Westminster Sermons Part 18

We know not at what period of David's life this psalm was written. We know not what matters they were which were too high for him to meddle with; matters about which he had to refrain his soul; to quiet his feelings; to suspend his judgment; to check his curiosity, and say about them simply--Trust in the Lord.

We do not know, I say, what these great matters, these mysteries were.

But that concerns us little. Human life, human fortune, human history, human agony--nay, the whole universe, the more we know of it, is full of such mysteries. Only the shallow and the conceited are unaware of their presence. Only the shallow and the conceited pretend to explain them, and have a Why ready for every How. David was not like them. His was too great a mind to be high-minded; too deep a heart to have proud looks, and to pretend, to himself or to others, that he knew the whole counsel of G.o.d.

Solomon his son had the same experience. For him, too, in spite of all his wisdom, the mystery of Providence was too dark. Though a man laboured to seek it, yet should he not find it out. All things seemed, at least, to come alike to all. There was one event to the righteous and to the wicked; to the clean and to the unclean. Vanity of vanity; all was vanity. Of making books there was no end, and much study was a weariness to the flesh. And the conclusion of the whole matter was--Fear G.o.d, and keep His commandments. That--and not to pry into the unfathomable will of G.o.d--was the whole duty of man.

Job, too: what is the moral of the whole book of Job, save that G.o.d's ways are unsearchable, and His paths past finding out? The Lord, be it remembered, in the closing scene of the book, vouchsafes to Job no explanation whatsoever of his affliction. Instead of telling him why he has been so sorely smitten; instead of bidding him even look up and trust, He silences Job by the mere plea of His own power. Where wast thou when I laid the foundation of the earth? Declare, if thou hast understanding. When the morning stars sang together; and all the sons of G.o.d shouted for joy. Shall he that contendeth with The Almighty instruct Him? He that reproveth G.o.d, let him answer.

But, it may be said, these are Old Testament sayings. The Patriarchs and Prophets had not that full light of knowledge of the mind of G.o.d which the Evangelists and Apostles had. What do the latter, the writers of the New Testament, say, with that fuller knowledge of G.o.d, which they gained through Jesus Christ our Lord?

My friends--This is not, I trust, by G.o.d's great goodness, the last time that I am to preach in this Abbey. What the Evangelists and Apostles taught, which the Prophets and Psalmists did not teach, I hope to tell you, as far as I know, hereafter.

But this I am bound to tell you beforehand--That there are no truer words in the Articles of the Church of England than those in the VIIth Article--that the Old Testament is not contrary to the New; for both in the Old and New Testament everlasting life is offered to mankind by Christ, the only Mediator between G.o.d and man, being both G.o.d and man.

Yes. That the Old Testament is not contrary to the New, I believe with my whole heart and soul. And therefore to those who say that the Apostles had solved the whole mystery of human life, its sins, its sorrows, its destinies, I must reply that such is not the case, at least with the most gifted of all the writers of the New Testament. We may think fit to claim omniscience for St Paul: but he certainly does not claim it for himself.

When he is vouchsafed a glimpse of the high counsels of G.o.d, he exclaims, as one dazzled--"Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of G.o.d! How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord, or who hath been His counsellor?"--While of himself he speaks in a very different tone--"Even though he have been," as he says, "caught up into the third heaven, and heard words unspeakable, which it is not lawful for a man to utter," yet "he knows," he says, "in part; he prophesies in part; but when that which is perfect comes, that which is partial shall be done away." He is as the child to the full-grown man, into which he hopes to develop in the future life. He "sees as in a gla.s.s darkly, but then face to face." He "knows now in part." Then--but not till then--will he "know even as he is known." Nay, more. In the ninth chapter of his Epistle to the Romans, he does not hesitate to push to the utmost that plea of G.o.d's absolute sovereignty which we found in the book of Job.

"He has mercy on whom He will have mercy; and whom He will He hardeneth."

And if any say, "Why doth He then find fault? For who hath resisted His will?" "Who art thou that repliest against G.o.d? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel to honour, and another to dishonour?"

What those words may mean, or may not mean, I do not intend to argue now.

I only quote them to shew you that St Paul, just as much as any Old Testament thinker, believed that there were often mysteries, ay, tragedies, in the lives, not only of individuals, nor of families, but of whole races, to which we shortsighted mortals could a.s.sign no rational or moral final cause, but must simply do that which Spinoza forbade us to do, namely--"In every unknown case, flee unto G.o.d;" and say--"It is the Lord, let Him do what seemeth Him good;"--certain of this, which the Cross and Pa.s.sion of our Lord Jesus Christ shewed forth as nothing else in heaven or earth could shew--that the will of G.o.d toward man is an utterly good will; and that therefore what seemeth good to Him, will be good in act and fact.

It is this faith, and I believe this faith alone, which can enable truly feeling spirits to keep anything like equanimity, if they dwell long and earnestly on the miseries of mankind; on sorrow, pain, bereavement; on the fate of many a widow and orphan; on sudden, premature, and often agonizing death--but why pain you with a catalogue of ills, which all, save--thank G.o.d--the youngest, know too well?

And it is that want of faith in the will and character of a living G.o.d, which makes, and will always make, infidelity a sad state of mind--a theory of man and the universe, which contains no gospel or good news for man.

I do not speak now of atheism, dogmatic, self-satisfied, insolent cynic.

I speak especially to-night of a form of unbelief far more attractive, which is spreading, I believe, among people often of high intellect, often of virtuous life, often of great attainments in art, science, or literature. Such repudiate, and justly, the name of theists: but they decline, and justly, the name of atheists. They would--the finest and purest spirits among them--accept only too heartily the whole of the Psalm which I have chosen for my text, save its ascription and the last verse. We too--they would say--do not wish to be high-minded, and dogmatize, and a.s.sert, and condemn. We too do not wish to meddle with matters too high for us, or for any human intellect. We too wish to refrain ourselves from a.s.serting what--however pleasant--we cannot prove; and to wean ourselves--however really painful the process--from the milk, the mere child's food, on which Mother Church has brought up the nations of Europe for the last 1500 years. But for that very reason, as for asking us to trust in The Lord, either for this life, or an eternal life to come, do not ask that of us.

We do not say that there is no G.o.d; no Providence of G.o.d; no life beyond the grave: only we say, that we cannot find them. They may exist: or they may not. But to us; and as we believe to all mankind if they used their reason aright, they are unthinkable, and therefore unknowable. G.o.d we see not: but this we see--Man, tortured by a thousand ills; and then, alas, peris.h.i.+ng just as the dumb beasts perish. We see death, decay, pain, sorrow, bereavement, weakness; and these produced, not merely by laws of nature, in which, however terrible, we could stoically acquiesce; but worse still, by accident--the sports of seeming chances--and those often so slight and mean. Man in his fullest power, woman in her highest usefulness, the victim not merely of the tempest or the thunderstroke, but of a fallen match, a stumbling horse.

Therefore the sight of so much human woe, without a purpose, and without a cause, is too much for them: as, without faith in G.o.d, it ought to be too much for us.

And therefore in their poetry and in their prose--and they are masters, some of them, both of poetry and of prose--there is a weary sadness, a tender despair, which one must not praise: yet which one cannot watch without sympathy and affection. For the mystery of human vanity and vexation of spirit; the mystery which weighed down the soul of David, and of Solomon, and of him who sang the song of Job, and of St Paul, and of St Augustine, and all the great Theologians of old time, is to them nought but utter darkness. For they see not yet, as our great modern poet says,

Hands Athwart the darkness, shaping man.

They see not yet athwart the darkness a face, most human yet divine, of utter sympathy and love; and hear not yet--oh let me say once more not yet of such fine souls--the only words which can bring true comfort to one who feels for his fellow-men, amid the terrible chances and changes of this mortal life--

"Let not your heart be troubled. Believe in G.o.d, and believe also in Me."

"All power is given to Me in heaven and in earth." "Lo I am with you even to the end of the world." Oh let us, to whom G.o.d has given that most undeserved grace, by the confession of a true faith to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity, and in the power of the Divine Majesty to wors.h.i.+p the Unity--Let us, I say, beseech G.o.d that He would give to them, as well as to us, that comfortable and wholesome faith; and evermore defend them and us--if it seem good in His gracious sight--from all adversity.

And surely we need that faith--those of us at least who know what we have lost--in the face of such a catastrophe as was announced in this Abbey on this day week; which thrilled this congregation with the awful news--That one of the most gifted men in Europe; the most eloquent of all our preachers--the most energetic of all our prelates; the delight of so many of the most refined and cultivated; the comforter of so many pious souls, not only by his sermons, not only by his secret counsels, but by those exquisite Confirmation addresses, to have lost which is a spiritual loss incalculable--those Confirmation addresses which touched and enn.o.bled the hearts alike of children and of parents, and made so many spirits, young and old, indebted to him from thenceforth for ever--That this man, with his enormous capacity and will for doing his duty like a valiant man, and doing each duty better than any of us his clergy had ever seen it done before--with his genius too, now so rare, and yet so needed, for governing his fellow-men--That he, in the fulness of his power, his health, his practical example, his practical success, should vanish in a moment: and that immense natural vitality, that organism of forces so various and so delicate, just as it was developing to perfection under long and careful self-education, should be lost for ever to this earth: leaving England, and her colonies, and indeed all Christendom, so much the poorer, so much the more weak; and inflicting--forget not that--a bitter pang on hundreds of loving hearts: and all by reason of the stumbling of a horse.

And why? Our reason, our conscience, our moral sense; that, by virtue of which we are not brutes, but men, forces us to ask that question: even if no answer be found to it in earth or heaven. What was the important _why_ which lay hid behind that little how?--The means were so paltry: the effect was so vast--There must have been a final cause, a purpose, for that death: or the fact would be altogether hideous--a scribble without a meaning--a skeleton without a soul. Why did he die?

"I became dumb and opened not my mouth; for it was Thy doing."

So says the Burial psalm. So let us say likewise.

"I became dumb:" not with rage, not with despair; but because it was Thy doing; and therefore it was done well. It was the deed, not of chance, not of necessity: for had it been, then those who loved him might have been excused had they cursed chance, cursed necessity, cursed the day in which they entered a universe so cruel, so capricious. Not so. For it was the deed of The Father, without whom a sparrow falls not to the ground; of The Son, who died upon the Cross in the utterness of His desire to save; of The Holy Ghost, who is the Lord and Giver of life to all created things.

It was the deed of One who delights in life and not in death; in bliss and not in woe; in light and not in darkness; in order and not in anarchy; in good and not in evil. It had a final cause, a meaning, a purpose: and that purpose is very good. What it is, we know not: and we need not know. To guess at it would be indeed to meddle with matters too high for us. So let us be dumb: but dumb not from despair, but from faith; dumb not like a wretch weary with calling for help which does not come, but dumb like a child sitting at its mother's feet; and looking up into her face, and watching her doings; understanding none of them as yet, but certain that they all are done in Love.

SERMON XXVI. G.o.d AND MAMMON.

MATTHEW VI. 24.

Ye cannot serve G.o.d and Mammon.

This is part of the Gospel for this Sunday; and a specially fit text for this day, which happens to be St Matthew's Day.

On this day we commemorate one who made up his mind, once and for all, that whoever could serve G.o.d and money at once, he could not: and who therefore threw up all his prospects in life--which were those of a peculiarly lucrative profession, that of a farmer of Roman taxes--in order to become the wandering disciple of a reputed carpenter's son. He became, it is true, in due time, an Apostle, an Evangelist, and a Martyr; and if posthumous fame be worth the ambition of any man, Matthew the publican--Saint Matthew as we call him--has his share thereof, because he discovered, like a wise man, that he could not serve G.o.d and money; and therefore, when Jesus saw him sitting at the receipt of custom, and bade him "Follow Me," he rose up, and left his money-bags, and followed Him, whom he afterwards discovered to be no less than G.o.d made man. "Ye cannot serve G.o.d and Mammon." It is very difficult to make men believe these words. So difficult, that our Lord Himself could not make the Jews believe them, especially the rich and comfortable religious people among them. When He told them that they could not serve two masters; that they could not wors.h.i.+p G.o.d and money at the same time, the Pharisees, who were covetous, derided Him. They laughed to scorn the notion that they could not be very religious, and respectable, and so forth, and yet set their hearts on making money all the while. They thought that they could have their treasure on earth and in heaven also; and they went their way, in spite of our Lord's warnings; and made money, honestly no doubt, if they could, but if not, why then dishonestly; for money must be made, at all risks.

St Paul warned them, by his disciple Timothy, of their danger. He told them that the love of money is the root of all evil; and that those who will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful l.u.s.ts, which drown men in destruction and perdition.

St James warned them even more sternly; and told the rich men among the Jews of his day to weep and howl for the miseries which were coming on them. They had heaped up treasure for the last days, when it would be of no use to them. They were fattening their hearts--he told them--against a day of slaughter.

But they listened to St Paul and St James no more than they did to our Lord. After the fall of Jerusalem, even more than before, they became the money-makers and the money-lenders of the whole world. And what befel them? Their wealth stirred up the envy and the suspicion of the Gentiles. They were persecuted, robbed, slaughtered, again and again for the sake of their money. And yet they would not give up their ruinous pa.s.sion. Throughout all the middle ages, here in England, just as much as on the Continent, they lent money at exorbitant interest; and then their debtors, to escape payment, turned on them for not being Christians; accused them of poisoning the wells, and what not; ma.s.sacred them, burnt them alive, and committed the most horrible atrocities; fulfilling the warnings of our Lord and His Apostles, only too terribly and brutally, again and again.

Do I say this to make any man dislike or despise the Jews? G.o.d forbid.

The Jews have n.o.ble qualities in them, by which they have prospered, and for the sake of which--as I believe--G.o.d's blessing rests on them to this day. They have prospered: not by their love of money, not even by their extraordinary courage, persistence, and intellectual power; but by their keeping two at least of the commandments, as no other people on earth has kept them. They have kept the second commandment; and hated idolatry, and any approach to it, with a stern and n.o.ble hatred, which would G.o.d that all who call themselves Christians would imitate. They have kept, likewise, the fifth commandment; and have honoured their parents, as no other people on earth have done, except it may be the Chinese, who prosper still, in spite of many sins. Their family affections are so intense, their family life is so pure and sound, that they put to shame too many Christians; and where the family life is sound, the heart of a people is sure to be sound likewise; and all will come right with them at last: and meanwhile the days of the Jews will be long in whatsoever land the Lord their G.o.d shall give them, till the day of which St Paul prophesied, when the veil shall be taken off their hearts, and they shall acknowledge that Christ, whom their forefathers crucified in their blindness, for their King, and Lord, and G.o.d; and so all Israel shall be saved. Amen. Amen.

And meanwhile, who are we that we should complain of the Jews now, or the Jews of our Lord's time, for being too fond of money? Is anything more certain, than that we English are becoming given up, more and more, to the pa.s.sion for making money at all risks, and by all means fair or foul?

Our covetousness is--alas! that it should be so--become a by-word among foreign nations; while our old English commercial honesty--which was once our strength, and protected us from, and all but atoned for, our covetousness--is going fast; and leaving us, feared indeed for our power; but suspected for our chicanery; and odious for our arrogance.

And it is most sad, but most certain, that we are like those Pharisees of old in this also, that we too have made up our mind that we can serve G.o.d and Mammon at once; that the very cla.s.ses among us who are most utterly given up to money-making, are the very cla.s.ses which, in all denominations, make the loudest religious profession; that our churches and chapels are crowded on Sundays by people whose souls are set, the whole week through, upon gain and nothing but gain; who pretend to reverence Scripture, while they despise the warning of Scripture, that the love of money is the root of all evil.

Have we not seen in our own days persons of the highest religious profession, whose names were the foremost on every charitable subscription list, so devoured by this mad love for money for its own sake, that though they had already more money than they could spend, or enjoy in any way soever, save by saying to themselves--I have got it, I have got it--they must needs, in the mere l.u.s.t for becoming richer still, ruin themselves and others by frantic speculations? Have we not seen--but why should I defile myself, and you, and this holy place by telling you what I have seen; and what I hope, and hope alas! in vain, that I shall never see again, among those who must needs serve G.o.d and Mammon? Has not the love of money become such a chronic disease among us, that we can actually calculate, now, when the disease will come to a head; and relieve itself for a while: though alas! only for a while?

About every eleven years, I am informed, we are to expect a commercial crisis; panics, bankruptcies, and misery and ruin to hundreds; a sort of terrible but beneficent thunderstorm, which clears the foul atmosphere of our commercial system at the expense, alas! not merely of the guilty, but of the innocent; involving the widow and the orphan, the poor and the simple, in the same fate as the rich and powerful whom they have trusted to their own ruin. And yet we boast of our civilization and of our Christianity; and hardly one, here and there, lays the lesson to heart, but each man, like a moth about a candle, unwarned by the fate of his fellows, fancies that he at least can flutter round the flames and not be burned; that whoever else cannot serve G.o.d and Mammon, he can do it; and holds, by virtue of his superior prudence, a special dispensation from the plain warnings of Holy Scripture.

But every reasonable man knows what advantages money, and nothing but money, will obtain, not only for a man himself but for his children; and answers me--If I wish to rise in life, if I wish my children to rise in life, how can I do it, without making money?

G.o.d forbid that I should check an honourable ambition, and a desire to rise in life. We all ought to rise in life, and to rise far higher than most of us are likely to rise. But I ask you to consider very seriously what you mean by rising in life.

Do you mean by rising in life, merely becoming a richer man; living in a larger house, eating, drinking, clothing, better; having more servants, carriages, plate? Is that to be the highest triumph of all your labours?

Is that your notion of rising in life? If it is, you are not singular in your notion. There are thousands who call themselves civilized and Christians, and yet have no higher notion of what man's highest good may be. But do you mean by rising in life, simply becoming a n.o.bler, because a better man? For if you mean that latter, I seriously advise you to hearken to what the Creator and Governor of all heaven and earth, Jesus Christ our Lord, has told you on that matter, when He said--"Seek ye first the kingdom of G.o.d, and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you."

Seek ye first the kingdom of G.o.d. Alas! this money-making generation talks a great deal about religion and saving their souls, being quite indifferent to the serious question--whether their souls are worth saving or not: but as for the kingdom of G.o.d, of which our Lord and His Apostles speak so often, they have forgotten altogether what it is. They talk too, a great deal, about the righteousness of Christ: but they have forgotten also what the righteousness of Christ, which is also the righteousness of G.o.d, is like.

The kingdom of G.o.d; the government of G.o.d; the laws and rules by which Christ, King of kings, and King, too, of every nation and man on earth, whether they know it or not, governs mankind, that is what you have to seek, because it is there already. You are in Christ's kingdom. If you wish to prosper in it, find out what its laws are. That will be true wisdom. For in keeping the commandments of G.o.d, and in obeying His laws; in that alone is life; life for body and soul; life for time and for eternity.