenceforward, that you may go on and grow in strength and wisdom, and favour with G.o.d and man; till you become again, in the world to come, what you were when you were carried home from the baptismal font, a little child, pure from all spot of sin.

SERMON IX. OBADIAH

1 Kings, xviii. 3, 4. And Ahab called Obadiah, which was the governor of his house. (Now Obadiah feared the Lord greatly: for it was so, when Jezebel cut off the prophets of the Lord, that Obadiah took an hundred prophets, and hid them by fifty in a cave, and fed them with bread and water.)

This is the first and last time throughout the Bible, that we find this Obadiah mentioned. We find the same name elsewhere, but not the same person. It is a common Jewish name, Obadiah, and means, I believe, the servant of the Lord.

All we know of the man is contained in this chapter. We do not read what became of him afterwards. He vanishes out of the story as quickly as he came into it, and, as we go on through the chapter and read of that grand judgment at Carmel between Elijah and the priests of Baal, and the fire of G.o.d which came down from heaven, to shew that the Lord was G.o.d, we forget Obadiah, and care to hear of him no more.

And yet Obadiah was a great man in his day. He was, it seems, King Ahab's vizier, or prime minister; the second man in the country after the king; and a prime minister in those eastern kingdoms had, and has now, far greater power than he has in a free country like this. Yes, Obadiah was a great man in his day, I doubt not; and people bowed before him when he went out, and looked up to him, in that lawless country, for life or death, for ruin or prosperity.

Their money, and their land, their very lives might depend on his taking a liking toward them, or a spite against them. And he had wealth, no doubt, and his fair and great house there among the beautiful hills of Samaria, ceiled with cedar and painted with vermilion, with its olive groves and vineyards, and rich gardens full of gay flowers and sweet spices, figs and peaches, and pomegranates, and all the lovely vegetation which makes those Eastern gardens like Paradise itself. And he had his great household of slaves, men-servants and maidservants, guards and footmen, singing men and singing women--perhaps a hundred souls and more eating and drinking in his house day by day for many a year. A great man; full of wealth, and pomp, and power. We know that it must have been so, because we know well in what luxury those great men in the East lived. But where is it now?

Where is it now? Vanished and forgotten. Be not thou afraid, though one be made rich, or if the glory of his house be increased.

For he shall carry nothing away with him when he dieth; neither shall his pomp follow him.

See--of all Obadiah's wealth and glory, the Bible does not say one word. It is actually not worth mentioning. People admired Obadiah, I doubt not, while he was alive; envied him too, tried to thrust him out of his place, slander him to King Ahab, drive him out of favour, and step into his place, that they might enjoy his wealth and his power instead of him. The fine outside of Obadiah was what they saw, and coveted, and envied--as we are tempted now to say in our hearts, 'Ah, if I was rich like that man. Ah, if I could buy what I liked, go where I liked, do what I liked, like that great Lord!'-- and yet, that is but the outside, the sh.e.l.l, the gay clothing, not the persons themselves. The day must come, when they must put off all that; when nothing shall remain but themselves; and they themselves, naked as they were born, shall appear before the judgment-seat of G.o.d.

And did Obadiah, then, carry away nothing with him when he died?

Yes; and yet again, No. His wealth and his power he left behind him: but one thing he took with him into the grave, better than all wealth and power; and he keeps it now, and will keep it for ever; and that is, a good, and just, and merciful action--concerning which it is written, 'Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord; for they rest from their labours, and their works do follow them.' Yes, though a man's wealth will not follow him beyond the grave, his works will; and so Obadiah's one good deed has followed him. 'He feared the Lord greatly, and when Jezebel cut off the prophets of the Lord, Obadiah took a hundred prophets, and hid them by fifty in a cave, and fed them with bread and water.'

That has followed Obadiah; for by it we know him, now two thousand years and more after his death, here in a distant land of the name of which he never heard. By that good deed he lives. He lives in the pages of the Holy Bible; he lives in our minds and memories; and more than all, by that good deed he lives for ever in G.o.d's sight; he is rewarded for it, and the happier for it, doubt it not, at this very moment, and will be the happier for it for ever.

Oh blessed thought! that there is something of which death cannot rob us! That when we have to leave this pleasant world, wife and child, home and business, and all that has grown up round us here on earth, till it has become like a part of ourselves, yet still we are not dest.i.tute. We can turn round on death and say--'Though I die, yet canst thou not take my righteousness from me!' Blessed thought!

that we cannot do a good deed, not even give a cup of cold water in Christ's name, but what it shall rise again, like a guardian angel, to smooth our death-bed pillow, and make our bed for us in our sickness, and follow us into the next world, to bless us for ever and ever!

And blessed thought, too, that what you do well and lovingly, for G.o.d's sake, will bless you here in this world before you die! Yes, my friends, in the dark day of sorrow and loneliness, and fear and perplexity, you will find old good deeds, which you perhaps have forgotten, coming to look after you, as it were, and help you in the hour of need. Those whom you have helped, will help you in return: and if they will not, G.o.d will; for he is not unrighteous, to forget any work and labour of love, which you have showed for his name's sake, in ministering to his saints. So found Obadiah in that sad day, when he met Elijah.

For he was in evil case that day, as were all souls, rich and poor, throughout that hapless land. For three weary years, there had been no drop of rain: the earth beneath their feet had been like iron, and the heavens above them bra.s.s; and Obadiah had found poverty, want, and misery, come on him in the midst of all his riches: he had seen his fair gardens wither, and his olives and his vines burnt up with drought;--his cattle had perished on the hills, and his servants, too, perhaps, in his house. Perhaps his children at home were even then crying for food and water, and crying in vain, in spite of all their father's greatness.

What was the use of wealth? He could not eat gold, nor drink jewels. What was the use of his power? He could not command the smallest cloud to rise up off the sea, and pour down one drop of water to quench their thirst. Yes, Obadiah was in bitter misery that day, no doubt; and all the more, because he felt that all was G.o.d's judgment on the people's sins. They had served Baalim and Ashtaroth, the sun and moon and stars, and prayed to them for rain and fruitful seasons, as if they were the rulers of the weather and the soil, instead of serving the true G.o.d who made heaven and earth, and all therein: and now G.o.d had _judged_ them: he had given his sentence and verdict about that matter, and told them, by a sign which could not be mistaken, that he, and not the sun and moon, was master of the sky and the sea, and the rain and the soil. They had prayed to the sun and moon; and this was the fruit of their prayers-- that their prayers had not been heard: but instead of rain and plenty, was drought and barrenness;--carca.s.ses of cattle scattered over the pastures--every village full of living skeletons, too weak to work (though what use in working, when the ground would yield no crop?)--crawling about, their tongues cleaving to the roof of their mouths, in vain searching after a drop of water. Fearful and sickening sights must Obadiah have seen that day, as he rode wearily on upon his pitiful errand. And the thought of what a pitiful errand he was going on, and what a pitiful king he served, must have made him all the more miserable; for, instead of turning and repenting, and going back to the true G.o.d, which was the plain and the only way of escaping out of that misery, that wretched King Ahab seems to have cared for nothing but his horses.

We do not read that he tried to save one of his wretched people alive. All his cry was, 'Go into the land, to all fountains of water and all brooks; perhaps we shall find gra.s.s enough to save the horses and mules alive: that we lose not all the beasts.' The horses were what he cared for more than the human beings, as many of those bad kings of Israel did. Moses had expressly commanded them not to multiply horses to themselves; but they persisted always in doing so, nevertheless. And why? Because they wanted horses to mount their guards; to keep up a strong force of cavalry and chariots, in order to oppress the poor country people, whom they had brought down to slavery, from having been free yeomen, as they were in the days of Moses and Joshua. And what hope could he have for his wretched country? The people shewed no signs of coming to their senses; the king still less. His wicked Queen Jezebel was as devoted as ever to her idols; the false prophets of Baal were four hundred and fifty men, and the prophets of the groves (where the stars were wors.h.i.+pped) four hundred; and these cheats contrived (as such false teachers generally do) to take good care of themselves, and to eat at Jezebel's table, while all the rest of the people were peris.h.i.+ng. What could be before the country, and him, too, but utter starvation, and hopeless ruin? And all this while his life was in the hands of a weak and capricious tyrant, who might murder him any moment, and of a wicked and spiteful queen, who certainly would murder him, if she found out that he had helped and saved the prophets of the Lord. Who so miserable as he? But on that day, Obadiah found that his alms and prayers had gone up before G.o.d, and were safe with G.o.d, and not to be forgotten for ever. When he fell on his face before Elijah, in fear for his life, he found that he was safe in G.o.d's hands; that G.o.d would not betray him or forsake him. Elijah promised him, with a solemn oath, that he would keep his word with him; he kept it, and before many days were past, Obadiah had an answer to all his prayers, and a relief from all his fears; and the Lord sent a gracious rain on his inheritance, and refreshed it when it was weary. Yes, my friends, though well-doing seems for a while not to profit you, persevere: in due time you shall reap, if you faint not. Though the Lord sometimes waits to be gracious, he only waits, he does not forget; and it is to be _gracious_ that he waits, not ungracious. Cast, therefore, thy bread upon the waters, and thou shall find it after many days. Give a portion to seven, and also to eight, for thou knowest not what evil shall be upon the earth. Do thy diligence to give of what thou hast; for so gatherest thou thyself in the day of necessity, in which, with what measure you have measured to others, G.o.d will measure to you again.

This is true, for the Scripture says so; this _must_ be true, for reason and conscience--the voice of G.o.d within us--tell us that G.o.d is just; that G.o.d must be true, though every man be a liar. 'Hear,'

says our Lord, 'what the _unjust_ judge says: And shall not G.o.d (the just judge), avenge his own elect, who cry day and night to him, though he bear long with them?' Yes, my friends, G.o.d's promise stands sure, now and for ever. 'Trust in the Lord, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed.'

But now comes in a doubt--and it ought to come in--What are our works at best? What have we which is fit to offer to G.o.d? Full of selfishness, vanity, self-conceit, the best of them; and not half done either. What have we ever done right, but what we might have done more rightly, and done more of it, also? Bad in quality our good works are, and bad in quant.i.ty, too. How shall we have courage to carry them in our hand to that G.o.d who charges his very angels with folly; and the very heavens are not clean in his sight?

Too true, if we had to offer our own works to G.o.d. But, thanks be to his holy name, we have not to offer them ourselves; for there is one who offers them for us--Jesus Christ the Lord. He it is who takes these imperfect, clumsy works of ours, all soiled and stained with our sin and selfishness, and washes them clean in his most precious blood, which was shed to take away the sin of the world: he it is who, in some wonderful and unspeakable way, cleanses our works from sin, by the merit of his death and sufferings, so that nothing may be left in them but what is the fruit of G.o.d's own spirit; and that G.o.d may see in them only the good which he himself put into them, and not the stains and soils which they get from our foolish and sinful hearts.

Oh, my friends, bear this in mind. Whensoever you do a thing which you know to be right and good, instead of priding yourself on it, as if the good in it came from you, offer it up to the Lord Jesus Christ, and to your Heavenly Father, from whom all good things come, and say, 'Oh Lord, the good in this is thine, and not mine; the bad in it is mine, and not thine. I thank thee for having made me do right, for without thy help I should have done nothing but wrong; for mine is the laziness, and the weakness, and the selfishness, and the self-conceit; and thine is the kingdom, for thou rulest all things; and the power, for thou doest all things; and the glory, for thou doest all things well, for ever and ever. Amen.'

SERMON X. RELIGIOUS DANGERS

(Preached at the Chapel Royal, Whitehall, 1861, for the London Diocesan Board of Education.)

St. Mark viii. 4, 5, 8. And the disciples answered him, From whence can a man satisfy these men with bread here in the wilderness? ...

How many loaves have ye? And they said, Seven... . so they did eat and were filled; and they took up of the broken meat that was left seven baskets.

I think that I can take no better text for the subject on which I am about to preach, than that which the Gospel for this day gives me.

For is not such a great city as this London, at least in its present amorphous, unorganised state, having grown up, and growing still, any how and any whither, by the accidental necessities of private commerce, private speculation, private luxury--is it not, I say, literally a wilderness?

I do not mean a wilderness in the sense of a place of want and misery; on the contrary, it is a place of plenty and of comfort. I think that we clergymen, and those good people who help our labours, are too apt exclusively to forget London labour, in our first and necessary attention to the London poor; to fix our eyes and minds on London want and misery, till we almost ignore the fact of London wealth and comfort. We must remember, if we are to be just to G.o.d, and just to our great nation, that there is not only more wealth in London, but that that wealth is more equitably and generally diffused through all cla.s.ses, from the highest to the lowest, than ever has been the case in any city in the world. We must remember that there is collected together here a greater number of free human beings than were ever settled on the same s.p.a.ce of earth, earning an honest, independent, and sufficient livelihood, and enjoying the fruits of their labour in health and cheapness, freedom and security, such as the world never saw before. There is want and misery. I know it too well. There are great confusions to be organised, great anomalies to be suppressed. But remember, that if want and misery, confusion and anomaly were _the rule_ of London, and not (as they are) the exception, then London, instead of increasing at its present extraordinary pace, would decay; London work, instead of being better and better done, would be worse and worse done, till it stopped short in some such fearful convulsion as that of Paris in 1793. No, my friends; compare London with any city on the Continent; compare her with the old Greek and Roman cities; with Alexandria, Antioch, Constantinople, with that Imperial Rome itself, which was like London in nothing but its size, and then thank G.o.d for England, for freedom, and for the Church of Christ.

And yet I have called London a wilderness. I have. There is a wilderness of want; but there is a wilderness of wealth likewise.

And the latter is far more dangerous to human nature than the former one. It is not in the waste and howling wilderness of rock, and sand and s.h.i.+ngle, with its scanty acacia copses, and groups of date trees round the lonely well, that nature shews herself too strong for man, and crushes him down to the likeness of the ape. There the wild Arab, struggling to exist, and yet not finding the struggle altogether too hard for him, can gain and keep, if not spiritual life, virtue and G.o.dliness, yet still something of manhood; something of--

The reason firm, the temperate will, Endurance, foresight, thought, and skill.

No; if you would see how low man can fall, you must go to the tropic jungle, where geniality of climate, plenty and variety of food, are in themselves a cause of degradation to the soul, as long as the Spirit of Christ is absent from it. Not in the barren desert, but in the rich forest, wanders the true savage, eating and eating all day long, like the ape in the trees above his head; and (I had almost said), like the ape, too, with no thoughts save what his pampered senses can suggest. I had almost said it. Thank G.o.d, I dare not say it altogether; for, after all, the savage is a man, and not an ape. Yes, to the lowest savage in the forests of the Amazon, comes a hunger of the soul, and whispers from the unseen world, to remind him of what he might have been, and still may be. In the dreams of the night they come; in vague terrors of the unseen, vague feelings of guilt and shame, vague dread of the powers of nature; driving him to unmeaning ceremonies, to superst.i.tious panics, to horrible and b.l.o.o.d.y rites--as they might drive, to-morrow, my friends, an outwardly civilized population, debauched by mere peace and plenty, entangled and imprisoned in the wilderness of a great city.

I can imagine--imagine?--Have we not seen again and again human souls so entangled and opprest by this vast labyrinth of brick and mortar, as never to care to stir outside it and expand their souls with the sight of G.o.d's works as long as their brute wants are supplied, just as the savage never cares to leave his accustomed forest haunt, and hew himself a path into the open air through the tangled underwood. I can imagine--nay, have we not seen that, too?-- and can we not see it any day in the street?--human souls so dazzled and stupefied, instead of being quickened, by the numberless objects of skill and beauty, which they see in their walks through the streets, that they care no more for the wonders of man's making, than the savage does for the wonders of G.o.d's making, which he sees around him in every insect, bird, and flower. The man who walks the streets every day, is the very man who will see least in the streets. The man who works in a factory, repeating a thousand times a day some one dull mechanical operation, or even casting up day after day the accounts of it, is the man who will think least of the real wonderfulness of that factory; of the amount of prudence, skill, and science, which it expresses; of its real value to himself and to his cla.s.s; of its usefulness to far nations beyond the seas.

He is like a savage who looks up at some glorious tree, capable, in the hands of civilized man, of a hundred uses, and teeming to him with a hundred scientific facts; and thinks all the while of nothing but his chance of finding a few grubs beneath its bark.

Think over, I beseech you, this fact of the stupefying effect of mere material civilization; and remember that plenty and comfort do not diminish but increase that stupefaction; that Hebrew prophets knew it, and have told us, again and again, that, by fulness of bread the heart waxeth gross; that Greek sages knew it, and have told us, again and again, that need, and not satiety, was the quickener of the human intellect. Believe that man requires another bread than the bread of the body; that sometimes the want of the bodily bread will awaken the hunger for that bread of the soul.

Bear in mind that the period during which the middle and lower cla.s.ses of England were most brutalized, was that of their greatest material prosperity, the latter half of the eighteenth century.

Remember that with the distress which came upon them, at the end of the French war, their spiritual hunger awakened--often in forms diseased enough: but growing healthier, as well as keener, year by year; and that if they are not brutalized once more by their present unexampled prosperity, it will be mainly owing to the spiritual life which was awakened in those sad and terrible years. Remember that the present carelessness of the ma.s.ses about either religious or political agitation, though it may be a very comfortable sign to those who believe that a man's life consists in the abundance of the things which he possesses, is a very ominous sign to some who study history, and to some also who study their Bibles: and ask yourselves earnestly the question, 'From where shall a man find food for these men in this wilderness, not of want, but of wealth?' For, believe me, that spiritual hunger, though stopped awhile by physical comfort, will surely reawaken. Any severe and sudden depression in trade--the stoppage of the cotton crop, for instance, will awaken in the minds of hundreds of thousands deep questions--for which we, if we are wise, shall have an explicit answer ready.

For it is a very serious moment, my friends, when large ma.s.ses have had enough to eat and drink, and have been saying, 'Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die;' and then, suddenly, by _not_ having enough to eat and drink, and yet finding themselves still alive, are awakened to the sense that there is more in them than the mere capacity for eating and drinking. Then begin once more the world- old questions, Why are we thus? Who put us here? Who made us?

G.o.d? Is there a G.o.d? and if there be, what is he like? What is his will toward us, good or evil? Is it hate or love?

My friends, those are questions which have been asked often enough in the world's history, by vast ma.s.ses at once. And they may be answered in more ways than one.

They may be answered as the weavers of a certain country (thank G.o.d, not England) answered them in the potato famine with their mad song, 'We looked to the earth, and the earth deceived us. We looked to the kings, and the kings deceived us. We looked to G.o.d, and G.o.d deceived us. Let us lie down and die.'