Oh, Gospel and good news for the weak, the sorrowful, the oppressed; for those who are wearied with the burden of their sins, or wearied also by the burden of heavy responsibilities, and awful public duties! When all mortal counsellors fail them, when all mortal help is too weak, let them but throw themselves on the mercy of Him who sits upon the throne, and remember that He, though immortal and eternal, is still the Son of Man, who knows what is in man.
There are times in which we are all tempted to worship other things than God. Not, perhaps, to worship cherubim and genii, angels and spirits, like the old Chaldees, but to worship the laws of political economy, the laws of statesmanship, the powers of nature, the laws of physical science, those lower messengers of God’s providence, of which St. Paul says, ‘He maketh the winds His angels, and flames of fire His ministers.’
In such times we have need to remember Ezekiel’s lesson, that above them all, ruling and guiding, sits He whose form is as the Son of Man.
We are not to say that any powers of nature are evil, or the laws of any science false. Heaven forbid! Ezekiel did not say that the cherubim were evil, or meaningless; or that the belief in angels ministering to man was false. He said the very opposite. But he said, All these obey one whose form is that of a man. He rules them, and they do His will. They are but ministering spirits before Him.
Therefore we are not to disbelieve science, nor disregard the laws of nature, or we shall lose by our folly. But we are to believe that nature and science are not our gods. They do not rule us; our fortunes are not in their hands. Above nature and above science sits the Lord of nature and the Lord of science. Above all the counsels of princes, and the struggles of nations, and the chances and changes of this world of man, sits the Judge of princes and of peoples, the Lord of all the nations upon earth, He by whom all things were made, and who upholdeth all things by the word of His power; and He is man, of the substance of His mother; most human and yet most divine; full of justice and truth, full of care and watchfulness, full of love and pity, full of tenderness and understanding; a Friend, a Guide, a Counsellor, a Comforter, a Saviour to all who trust in Him. He is nearer to us than nature and science: and He should be dearer to us; for they speak only to our understanding; but He speaks to our human hearts, to our inmost spirits. Nature and science cannot take away our sins, give peace to our hearts, right judgment to our minds, strength to our wills, or everlasting life to our souls and bodies. But there sits One upon the throne who can. And if nature were to vanish away, and science were to be proved (however correct as far as it went) a mere child’s guess about this wonderful world, which none can understand save He who made it—if all the counsels of princes and of peoples, however just and wise, were to be confounded and come to nought, still, after all, and beyond all, and above all, Christ would abide for ever, with human tenderness yearning over human hearts; with human wisdom teaching human ignorance; with human sympathy sorrowing with human mourners; for ever saying, ‘Come unto me, ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’
Cherubim and seraphim, angels and archangels, dominions and powers, whether of nature or of grace—these all serve Him and do His work. He has constituted their services in a wonderful order: but He has not taken their nature on Him. Our nature He has taken on Him, that we might be bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh; able to say to Him for ever, in all the chances and changes of this mortal life—
‘Thou, O Christ, art all I want,More than all in thee I find;Raise me, fallen; cheer me, faint;Heal me, sick; and lead me, blind.Thou of life the fountain art,Freely let me drink of Thee;Spring Thou up within my heart,Rise to all eternity.’
‘Thou, O Christ, art all I want,More than all in thee I find;Raise me, fallen; cheer me, faint;Heal me, sick; and lead me, blind.Thou of life the fountain art,Freely let me drink of Thee;Spring Thou up within my heart,Rise to all eternity.’
Ruthii. 4.And, behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem, and said unto the reapers, The Lord be with you. And they answered him, The Lord bless thee.
Ruthii. 4.
And, behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem, and said unto the reapers, The Lord be with you. And they answered him, The Lord bless thee.
Mostof you know the story of Ruth, from which my text is taken, and you have thought it, no doubt, a pretty story. But did you ever think why it was in the Bible?
Every book in the Bible is meant to teach us, as the Article of our Church says, something necessary to salvation. But what is there necessary to our salvation in the Book of Ruth?
No doubt we learn from it that Ruth was the ancestress of King David; and that she was, therefore, an ancestress of our blessed Lord Jesus Christ: but curious and interesting as that is, we can hardly call that something necessary to salvation. There must be something more in the book. Let us take it simply as it stands, and see if we can find it out.
It begins by telling us how a man of Bethlehem has been driven out of his own country by a famine, he and his wife Naomi and his two sons, and has gone over the border into Moab, among the heathen; how his two sons have married heathen women, and the name of the one was Ruth, and the name of the other Orpah. Then how he dies, and his two sons; and how Naomi, his widow, hears that the Lord had visited His people, in giving them bread; how the people of Judah were prosperous again, and she is there all alone among the heathen; so she sets out to go back to her own people, and her daughters-in-law go with her.
But she persuades them not to go. Why do they not stay in their own land? And they weep over each other; and Orpah kisses her mother-in-law, and goes back; but Ruth cleaves unto her.
Then follows that famous speech of Ruth’s, which, for its simple beauty and poetry, has become a proverb, and even a song, among us to this day.
And Ruth said, ‘Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God:
‘Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me.’
So when she saw that she was steadfastly minded to go to her, she left speaking to her.
And they come to Bethlehem, and all the town was moved about them; and they said, Is this Naomi?
‘And she said unto them, Call me not Naomi, call me Mara: for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me. I went out full, and the Lord hath brought me home again empty: why then call ye me Naomi, seeing the Lord hath testified against me, and the Almighty hath afflicted me?’
And they came to Bethlehem about the passover tide, at the beginning of barley harvest, and Ruth went out into the fields to glean, and she lighted on a part of the field which belonged to Boaz, who was of her husband’s kindred.
And Boaz was a mighty man of wealth, according to the simple fashions of that old land and old time. Not like one of our great modern noblemen, or merchants, but rather like one of our wealthy yeomen: a man who would not disdain to work in his field with his own slaves, after the wholesome fashion of those old times, when a royal prince and mighty warrior would sow the corn with his own hands, while his man opened the furrow with the plough before him. There Boaz dwelt, with other yeomen, up among the limestone hills, in the little walled village of Bethlehem, which was afterwards to become so famous and so holy; and had, we may suppose, his vineyard and his olive-garden on the rocky slopes, and his corn-fields in the vale below, and his flock of sheep and goats feeding on the downs; while all his wealth besides lay, probably, after the Eastern fashion, in one great chest—full of rich dresses, and gold and silver ornaments, and coins, all foreign, got in exchange for his corn, and wine, and oil, from Assyrian, or Egyptian, or Phœnician traders; for the Jews then had no money, and very little manufacture, of their own.
And he would have had hired servants, too, and slaves, in his house; treated kindly enough, as members of the family, eating and drinking at his table, and faring nearly as well as he fared himself.
A stately, God-fearing man he plainly was; respectable, courteous, and upright, and altogether worthy of his wealth; and he went out into the field, looking after his reapers in the barley harvest—about our Easter-tide.
And he said to his reapers, The Lord be with you. And they answered, The Lord bless thee.
Then he saw Ruth, who had happened to light upon his field, gleaning after the reapers, and found out who she was, and bid her glean without fear, and abide by his maidens, for he had charged the young men that they shall not touch her.
‘And Boaz said unto her, At meal-time come thou hither, and eat of the bread, and dip thy morsel in the vinegar. And she sat beside the reapers: and he reached her parched corn, and she did eat, and was sufficed, and left.
‘And when she was risen up to glean, Boaz commanded his young men, saying, Let her glean even among the sheaves, and reproach her not: and let fall also some of the handfuls of purpose for her, and leave them, that she may glean them, and rebuke her not.
‘So she gleaned in the field until even, and beat out that she had gleaned: and it was about an ephah of barley.’
Then follows the simple story, after the simple fashion of those days. How Naomi bids Ruth wash and anoint herself, and put on her best garments, and go down to Boaz’ floor (his barn as we should call it now) where he is going to eat, and drink, and sleep, and there claim his protection as a near kinsman.
And how Ruth comes in softly and lies down at his feet, and how he treats her honourably and courteously, and promises to protect her. But there is a nearer kinsman than he, and he must be asked first if he will do the kinsman’s part, and buy his cousin’s plot of land, and marry his cousin’s widow with it.
And how Boaz goes to the town-gate next day, and sits down in the gate (for the porch of the gate was a sort of town-hall or vestry-room in the East, wherein all sorts of business was done), and there he challenges the kinsman,—Will he buy the ground and marry Ruth? And he will not: he cannot afford it. Then Boaz calls all the town to witness that day, that he has bought all that was Elimelech’s, and Ruth the Moabitess to be his wife.
‘And all the people that were in the gate, and the elders, said, We are witnesses. The Lord make the woman that is come into thine house like Rachel and like Leah, which two did build the house of Israel: and do thou worthily in Ephratah, and be famous in Bethlehem.’
And in due time Ruth had a son. ‘And the women said unto Naomi, Blessed be the Lord, which hath not left thee this day without a kinsman, that his name may be famous in Israel.
‘And he shall be unto thee a restorer of thy life, and a nourisher of thine old age: for thy daughter-in-law, which loveth thee, which is better to thee than seven sons, hath born him.
‘And Naomi took the child, and laid it in her bosom, and became nurse unto it.
‘And the women her neighbours gave it a name, saying, There is a son born to Naomi; and they called his name Obed: he is the father of Jesse, the father of David.’
And so ends the Book of Ruth.
Now, my friends, can you not answer for yourselves the question which I asked at first,—Why is the story of Ruth in the Bible, and what may we learn from it which is necessary for our salvation?
I think, at least, that you will be able to answer it—if not in words, still in your hearts—if you will read the book for yourselves.
For does it not consecrate to God that simple country life which we lead here? Does it not tell us that it is blessed in the sight of Him who makes the grass to grow, and the corn to ripen in its season?
Does it not tell us, that not only on the city and the palace, on the cathedral and the college, on the assemblies of statesmen, on the studies of scholars, but upon the meadow and the corn-field, the farm-house and the cottage, is written, by the everlasting finger of God—Holiness unto the Lord? That it is all blessed in His sight; that the simple dwellers in villages, the simple tillers of the ground, can be as godly and as pious, as virtuous and as high-minded, as those who have nought to do but to serve God in the offices of religion? Is it not an honour and a comfort, to such as us, to find one whole book of the Holy Bible occupied by the simplest story of the fortunes of a yeoman’s family, in a lonely village among the hills of Judah? True, the yeoman’s widow became the ancestress of David, and of his mighty line of kings—nay, the ancestress of our Lord Jesus Christ Himself. But the Book of Ruth was not written mainly to tell us that fact. It mentions it at the end, and as it were by accident. The book itself is taken up with the most simple and careful details of country life, country customs, country folk—as if that was what we were to think of, as we read of Ruth. And that is what we do think of—not of the ancestress of kings, but of the fair young heathen gleaning among the corn, with the pious, courteous, high-minded yeoman bidding her abide fast by his maidens, and when she was athirst drink of the wine which the young men have drawn, for it has been fully showed him all she has done for her mother-in-law; and the Lord will recompense her work, and a full reward be given her of the Lord God of Israel, under the shadow of whose wings she is to come to trust. That is the scene which painters naturally draw; that is what we naturally think of; because God, who gave us the Bible, meant us to think thereof; and to know, that working in the quiet village, or in the distant field, women may be as pure and modest, men as high-minded and well-bred, and both as full of the fear of God, and the thought that God’s eye is upon them, as if they were in a place, or a station, where they had nothing to do but to watch over the salvation of their own souls; that the meadow and the harvest-field need not be, as they too often are, places for temptation and for defilement; where the old too often teach the young, not to fear God and keep themselves pure, but to copy their coarse jests and foul language, and listen to stories which had better be buried for ever in the dirt out of which they spring. You know what I mean. You know what field-work too often is. Read the Book of Ruth, and see what field-work may be, and ought to be.
Yes, my dear friends. Pure you may be, and gentle, upright, and godly, about your daily work, if the Spirit of God be within you.
Country life has its temptations: and so has town life, and every life. But there has no temptation taken you save such as is common to man. Boaz, the rich yeoman; Naomi, the broken-hearted and ruined; Ruth, the fair young widow—all had the very same temptations as are common to you now, here; but they conquered them, because they feared God and kept His commandments; and to know that, is necessary for your salvation.
And, looked at in this light, the Book of Ruth is indeed a prophecy; a forecast and a shadow of the teaching of the Lord Jesus Himself, who spake to country folk as never man spake before, and bade them look upon the simple, every-day matters which were around them in field and wood, and open their eyes to the Divine lessons of God’s providence, which also were all around them; who, born Himself in that little village of Bethlehem, and brought up in the little village of Nazareth, among the lonely lanes and downs, spoke of country things to country folk, and bade them read in the great green book which God has laid open before them all day long. Who bade them to consider the lilies of the field, how they grew, and the ravens, how God fed them; to look on the fields, white for harvest, and pray God to send labourers into his spiritual harvest-field; to look on the tares which grew among the wheat, and know we must not try to part them ourselves, but leave that to God at the last day; to look on the fishers, who were casting their net into the Lake of Galilee, and sorting the fish upon the shore, and be sure that a day was coming, when God would separate the good from the bad, and judge every man according to his work and worth; and to learn from the common things of country life the rule of the living God, and the laws of the kingdom of heaven.
One word more, and I have done.
The story of Ruth is also the consecration of woman’s love. I do not mean of the love of wife to husband, divine and blessed as that is. I mean that depth and strength of devotion, tenderness, and self-sacrifice, which God has put in the heart of all true women; and which they spend so strangely, and so nobly often, on persons who have no claim on them, from whom they can receive no earthly reward;—the affection which made women minister of their substance to our Lord Jesus Christ; which brought Mary Magdalene to the foot of the Cross, and to the door of the tomb, that she might at least see the last of Him whom she thought lost to her for ever; the affection which has made a wise man say, that as long as women and sorrow are left in the world, so long will the Gospel of our Lord Jesus live and conquer therein; the affection which makes women round us every day ministering angels, wherever help or comfort are needed; which makes many a woman do deeds of unselfish goodness known only to God; not known even to herself; for she does them by instinct, by the inspiration of God’s Spirit, without self-consciousness or pride, without knowing what noble things she is doing, without spoiling the beauty of her good work by even admitting to herself, ‘What a good work it is! How right she is in doing it! How much it will advance the salvation of her own soul!’—but thinking herself, perhaps, a very useless and paltry person; while the angels of God are claiming her as their sister and their peer.
Yes, if there is a woman in this congregation—and there is one, I will warrant, in every congregation in England—who is devoting herself for the good of others; giving up the joys of life to take care of orphans who have no legal claim on her; or to nurse a relation, who perhaps repays her with little but exacting peevishness; or who has spent all her savings, in bringing up her brothers, or in supporting her parents in their old age,—then let her read the story of Ruth, and be sure that, like Ruth, she will be repaid by the Lord. Her reward may not be the same as Ruth’s: but it will be that which is best for her, and she shall in no wise lose her reward. If she has given up all for Christ, it shall be repaid her ten-fold in this life, and in the world to come life everlasting. If, with Ruth, she is true to the inspirations of God’s Spirit, then, with Ruth, God will be true to her. Let her endure, for in due time she shall reap, if she faint not;—and to know that, is necessary for her salvation.
Ecclesiastesi. 12–14.I the Preacher was king over Israel in Jerusalem. And I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under heaven: this sore travail hath God given to the sons of man to be exercised therewith. I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit.
Ecclesiastesi. 12–14.
I the Preacher was king over Israel in Jerusalem. And I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under heaven: this sore travail hath God given to the sons of man to be exercised therewith. I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit.
Allhave heard of Solomon the Wise. His name has become a proverb among men. It was still more a proverb among the old Rabbis, the lawyers and scribes of the Gospels.
Their hero, the man of whom they delighted to talk and dream, was not David, the Psalmist, and the shepherd-boy, the man of many wanderings, and many sorrows: but his son Solomon, with all his wealth, and pomp and magic wisdom. Ever since our Lord’s time, if not before it, Solomon has been the national hero of the Jews; while David, as the truer type and pattern of the Lord Jesus Christ, has been the hero of Christians.
The Rabbis, with their Eastern fancy—childishly fond, to this day, of gold, and jewels, and outward pomp and show—would talk and dream of the lost glories of Solomon’s court; of his gilded and jewelled temple, with its pillars of sandal-wood from Ophir, and its sea of molten brass; of his ivory lion-throne, and his three hundred golden shields; of his fleets which went away into the far Indian sea, and came back after three years with foreign riches and curious beasts. And as if that had not been enough, they delighted to add to the truth fable upon fable. The Jews, after the time of the Babylonish captivity, seem to have more and more identified Wisdom with mere Magic; and therefore Solomon was, in their eyes, the master of all magicians. He knew the secrets of the stars, and of the elements, the secrets of all charms and spells. By virtue of his magic seal he had power over all those evil spirits, with which the Jews believed the earth and sky to be filled. He could command all spirits, force them to appear to him and bow before him, and send them to the ends of the earth to do his bidding. Nothing so fantastic, nothing so impossible, but those old Scribes and Pharisees imputed it to their idol, Solomon the Wise.
The Bible, of course, has no such fancies in it, and gives us a sober and rational account of Solomon’s wisdom, and of Solomon’s greatness.
It tells us how, when he was yet young, God appeared to him in a dream, and said, Ask what I shall give thee. And Solomon made answer—
‘ . . . O Lord my God, Thou hast made Thy servant king instead of David my father; and I am but a little child: I know not how to go out or come in.
‘Give therefore Thy servant an understanding heart to judge Thy people, that I may discern between good and bad: for who is able to judge this Thy so great a people?
‘And the speech pleased the Lord, that Solomon had asked this thing.
‘And God said unto him, Because thou hast asked this thing, and hast not asked for thyself long life; neither hast asked riches for thyself, nor hast asked the life of thine enemies; but hast asked for thyself understanding to discern judgment;
‘Behold, I have done according to thy words: lo, I have given thee a wise and an understanding heart; so that there was none like thee before thee, neither after thee shall any arise like unto thee.
‘And I have also given thee that which thou hast not asked, both riches and honour: so that there shall not be any among the kings like unto thee all thy days.’
And the promise, says Solomon himself, was fulfilled.
In his days Judah and Israel were many, as the sand which is by the sea-shore, for multitude, eating and drinking and making merry; and Solomon reigned over all kings, from the river to the land of the Philistines and the border of Egypt; and they brought presents, and served Solomon all the days of his life. And he had peace on all sides round about him. And Judah and Israel dwelt safely, every man under his own vine and his own fig-tree, all the days of Solomon.
‘I was great,’ he says, ‘and increased more than all that were before me in Jerusalem; also my wisdom remained with me. And whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them; I withheld not my heart from any joy; for my heart rejoiced in all my labour . . .
‘Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do: and, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun.
‘And I turned myself to behold wisdom, and madness, and folly: for what can the man do that cometh after the king? even that which hath been already done.’
Yes, my dear friends, we are too apt to think of exceeding riches, or wisdom, or power, or glory, as unalloyed blessings from God. How many are there who would say,—if it were not happily impossible for them,—Oh that I were like Solomon! Happy man that he was, to be able to say of himself, ‘I was great, and increased more than all that were before me in Jerusalem. And whatsoever mine eyes desired, I kept not from them; I withheld not my heart from any joy, for my heart rejoiced in all my labour.’
To have everything that he wanted, to be able to do anything that he liked—was he not a happy man? Is not such a life a Paradise on earth?
Yes, my friends, it is. But it is the Paradise of fools.
Yet, Solomon was not a fool. He says expressly that his wisdom remained with him through all his labour. Through all his pleasure he kept alive the longing after knowledge. He even tried, as he says, wine, and mirth, and folly, yet acquainting himself with wisdom. He would try that, as well as statesmanship, and the rule of a great kingdom, and the building of temples and palaces, and the planting of parks and gardens, and his three thousand Proverbs, and his Songs a thousand and five; and his speech of beasts and of birds and of all plants, from the cedar in Lebanon to the hyssop which groweth on the wall. He would know everything, and try everything. If he was luxurious and proud, he would be no idler, no useless gay liver. He would work, and discern, and know,—and at last he found it all out, and this was the sum thereof—‘Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher; all is vanity.’
He found no rest in pleasure, riches, power, glory, wisdom itself; he had learnt nothing more after all than he might have known, and doubtless did know, when he was a child of seven years old. And that was, simply to fear God and keep His commandments; for that was the whole duty of man.
But though he knew it, he had lost the power of doing it; and he ended darkly and shamefully, a dotard worshipping idols of wood and stone, among his heathen queens. And thus, as in David the height of chivalry fell to the deepest baseness; so in Solomon the height of wisdom fell to the deepest folly.
My friends, the truth is, that exceeding gifts from God like Solomon’s are not blessings, they are duties; and very solemn and heavy duties. They do not increase a man’s happiness; they only increase his responsibility—the awful account which he must give at last of the talents committed to his charge. They increase, too, his danger. They increase the chance of his having his head turned to pride and pleasure, and falling shamefully, and coming to a miserable end. As with David, so with Solomon. Man is nothing, and God is all in all.
And as with David and Solomon, so with many a king and many a great man. Consider those who have been great and glorious in their day. And in how many cases they have ended sadly! The burden of glory has been too heavy for them to bear; they have broken down under it.
The great Charles the Fifth, Emperor of Germany and King of Spain and all the Indies: our own great Queen Elizabeth, who found England all but ruined, and left her strong and rich, glorious and terrible: Lord Bacon, the wisest of all mortal men since the time of Solomon: and, in our own fathers’ time, Napoleon Buonaparte, the poor young officer, who rose to be the conqueror of half Europe, and literally the king of kings,—how have they all ended? In sadness and darkness, vanity and vexation of spirit.
Oh, my friends! if ever proud and ambitious thoughts arise in any of our hearts, let us crush them down till we can say with David: ‘Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty; neither do I exercise myself in great matters, or in things too high for me.
‘Surely I have behaved and quieted myself, as a child that is weaned of his mother; my soul is even as a weaned child.’
And if ever idle and luxurious thoughts arise in our hearts, and we are tempted to say, ‘Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry;’ let us hear the word of the Lord crying against us: ‘Thou fool! This night shall thy soul be required of thee. Then whose shall those things be which thou hast provided?’
Let us pray, my friends, for that great—I had almost said, that crowning grace and virtue of moderation, what St. Paul calls sobriety and a sound mind. Let us pray for moderate appetites, moderate passions, moderate honours, moderate gains, moderate joys; and, if sorrows be needed to chasten us, moderate sorrows. Let us long violently after nothing, or wish too eagerly to rise in life; and be sure that what the Apostle says of those who long to be rich is equally true of those who long to be famous, or powerful, or in any way to rise over the heads of their fellow-men. They all fall, as the Apostle says, into foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition, and so pierce themselves through with many sorrows.
And let us thank God heartily if He has put us into circumstances which do not tempt us to wild and vain hopes of becoming rich, or great or admired by men.
Especially let us thank Him for this quiet country life which we lead here, free from ambition, and rash speculation, and the hope of great and sudden gains. All know, who have watched the world, how unwholesome for a man’s soul any trade or occupation is which offers the chance of making a rapid fortune. It has hurt the souls of too many merchants and manufacturers ere now. Good and sober-minded men there are among them, thank God, who can resist the temptation, and are content to go along the plain path of quiet and patient honesty; but to those who have not the sober spirit, who have not the fear of God before their eyes, the temptation is too terrible to withstand; and it is not withstood; and therefore the columns of our newspapers are so often filled with sad cases of bankruptcy, forgery, extravagant and desperate trading, bubble fortunes spent in a few years of vain show and luxury, and ending in poverty and shame.
Happy, on the other hand, are those who till the ground; who never can rise high enough, or suddenly enough, to turn their heads; whose gains are never great and quick enough to tempt them to wild speculation: but who can, if they will only do their duty patiently and well, go on year after year in quiet prosperity, and be content to offer up, week by week, Agur’s wise prayer: ‘Give me neither poverty nor riches, but feed me with food sufficient for me.’
They need never complain that they have no time to think of their own souls; that the hurry and bustle of business must needs drive religion out of their minds. Their life passes in a quiet round of labours. Day after day, week after week, season after season, they know beforehand what they have to do, and can arrange their affairs for this world, so as to give them full time to think of the world to come. Every week brings small gains, for which they can thank the God of all plenty; and every week brings, too, small anxieties, for which they can trust the same God who has given them His only-begotten Son, and will with Him freely give them all things needful for them; who has, in mercy to their souls and bodies, put them in the healthiest and usefullest of all pursuits, the one which ought to lead their minds most to God, and the one in which (if they be thoughtful men) they have the deep satisfaction of feeling that they are not working for themselves only, but for their fellow-men; that every sheaf of corn they grow is a blessing, not merely to themselves, but to the whole nation.
My friends, think of these things, especially at this rich and blessed harvest-time; and while you thank your God and your Saviour for His unexampled bounty in this year’s good harvest, do not forget to thank Him for having given the sowing and the reaping of those crops to you; and for having called you to that business in life in which, I verily believe, you will find it most easy to serve and obey Him, and be least tempted to ambition and speculation, and the lust of riches, and the pride which goes before a fall.
Think of these things; and think of the exceeding mercies which God heaps on you as Englishmen,—peace and safety, freedom and just laws, the knowledge of His Bible, the teaching of His Church, and all that man needs for body and soul. Let those who have thanked God already, thank Him still more earnestly, and show their thankfulness not only in their lips, but in their lives; and let those who have not thanked Him, awake, and learn, as St. Paul bids them, from God’s own witness of Himself, in that He has sent them fruitful seasons, filling their hearts with food and gladness:—let them learn, I say, from that, that they have a Father in heaven who has given them His only-begotten Son, and will with Him freely give them all things needful: only asking in return that they should obey His laws—to obey which is everlasting life.
(Preached before the Queen at Clifden,June3, 1866.)
Ecclesiastesvii. 10,Say not thou, What is the cause that the former days were better than these? for thou dost not inquire wisely concerning this.
Ecclesiastesvii. 10,
Say not thou, What is the cause that the former days were better than these? for thou dost not inquire wisely concerning this.
Thistext occurs in the Book of Ecclesiastes, which has been for many centuries generally attributed to Solomon the son of David. I say generally, because, not only among later critics, but even among the ancient Jewish Rabbis, there have been those who doubted or denied that Solomon was its author.
I cannot presume to decide on such a question: but it seems to me most probable, that the old tradition is right, even though the book may have suffered alterations, both in form and in language: but any later author, personating Solomon, would surely have put into his month very different words from those of Ecclesiastes. Solomon was the ideal hero-king of the later Jews. Stories of his superhuman wealth, of magical power, of a fabulous extent of dominion, grew up about his name. He who was said to control, by means of his wondrous seal, the genii of earth and air, would scarcely have been represented as a disappointed and broken-hearted sage, who pronounced all human labour to be vanity and vexation of spirit; who saw but one event for the righteous and the wicked, and the wise man and the fool; and questioned bitterly whether there was any future state, any pre-eminence in man over the brute.
These, and other startling utterances, made certain of the early Rabbis doubt the authenticity and inspiration of the Book of Ecclesiastes, as containing things contrary to the Law, and to desire its suppression, till they discovered in it—as we may, if we be wise—a weighty and world-wide meaning.
Be that as it may, it would certainly be a loss to Scripture, and to our knowledge of humanity, if it was proved that this book, in its original shape, was not written by a great king, and most probably by Solomon himself. The book gains by that fact, not only in its reality and truthfulness, but in its value and importance as a lesson of human life. Especially does this text gain; for it has a natural and deep connection with Solomon and his times.
The former days were better than his days: he could not help seeing that they were. He must have feared lest the generation which was springing up should inquire into the reason thereof, in a tone which would breed—which actually did breed—discontent and revolution.
But the fact seemed at first sight patent. The old heroic days of Samuel and David were past. The Jewish race no longer produced such men as Saul and Jonathan, as Joab and Abner. A generation of great men, whose names are immortal, had died out, and a generation of inferior men, of whom hardly one name has come down to us, had succeeded them. The nation had lost its primæval freedom, and the courage and loyalty which freedom gives. It had become rich, and enervated by luxury and ease. Solomon had civilised the Jewish kingdom, till it had become one of the greatest nations of the East; but it had become also, like the other nations of the East, a vast and gaudy despotism, hollow and rotten to the core; ready to fall to pieces at Solomon’s death, by selfishness, disloyalty, and civil war. Therefore it was that Solomon hated all his labour that he had wrought under the sun; for all was vanity and vexation of spirit.
Such were the facts. And yet it was not wise to look at them too closely; not wise to inquire why the former times were better than those. So it was. Let it alone. Pry not too curiously into the past, or into the future: but do the duty which lies nearest to thee. Fear God and keep His commandments. For that is the whole duty of man.
Thus does Solomon lament over the certain decay of the Jewish Empire. And his words, however sad, are indeed eternal and inspired. For they have proved true, and will prove true to the end, of every despotism of the East, or empire formed on Eastern principles; of the old Persian Empire, of the Roman, of the Byzantine, of those of Hairoun Alraschid and of Aurungzebe, of those Turkish and Chinese-Tartar empires whose dominion is decaying before our very eyes. Of all these the wise man’s words are true. They are vanity and vexation of spirit. That which is crooked cannot be made straight, and that which is wanting cannot be numbered. The thing which has been is that which shall be, and there is no new thing under the sun. Incapacity of progress; the same outward civilization repeating itself again and again; the same intrinsic certainty of decay and death;—these are the marks of all empire, which is not founded on that foundation which is laid, even Jesus Christ.
But of Christian nations these words are not true. They pronounce the doom of the old world: but the new world has no part in them, unless it copies the sins and follies of the old.
It is not true of Christian nations that the thing which has been is that which shall be; and that there is no new thing under the sun. For over them is the kingdom of Christ, the Saviour of all men, specially of them which believe, the King of all the princes of the earth, who has always asserted, and will for ever assert, His own overruling dominion. And in them is the Spirit of God, which is the spirit of truth and righteousness; of improvement, discovery, progress from darkness to light, from folly to wisdom, from barbarism to justice, and mercy, and the true civilization of the heart and spirit.
And, therefore, for us it is not only an act of prudence, but a duty; a duty of faith in God; a duty of loyalty to Jesus Christ our Lord, not to ask, Why the former times were better than these? For they were not better than these. Every age has had its own special nobleness, its own special use: but every age has been better than the age which went before it; for the Spirit of God is leading the ages on, toward that whereof it is written, ‘Eye hath not seen nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive, the things which God hath prepared for those that love Him.’
Very unfaithful are we to the teaching of God’s Spirit; many and heavy are our sins against light and knowledge, and means, and opportunities of grace. But let us not add to those sins the sin (for such it is) of inquiring why the former times were better than these.
For, first, the inquiry shows disbelief in our Lord’s own words, that all dominion is given to Him in heaven and earth, and that He is with us always, even to the end of the world. And next, it is a vain inquiry, based on a mistake. When we look back longingly to any past age, we look not at the reality, but at a sentimental and untrue picture of our own imagination. When we look back longingly to the so-called ages of faith, to the personal loyalty of the old Cavaliers; when we regret that there are no more among us such giants in statesmanship and power as those who brought Europe through the French Revolution; when we long that our lot was cast in any age beside our own, we know not what we ask. The ages which seem so beautiful afar off, would look to us, were we in them, uglier than our own. If we long to be back in those so-called devout ages of faith, we long for an age in which witches and heretics were burned alive; if we long after the chivalrous loyalty of the old Cavaliers, we long for an age in which stage-plays were represented, even before a virtuous monarch like Charles I., which the lowest of our playgoers would not now tolerate. When we long for anything that is past, we long, it may be, for a little good which we seem to have lost; but we long also for real and fearful evil, which, thanks be to God, we have lost likewise. We are not, indeed, to fancy this age perfect, and boast, like some, of the glorious nineteenth century. We are to keep our eyes open to all its sins and defects, that we may amend them. And we are to remember, in fear and trembling, that to us much is given, and of us much is required. But we are to thank God that our lot is cast in an age which, on the whole, is better than any age whatsoever that has gone before it, and to do our best that the age which is coming may be better even than this.
We are neither to regret the past, nor rest satisfied in the present; but, like St. Paul, forgetting those things that are behind us, and reaching onward to those things that are before us, press forward, each and all, to the prize of our high calling in Jesus Christ.
And as with nations and empires, so with our own private lives. It is not wise to ask why the former times were better than these. It is natural, pardonable: but not wise; because we are so apt to mistake the subject about which we ask, and when we say, ‘Why were the old times better?’ merely to mean, ‘Why were the old times happier?’ That is not the question. There is something higher than happiness, says a wise man. There is blessedness; the blessedness of being good and doing good, of being right and doing right. That blessedness we may have at all times; we may be blest even in anxiety and in sadness; we may be blest, even as the martyrs of old were blest—in agony and death. The times are to us whatsoever our character makes them. And if we are better men than we were in former times, then is the present better than the past, even though it be less happy. And why should it not be better? Surely the Spirit of God, the spirit of progress and improvement, is working in us, the children of God, as well as in the great world around. Surely the years ought to have made us better, more useful, more worthy. We may have been disappointed in our lofty ideas of what ought to be done. But we may have gained more clear and practical notions of what can be done. We may have lost in enthusiasm, and yet gained in earnestness. We may have lost in sensibility, yet gained in charity, activity, and power. We may be able to do far less, and yet what we do may be far better done.
And our very griefs and disappointments—Have they been useless to us? Surely not. We shall have gained, instead of lost, by them, if the Spirit of God be working in us. Our sorrows will have wrought in us patience, our patience experience of God’s sustaining grace, who promises that as our day our strength shall be; and of God’s tender providence, which tempers the wind to the shorn lamb, and lays on none a burden beyond what they are able to bear. And that experience will have worked in us hope: hope that He who has led us thus far will lead us farther still; that He who brought us through the trials of youth, will bring us through the trials of age; that He who taught us in former days precious lessons, not only by sore temptations, but most sacred joys, will teach us in the days to come fresh lessons by temptations which we shall be more able to endure; and by joys which, though unlike those of old times, are no less sacred, no less sent as lessons to our souls, by Him from whom all good gifts come.
We will believe this. And instead of inquiring why the former days were better than these, we will trust that the coming days shall be better than these, and those which are coming after them better still again, because God is our Father, Christ our Saviour, the Holy Ghost our Comforter and Guide. We will toil onward: because we know we are toiling upward. We will live in hope, not in regret; because hope is the only state of mind fit for a race for whom God has condescended to stoop, and suffer, and die, and rise again. We will believe that we, and all we love, whether in earth or heaven, are destined—if we be only true to God’s Spirit—to rise, improve, progress for ever: and so we will claim our share, and keep our place, in that vast ascending and improving scale of being, which, as some dream—and surely not in vain—goes onward and upward for ever throughout the universe of Him who wills that none should perish.
(Preached before the Queen at Windsor,December5, 1865)
Habakkukii. 4.The just shall live by his faith.
Habakkukii. 4.
The just shall live by his faith.
Weshall always find it most safe, as well as most reverent, to inquire first the literal and exact meaning of a text; to see under what circumstances it was written; what meaning it must have conveyed to those who heard it; and so to judge what it must have meant in the mind of him who spoke it. If we do so, we shall find that the simplest interpretation of Scripture is generally the deepest; and the most literal interpretation is also the most spiritual.
Let us examine the circumstances under which the prophet spake these words.
It was on the eve of a Chaldean invasion. The heathen were coming into Judea, as we see them still in the Assyrian sculptures—civilizing, after their barbarous fashion, the nations round them—conquering, massacring, transporting whole populations, building cities and temples by their forced labour; and resistance or escape was impossible.
The prophet’s faith fails him a moment. What is this but a triumph of evil? Is there a Divine Providence? Is there a just Ruler of the world? And he breaks out into pathetic expostulation with God Himself: ‘Wherefore lookest Thou upon them that deal treacherously, and holdest Thy tongue when the wicked devoureth the man that is more righteous than he? And makest men as the fishes of the sea, as the creeping things, which have no ruler over them? They take up all of them with the line, they gather them with the net. Therefore they sacrifice unto their net, and burn incense to their line; for by it their portion is fat, and their meat plenteous. Shall they therefore empty their net, and not spare to slay continually the nations?’
Then the Lord answers his doubts: ‘Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him: but the just shall live by his faith.’
By his faith, plainly, in a just Ruler of the world,—in a God who avenges wrong, and makes inquisition for innocent blood. He who will keep his faith in that just God, will remain just himself. The sense of Justice will be kept alive in him; and the just will live by his Faith.
The prophet believes that message; and a mighty change passes over his spirit. In a burst of magnificent poetry, he proclaims woe to the unjust Chaldean conqueror. All his greatness is a bubble which will burst; a suicidal mistake, which will work out its own punishment, and make him a taunt and a mockery to all nations round. ‘Woe to him who increaseth that which is not his, and ladeth himself with thick clay! Woe to him that coveteth an evil covetousness to his house, that he may set his nest on high, and be delivered from the power of evil! Woe to him that buildeth a town with blood, and stablisheth a city with iniquity! Behold, is it not of the Lord of hosts that the people shall labour in the very fire, and the people shall weary themselves for very vanity?’ There is a true civilization for man; but not according to the unjust and cruel method of those Chaldeans. The Law of the true Civilization, the prophet says, is this: ‘The earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.’
But what is this to us? Are we like the Chaldeans? God forbid. But are we not tried by the same temptations to which they blindly yielded? A nation, strong, rich, luxurious, prosperous in industry at home, and aggressive (if not in theory, certainly in practice) to less civilized races abroad—are we not tempted daily to that habit of mind which the prophet calls—with that tremendous irony in which the Hebrew prophets surpass all writers—looking on men as the fishes of the sea, as the creeping things which have no ruler over them, born to devour each other, and be caught and devoured in their turn, by a race more cunning than themselves? There are those among us in thousands, thank God, who nobly resist that temptation; and they are the very salt of the land, who keep it from decay. But for the many—for the public—do not too many of them believe that the law of human society is, after all, only that internecine conflict of interests, that brute struggle for existence, which naturalists tell us (and truly) is the law of life for mere plants and animals? Are they not tempted to forget that men are not mere animals and things, but persons; that they have a Ruler over them, even God, who desires to educate them, to sanctify them, to develop their every faculty, that they may be His children, and not merely our tools; and do God’s work in the world, and not merely their employer’s work? Are they not—are we not all—tempted too often to forget this?
And, then, are we not tempted, all of us, to fall down like the Chaldeans and worship our own net, because by it our portion is fat, and our meat plenteous? Are we not tempted to say within ourselves, ‘This present system of things, with all its anomalies and its defects, still is the right system, and the only system. It is the path pointed out by Providence for man. It is of the Lord; for we are comfortable under it. We grow rich under it; we keep rank and power under it: it suits us, pays us. What better proof that it is the perfect system of things, which cannot be amended?’
Meanwhile, we are sorry (for the English are a kind-hearted people) for the victims of our luxury and our neglect. Sorry for the thousands whom we let die every year by preventible diseases, because we are either too busy or too comfortable to save their lives. Sorry for the savages whom we exterminate, by no deliberate evil intent, but by the mere weight of our heavy footstep. Sorry for the thousands who are used-up yearly in certain trades, in ministering to our comfort, even to our very luxuries and frivolities. Sorry for the Sheffield grinders, who go to work as to certain death; who count how many years they have left, and say, ‘A short life and a merry one. Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.’ Sorry for the people whose lower jaws decay away in lucifer-match factories. Sorry for all the miseries and wrongs which this Children’s Employment Commission has revealed. Sorry for the diseases of artificial flower-makers. Sorry for the boys working in glass-houses whole days and nights on end without rest, ‘labouring in the very fire, and wearying themselves with very vanity.’—Vanity, indeed, if after an amount of gallant toil which nothing but the indomitable courage of an Englishman could endure, they grow up animals and heathens. We are sorry for them all—as the giant is for the worm on which he treads. Alas! poor worm. But the giant must walk on. He is necessary to the universe, and the worm is not. So we are sorry—for half an hour; and glad too (for we are a kind-hearted people) to hear that charitable persons or the government are going to do something towards alleviating these miseries. And then we return, too many of us, each to his own ambition, or to his own luxury, comforting ourselves with the thought, that we did not make the world, and we are not responsible for it.
How shall we conquer this temptation to laziness, selfishness, heartlessness? By faith in God, such as the prophet had. By faith in God as the eternal enemy of evil, the eternal helper of those who try to overcome evil with good; the eternal avenger of all the wrong which is done on earth. By faith in God, as not only our Father, our Saviour, our Redeemer, our Protector: but the Father, Saviour, Redeemer, Protector, and if need be, Avenger, of every human being. By faith in God, which believes that His infinite heart yearns over every human soul, even the basest and the worst; that He wills that not one little one should perish, but that all should be saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth.
We must believe that, if we wish that it should be true of us, that the just shall live by his faith. If we wish our faith to keep us just men, leading just lives, we must believe that God is just, and that He shows His justice by the only possible method—by doing justice, sooner or later, for all who are unjustly used.
If we lose that faith, we shall be in danger—in more than danger—of becoming unjust ourselves. As we fancy God to be, so shall we become ourselves. If we believe that God cares little for mankind, we shall care less and less for them ourselves. If we believe that God neglects them, we shall neglect them likewise.
And then the sense of justice—justice for its own sake, justice as the likeness and will of God—will die out in us, and our souls will surely not live, but die.
For there will die out in our hearts, just the most noble and God-like feelings which God has put into them. The instinct of chivalry; horror of cruelty and injustice; pity for the weak and ill-used; the longing to set right whatever is wrong; and, what is even more important, the Spirit of godly fear, of wholesome terror of God’s wrath, which makes us say, when we hear of any great and general sin among us, ‘If we do not do our best to set this right, then God, who does not make men like creeping things, will take the matter into His own hands, and punish us easy, luxurious people, for allowing such things to be done.’
And when a man loses that spirit of chivalry, he loses his own soul. For that spirit of chivalry, let worldlings say what they will, is the very spirit of our spirit, the salt which keeps our characters from utter decay—the very instinct which raises us above the selfishness of the brute. Yea, it is the Spirit of God Himself. For what is the feeling of horror at wrong, of pity for the wronged, of burning desire to set wrong right, save the Spirit of the Father and the Son, the Spirit which brought down the Lord Jesus out of the highest heaven, to stoop, to serve, to suffer and to die, that He might seek and save that which was lost?
Some say that the age of chivalry is past: that the spirit of romance is dead. The age of chivalry is never past, as long as there is a wrong left unredressed on earth, and a man or woman left to say, ‘I will redress that wrong, or spend my life in the attempt.’
The age of chivalry is never past, as long as men have faith enough in God to say, ‘God will help me to redress that wrong; or if not me, surely he will help those that come after me. For His eternal will is, to overcome evil with good.’
The spirit of romance will never die, as long as there is a man left to see that the world might and can be better, happier, wiser, fairer in all things, than it is now. The spirit of romance will never die, as long as a man has faith in God to believe that the world will actually be better and fairer than it is now; as long as men have faith, however weak, to believe in the romance of all romances; in the wonder of all wonders; in that, of which all poets’ dreams have been but childish hints, and dumb forefeelings—even
‘That one far-off divine eventTowards which the whole creation moves;’
‘That one far-off divine eventTowards which the whole creation moves;’
that wonder of which prophets and apostles have told, each according to his light; that wonder which Habakkuk saw afar off, and foretold how that the earth should be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea; that wonder which Isaiah saw afar off, and sang how the Lord should judge among the nations, and rebuke among many people; and they should beat their swords into plough-shares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation should not rise against nation, neither should they learn war any more; that wonder of which St Paul prophesied, and said that Christ should reign till He had put all His enemies under His feet; that wonder of which St. John prophesied; and said, ‘I saw the Holy City, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven. And the nations of them that are saved shall walk in the light of it, and the kings of the earth bring their glory and their honour unto it;’ that wonder, finally, which our Lord Himself bade us pray for, as for our daily bread, and say, ‘Father, thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.
‘Thy will be done on earth.’ He who bade us ask that boon for generations yet unborn, was very God of very God. Do you think that He would have bidden us ask a blessing, which He knew would never come?
Matt. xxii. 37, 32.Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment.
Matt. xxii. 37, 32.
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment.
Somesay, when they hear this,—It is a hard saying. Who can bear it? Who can expect us to do as much as that? If we are asked to be respectable and sober, to live and let live, not to harm our neighbours wilfully or spitefully, and to come to church tolerably regularly—we understand being asked to do that—it is fair. But to love the Lord our God with all our hearts. That must be meant only for very great saints; for a few exceedingly devout people here and there. And devout people have been too apt to say,—You are right. It is we who are to love God with all our hearts and souls, and give up the world, and marriage, and all the joys of life, and turn priests, monks, and nuns, while you need only be tolerably respectable, and attend to your religious duties from time to time, while we will pray for you. But, my friends, if we read our Bibles, we cannot allow that. ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God,’ was spoken not to monks and nuns (for there were none in those days), not to great saints only (for we read of none just then), not even to priests and clergymen only. It was said to all the Jews, high and low, free and slave, soldier and labourer, alike—‘Thou, a man living in the world, and doing work in the world, with wife and family, farm and cattle, horse to ride, and weapon to wear—thou shalt love the Lord thy God.’
And therefore these words are said to you and me. We English are neither monks nor nuns, nor likely (thank God) to become so. We are in the world, with our own family ties and duties, our own worldly business. And to us, to you and me, as to those old Jews, the first and great commandment is, ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God.’
What, then, does it mean? Does it mean that we are to have the same love toward God as we have toward a wife or a husband?
Certainly not. But it means at least this—the love which we should bear toward a Father. All, my friends, turns on this. Do you look on God as your Father, or do you not? God is your Father, remember, already. You cannot (as some people seem to think) make Him your Father by believing that He is one; and you need not, thanks to His mercy. Neither can you make Him not your Father by forgetting Him. Be you wise or foolish, right or wrong, God is your Father in heaven; and you ought to feel towards Him as towards a father, not with any sentimental, fanciful, fanatical affection; but with a reverent, solemn, and rational affection; such as that which the good old Catechism bids us have, when it tells us our duty toward God.
‘My duty towards God is to believe in Him, to fear Him, and to love Him with all my heart, with all my mind, with all my soul, and with all my strength; to worship Him, to give Him thanks, to put my whole trust in Him, to call upon Him, to honour His holy Name and His Word, and to serve Him truly all the days of my life.’
Now, I ask you—and what I ask you I ask myself,—Do we love the Lord our God thus? And if not, why not?
I do not ask you to tell me. I am not going to tell you what is in my heart; and I do not ask you to tell me what is in yours. We are free Englishmen, who keep ourselves to ourselves, and think for ourselves, each man in the depths of his own heart; and who are the stronger and the wiser for not talking about our feelings to any man, priest or layman.
But ask yourselves, each of you,—Do I love God? And if not, why not?
There are two reasons, I believe, which are, alas! very common. For one of them there are great excuses; for the other, there is no excuse whatsoever.
In the first place, too many find it difficult to love God, because they have not been taught that God is loveable, and worthy of their love. They have been taught dark and hard doctrines, which have made them afraid of God.
They have been taught—too many are taught still—not merely that God will punish the wicked, but that God will punish nine-tenths, or ninety-nine-hundredths of the human race. That He will send to endless torments not merely sinners who have rebelled against what they knew was right, and His command; who have stained themselves with crimes; who wilfully injured their fellow-creatures: but that He will do the same by little children, by innocent young girls, by honourable, respectable, moral men and women, because they are not what is called sensibly converted, or else what is called orthodox. They have been taught to look on God, not as a loving and merciful Father, but as a tyrant and a task-master, who watches to set down against them the slightest mishap or neglect; who is extreme to mark what is done amiss; who wills the death of a sinner. Often—strangest notion of all—they have been told that, though God intends to punish them, they must still love Him, or they will be punished—as if such a notion, so far from drawing them to God, could do anything but drive them from Him. And it is no wonder if persons who have been taught in their youth such notions concerning God, find it difficult to love Him. Who can be frightened or threatened into loving any being? How can we love any being who does not seem to us kind, merciful, amiable, loving? Our love must be called out by God’s love. If we are to love God, it must be because He has first loved us.
But He has first loved us, my friends. The dark and cruel notions about God—which are too common, and have been too common in all ages—are not what the world about us teaches, nor what Scripture teaches us either.
Look out on the world around you. What witness does it bear concerning the God who made it? Who made the sunshine, and the flowers, and singing birds, and little children, and all that causes the joy of this life? Let Christ Himself speak, and His apostles. No one can say that their words are not true; that they were mistaken in their view of this earth, or of God who gave it to us that it might bear witness of Him. What said our Lord to the poor folk of Galilee, of whom the Scribes and the Pharisees, in their pride, said, ‘This people, who knoweth not the law, is accursed.’—What said our Lord, very God of very God? He told them to look on the world around, and learn from it that they had in heaven not a tyrant, not a destroyer, but a Father; a Father in heaven who is perfect in this, that He causeth His sun to shine upon them, and is good to the unthankful and the evil.
What of Him did St. Paul say?—and that not to Christians, but to heathens—That God had not left Himself without a witness even to the heathen who knew Him not—and what sort of witness? The witness of His bounty and goodness. The simple, but perpetual witness of the yearly harvest—‘In that He sends men rain and fruitful seasons, filling their hearts with food and gladness.’
This is St. Paul’s witness. And what is St. James’s? He tells men of a Father of lights, from whom comes down every good and perfect gift; who gives to all liberally, and upbraideth not, grudges not, stints not, but gives, and delights in giving,—the same God, in a word, of whom the old psalmists and prophets spoke, and said, ‘Thou openest Thine hand, and fillest all things with good.’
And if natural religion tells us thus much, and bears witness of a Father who delights in the happiness of His creatures, what does revealed religion and the Gospel of Jesus Christ tell us?
Oh, my friends, dull indeed must be our hearts if we can feel no love for the God of whom the Gospel speaks! And perverse, indeed, must be our minds if we can twist the good news of Christ’s salvation into the bad news of condemnation! What says St. Paul,—That God is against us? No. But—‘If God be for us, who can be against us?
‘Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.
‘Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
‘As it is written, For Thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.
‘Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us.
‘For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.’
What says St. John? Does he say that God the Father desires to punish or slay us; and that our Lord Jesus Christ, or the Virgin Mary, or the saints, or any other being, loves us better than God, and will deliver us out of the hands of God? God forbid! ‘We have known and believed,’ he says, ‘the love that God hath to us. God is love, and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.’
My friends, if we could believe those blessed words—I do not say in all their fulness—we shall never do that, I believe, in this mortal life—but if we could only believe them a little, and know and believe even a little of the love that God has to us, then love to Him would spring up in our hearts, and we should feel for Him all that child ever felt for father. If we really believed that God who made heaven and earth was even now calling to each and every one of us, and beseeching us, by the sacrifice of His well-beloved Son, crucified for us, ‘My son, give Me thy heart,’ we could not help giving up our hearts to Him.
Provided—and there is that second reason why people do not love God, for which I said there was no excuse—provided only that we wish to be good, and to obey God. If we do not wish to do what God commands, we shall never love God. It must be so. There can be no real love of God which is not based upon a love of virtue and goodness, upon what our Lord calls a hunger and thirst after righteousness. ‘If ye love Me, keep My commandments,’ is our Lord’s own rule and test. And it is the only one possible. If we habitually disobey any person, we shall cease to love that person. If a child is in the habit of disobeying its parents, dark and angry feelings towards those parents are sure to arise in its heart. The child tries to forget its parents, to keep out of their way. It tries to justify itself, to excuse itself by fancying that its parents are hard upon it, unjust, grudge it pleasure, or what not. If its parents’ commandments are grievous to a child, it will try to make out that those commandments are unfair and unkind. And so shall we do by God’s commandments. If God’s commandments seem too grievous for us to obey, then we shall begin to fancy them unjust and unkind. And then, farewell to any real love to God. If we do not openly rebel against God, we shall still try to forget Him. The thought of God will seem dark, unpleasant, and forbidding to us; and we shall try, in our short-sighted folly, to live as far as we can without God in the world, and, like Adam after his fall, hide ourselves from the loving God, just because we know we have disobeyed Him.
But if, in spite of many bad habits, we desire to get rid of our bad habits; if, in spite of many faults, we still desire to be faultless and perfect; if, in spite of many weaknesses, we still desire to be strong; if, in one word, we still hunger and thirst after righteousness, and long to be good men; then, in due time, the love of God will be shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.
For that will happen to us which happens to all those who have the pure, true, and heroical love. If we really love a person, we shall first desire to please them, and therefore the thought of disobeying and paining them will seem more and more grievous unto us.
But more. We shall soon rise a step higher. The more we love them, and the more we see in them, in their characters, things worthy to be loved, the more we shall desire to be like them, to copy those parts of their characters which most delight us; and we shall copy them: though insensibly, perhaps, and unawares.
For no one can look up for any length of time with love and respect towards a person better, wiser, greater than themselves, without becoming more or less like that person in character and in habit of thought and feeling; and so it will be with us towards God.
If we really long to be good, it will grow more and more easy to us to love God. The more pure our hearts are, the more pleasant the thought of God will be to us; even as it is said, ‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God,’—in this life as well as in the life to come. We shall not shrink from God, because we shall know that we are not wilfully offending Him.
But more. The more we think of God, the more we shall long to be like Him. How admirable in our eyes will seem His goodness, how admirable His purity, His justice, and His bounty, His long-suffering, His magnanimity and greatness of heart. For how great must be that heart of God, of which it is written, that ‘He hateth nothing that He hath made, but His mercy is over all His works;’ ‘that He willeth that none should perish, but that all should be saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth.’ Although He be infinitely high and far off and we cannot attain to Him, yet we shall feel it our duty and our joy to copy Him, however faintly, and however humbly; and our highest hope will be that we may behold, as in a glass, the glory of the Lord, and be changed into His image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord; that so, whether in this world or in the world to come, we may at last be perfect, even as our Father in heaven is perfect, and, like Him, cause the sunlight of our love to slime upon the evil and on the good; the kindly showers of our good deeds to fall upon the just and on the unjust; and—like Him who sent His only begotten Son to save the world—be good to the unthankful and to the evil.