Part 10 (1/2)

Comfortable scholars and luxurious ladies may content themselves with a DEAD G.o.d, who does not interfere to help the oppressed, to right the wrong, to bind up the broken-hearted; but men and women who work, who sorrow, who suffer, who partake of all the ills which flesh is heir to--they want a LIVING G.o.d, an acting G.o.d, a G.o.d who WILL interfere to right the wrong. Yes--they want a living G.o.d.

And they have a living G.o.d--even the G.o.d who interfered to bring the Israelites out of Egypt with signs and wonders, and a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and executed judgment upon Pharaoh and his proud and cruel hosts. And when they read in the Bible of that G.o.d, when they read in their Bibles the story of the Exodus, their hearts answer, THIS is right. This is the G.o.d whom we need. This is what ought to have happened. This is true: for it must be true. Let comfortable folks who know no sorrow trouble their brains as to whether sixty or six hundred thousand fighting men came out of Egypt with Moses. We care not for numbers. What we care for is, not how many came out, but who brought them out, and that he who brought them out was G.o.d. And the book which tells us that, we will cling to, will love, will reverence above all the books on earth, because it tells of a living G.o.d, who works and acts and interferes for men; who not only hates wrong, but rights wrong; not only hates oppression, but puts oppressors down; not only pities the oppressed, but sets the oppressed free; a G.o.d who not only wills that man should have freedom, but sent freedom down to him from heaven.

Scholars have said that the old Greeks were the fathers of freedom; and there have been other peoples in the world's history who have made glorious and successful struggles to throw off their tyrants and be free. And they have said, We are the fathers of freedom; liberty was born with us. Not so, my friends! Liberty is of a far older and far n.o.bler house; Liberty was born, if you will receive it, on the first Easter night, on the night to be much remembered among the children of Israel--ay, among all mankind--when G.o.d himself stooped from heaven to set the oppressed free. Then was freedom born. Not in the counsels of men, however wise; or in the battles of men, however brave: but in the counsels of G.o.d, and the battle of G.o.d--amid human agony and terror, and the shaking of the heaven and the earth; amid the great cry throughout Egypt when a first-born son lay dead in every house; and the tempest which swept aside the Red Sea waves; and the pillar of cloud by day, and the pillar of fire by night; and the Red Sea sh.o.r.e covered with the corpses of the Egyptians; and the thunderings and lightnings and earthquakes of Sinai; and the sound as of a trumpet waxing loud and long; and the voice, most human and most divine, which spake from off the lonely mountain peak to that vast horde of coward and degenerate slaves, and said, 'I am the Lord thy G.o.d who brought thee out of the land of Egypt. Thou shalt obey my laws, and keep my commandments to do them.' Oh! the man who would rob his suffering fellow-creatures of that story--he knows not how deep and bitter are the needs of man.

Then was freedom born: but not of man; not of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of the will of G.o.d, from whom all good things come; and of Christ, who is the life and the light of men and of nations, and of the whole world, and of all worlds, past, present, and to come.

From G.o.d came freedom. To be used as his gift, according to his laws; for he gave, and he can take away; as it is written, 'He shall take the kingdom of G.o.d from you, and give it to a people bringing forth the fruits thereof.' 'For there be many first that shall be last; and last that shall be first.' It is this which makes the Jews indeed a peculiar people: the thought that the living G.o.d had actually and really done for them what they could not do for themselves; that he had made them a nation, and not they themselves.

It is this which makes the Old Testament an utterly different book, with an utterly different lesson, to the written history of any other nation in the world.

And yet it is this which makes the history of the Jews the key to every other history in the world. For in it Jesus Christ our Lord, the living G.o.d who makes history, who governs all nations, reveals and unveils himself, and teaches not the Jews only, but us and all nations, that it is he who hath made us, and not we ourselves; that we got not the land in possession by our own sword, nor was it our own strength that helped us, but thou, O Lord, because thou hadst a favour unto us; that not to us, not to us is the praise of any national greatness or glory, but to G.o.d, from whom it comes as surely a free gift as the gift of liberty to the Jews of old.

I say, the history of the Jews is the history of the whole Church, and of every nation in Christendom.

As with the Jews, so with the nations of Europe; whenever they have trusted in themselves, their own power and wisdom, they have ended in weakness and folly. Whenever they have trusted in Christ the living G.o.d, and said, 'It is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves,' they have risen to strength and wisdom. When they have forgotten the living G.o.d, national life and patriotism have died in them, as they died in the Jews. When they have remembered that the most high G.o.d was their Redeemer, then in them, as in the Jews, have national life and patriotism revived.

And as it was with the Jews in the wilderness, so it has been with them since Christ's resurrection. They fancied that they were going at once into the promised land. So did the first Christians. But the Jews had to wander forty years in the wilderness; and Christendom has had to wander too, in strange and bloodstained paths, for one thousand eight hundred years and more. For why? The Israelites were not worthy to enter at once into rest; no more have the nation of Christ's Church been worthy. The Israelites brought out of Egypt base and slavish pa.s.sions, which had to be purged out of them; so have we out of heathendom. They brought out, too, heathen superst.i.tions, and mixed them up with the wors.h.i.+p of G.o.d, bearing about in the wilderness the tabernacle of Moloch and the image of their G.o.d Remphan, and making the calf in h.o.r.eb; and so, alas! again and again, has the Church of Christ.

Nay, the whole generation, save two, who came out of Egypt, had to die in the wilderness, and leave their bones scattered far and wide.

And so has mankind been dying, by war and by disease, and by many fearful scourges besides what is called now-a-days, natural decay.

But all the while a new generation was springing up, trained in the wilderness to be bold and hardy; trained, too, under Moses' stern law, to the fear of G.o.d; to reverence, and discipline, and obedience, without which freedom is merely brutal license, and a nation is no nation, but a mere flock of sheep or a herd of wolves.

And so, for these one thousand eight hundred years have the generations of Christendom, by the training of the Church and the light of the Gospel, been growing in wisdom and knowledge; growing in morality and humanity, in that true discipline and loyalty which are the yoke-fellows of freedom and independence, to make them fit for that higher state, that heavenly Canaan, of which we know not WHEN it will come, nor whether its place will be on this earth or elsewhere; but of which it is written, 'And I John saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from G.o.d out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of G.o.d is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and G.o.d himself shall be with them, and be their G.o.d. And G.o.d shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are pa.s.sed away. And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new.

'And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord G.o.d Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon to s.h.i.+ne in it: for the glory of G.o.d did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it; and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it. And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day: for there shall be no night there. And they shall bring the glory and honour of the nations into it. And there shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb's book of life.'

That, the perfect Easter Day, seems far enough off as yet; but it will come. As the Lord liveth, it will come; and to it may Christ in his mercy bring us all, and our children's children after us.

Amen.

SERMON XIII. KORAH, DATHAN, AND ABIRAM

(First Sunday after Easter, 1863.)

Numbers xvi. 32-35. And the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their houses, and all the men that appertained unto Korah, and all their goods. They, and all that appertained to them, went down alive into the pit, and the earth closed upon them: and they perished from among the congregation. And all Israel that were round about them fled at the cry of them: for they said, Lest the earth swallow us up also. And there came out a fire from the Lord, and consumed the two hundred and fifty men that offered incense.

I will begin by saying that there are several things in this chapter which I do not understand, and cannot explain to you. Be it so.

That is no reason why we should not look at the parts of the chapter which we can understand and can explain.

There are matters without end in the world round us, and in our own hearts, and in the life of every one, which we cannot explain; and therefore we need not be surprised to find things which we cannot explain in the life and history of the most remarkable nation upon earth--the nation whose business it has been to teach all other nations the knowledge of the true G.o.d, and who was specially and curiously trained for that work.

But the one broad common-sense lesson of this chapter, it seems to me, is one which is on the very surface of it; one which every true Englishman at least will see, and see to be true, when he hears the chapter read; and that is, the necessity of DISCIPLINE.

G.o.d has brought the Israelites out of Egypt, and set them free. One of the first lessons which they have to learn is, that freedom does not mean license and discord--does not mean every one doing that which is right in the sight of his own eyes. From that springs self-will, division, quarrels, revolt, civil war, weakness, profligacy, and ruin to the whole people. Without order, discipline, obedience to law, there can be no true and lasting freedom; and, therefore, order must be kept at all risks, the law obeyed, and rebellion punished.

Now rebellion may be and ought to be punished far more severely in some cases than in others. If men rebel here, in Great Britain or Ireland, we smile at them, and let them off with a slight imprisonment, because we are not afraid of them. They can do no harm.

But there are cases in which rebellion must be punished with a swift and sharp hand. On board a s.h.i.+p at sea, for instance, where the safety of the whole s.h.i.+p, the lives of the whole crew, depend on instant obedience, mutiny may be punished by death on the spot.