Part 6 (1/2)

XVI--ON THE DAY OF THANKSGIVING

(Nov. 15th, 1849.)

G.o.d hath visited his people.--LUKE vii. 16.

We are a.s.sembled this day to thank G.o.d solemnly for the pa.s.sing away of the cholera from England; and we must surely not forget to thank Him at the same time for the pa.s.sing away of the fever, which has caused so much expense, sorrow, and death among us. Now I wish to say a very few words to you on this same matter, to show you not only how to be thankful to G.o.d, but what to be thankful for. You may say: It is easy enough for us to know what to thank G.o.d for in this case.

We come to thank Him, as we have just said in the public prayers, for having withdrawn this heavy visitation from us. If so, my friends, what we shall thank Him for depends on what we mean by talking of a visitation from G.o.d.

Now I do not know what people may think in this parish, but I suspect that very many all over England do NOT know what to thank G.o.d for just now; and are altogether thanking him for the wrong thing--for a thing which, very happily for them, He has NOT done for them, and which, if He had done it for them, would have been worse for them than all the evil which ever happened to them from their youth up until now. To be plain then, many, I am afraid, are thanking G.o.d for having gone away and left them. While the cholera was here, they said that G.o.d was visiting them; and now that the cholera is over, they consider that G.o.d's visit is over too, and are joyful and light of heart thereat. If G.o.d's visit is over, my friends, and He is gone away from us; if He is not just as near us now as He was in the height of the cholera, the best thing we can do is to turn to Him with fasting, and weeping, and mourning, and roll ourselves in the dust, and instead of thanking our Father for going away, pray to Him, of his infinite mercy, to condescend to come back again and visit us, even though, as superst.i.tious and ignorant men believe, G.o.d's visiting us were sure to bring cholera, or plague, or pestilence, or famine, or some other misery. For I read, that in His presence is life and not death--at His right hand is fulness of joy, and not tribulation and mourning and woe; but if not, it were better to be with G.o.d in everlasting agony, than to be in everlasting happiness without G.o.d.

Here is a strange confusion--people talking one moment like St. Paul himself, desiring to be with Christ and G.o.d for ever, and then in the same breath talking like the Gadarenes of old, when, after Christ had visited them, and judged their sins by driving their unlawful herd of swine into the sea, they answered by beseeching Him to depart out of their coasts.

Why is this confusion?--Because people do not take the trouble to read their Bibles; because they bring their own loose, careless, cant notions with them when they open their Bibles, and settle beforehand what the Bible is to tell them, and then pick and twist texts till they make them mean just what they like and no more. There is no folly, or filth, or tyranny, or blasphemy, which men have not defended out of the Bible by twisting it in this way. The Bible is better written than that, my friends. He that runs may read, if he has sense to read. The wayfaring man, though simple, shall make no such mistake therein, if he has G.o.d's Spirit in him--the spirit of faith, which believes that the Bible is G.o.d's message to men--the humble spirit, which is willing to listen to that message, however strange or new it may seem to him--the earnest spirit, which reads the Bible really to know what a man shall do to be saved. Look at your Bibles thus, my friends, about this matter. Read all the texts which speak of G.o.d's visiting and G.o.d's visitation, and you will find all the confusion and strangeness vanish away. For see! The Bible talks of the Lord visiting people in His wrath--visiting them for their sins--visiting them with sore plagues and punishments, about forty times. But the Bible speaks very nearly as often of G.o.d's visiting people to bring them blessings and not punishments. The Bible says G.o.d visited Sarah and Hannah to give them what they most desired--children. G.o.d visited the people of Israel in Egypt to deliver them out of slavery. In the book of Ruth we read how the Lord visited His people in giving them bread. The Psalmist, in the captivity at Babylon, PRAYS G.o.d to visit him with His salvation. The prophet Jeremiah says that it was a sign of G.o.d's anger against the Jews that He had not visited them; and the prophets promised again and again to their countrymen, how, after their seventy years'

captivity in Babylon, the Lord would visit them, and what for?--To bring them back into their own land with joy, and heap them with every blessing--peace and wealth, freedom and righteousness. So it is in the New Testament too. Zacharias praised G.o.d: ”Blessed be the Lord G.o.d of Israel, for He hath visited and redeemed His people; through the tender mercy of our G.o.d, whereby the day-spring from on high hath visited us.” And that was the reason why I chose Luke vii.

16, for my text--only because it is an example of the same thing.

The people, it says, praised G.o.d, saying: ”A great Prophet is risen up among us, and G.o.d hath visited His people.” And in the 14th of Acts we read how G.o.d visited the Gentiles, not to punish them, but to take out of them a people for His name, namely, Cornelius and his household. And lastly, St. Peter tells Christian people to glorify G.o.d in the day of visitation, as I tell you now--whether His visitation comes in the shape of cholera, or fever, or agricultural distress; or whether it comes in the shape of sanitary reform, and plenty of work, and activity in commerce; whether it seems to you good or evil, glorify G.o.d for it. Thank Him for it. Bless Him for it. Whether His visitation brings joy or sorrow, it surely brings a blessing with it. Whether G.o.d visits in wrath or in love, still G.o.d visits. G.o.d shows that He lives; G.o.d shows us that He has not forgotten us; G.o.d shows us that He is near us. Christ shows us that His words are true: ”Lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the world.”

That is a hard lesson to learn and practise, though not a very difficult one to understand. I will try now to make you understand it--G.o.d alone can teach you to practise it. I pray and hope, and I believe too, that He will--that these very hard times are meant to teach people REALLY to believe in G.o.d and Jesus Christ, and that they WILL teach people. G.o.d knows we need, and thanks be to Him that He DOES know that we need, to be taught to believe in Him. Nothing shows it to me more plainly than the way we talk about G.o.d's visitations, as if G.o.d was usually away from us, and came to us only just now and then--only on extraordinary occasions. People have gross, heathen, fleshly, materialist notions of G.o.d's visitations, as if He was some great earthly king who now and then made a journey about his dominions from place to place, rewarding some and punis.h.i.+ng others. G.o.d is not in any place, my friends. G.o.d is a Spirit. The heaven and the heaven of heavens could not contain Him if He wanted a place to be in, as, glory be to His name, He does not. If He is near us or far from us, it is not that He is near or far from our bodies, as the Queen might be nearer to us in London than in Scotland, which is most people's notion of G.o.d's nearness. He is near, not our bodies, but our spirits, our souls, our hearts, our thoughts--as it is written, ”The kingdom of G.o.d is WITHIN you.” Do not fancy that when the cholera was in India, G.o.d was nearer India than He was to England, and that as the cholera crawled nearer and nearer, G.o.d came nearer and nearer too; and that now the cholera is gone away somewhere or other, G.o.d is gone away somewhere or other too, to leave us to our own inventions. G.o.d forbid a thousand times! As St. Paul says: ”He is not far from any one of us.” ”In Him we live and move and have our being,” cholera or none. Do you think Christ, the King of the earth, is gone away either--that while things go on rightly, and governments, and clergy, and people do right, Christ is there then, filling them all with His Spirit and guiding them all to their duty; but that when evil times come, and rulers are idle, and clergy dumb dogs, and the rich tyrannous, and the poor profligate, and men are crying for work and cannot get it, and every man's hand is against his fellow, and no one knows what to do or think; and on earth is distress of nations with perplexity, men's hearts failing them for fear, and for dread of those things which are coming on the earth--do you think that in such times as those, Christ is the least farther off from us than He was at the best of times?--The least farther off from us now than He was from the apostles at the first Whitsuntide? G.o.d forbid!--G.o.d forbid a thousand times! He has promised Himself, He that is faithful and true, He that will never deny Himself, though men deny Him, and say He is not here, because their eyes are blinded with love of the world, and covetousness and bigotry, and dread lest He, their Master, should come and find them beating the men-servants and maid-servants, and eating and drinking with the drunken in the high places of the earth, and saying: ”Tus.h.!.+

G.o.d hath forgotten it”--ay, though men have forgotten Him thus, and-- worse than thus, yet He hath said it--”Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.” Why, evil times are the very times of which Christ used to speak as the ”days of the Lord,” and the ”days of the Son of man.” Times when we hear of wars and rumours of wars, and on earth distress of nations with perplexity--what does He tell men to do in them? To go whining about, and say that Christ has left His Church? No! ”Then,” He says, ”when all these things come to pa.s.s, then rejoice and lift up your heads, for your redemption draweth nigh.”

And yet the Scripture does most certainly speak of the Lord's coming out of His place to visit--of the Son of Man coming, and not coming to men--of His visiting us at one time and not at another. How does that agree with what I have just said? My dear friends, we shall see that it agrees perfectly with what I have said, if we will only just remember that we are not beasts, but men. It may seem a strange thing to have to remind people of, but it is just what they are always forgetting. My friends, we are not animals, we are not spiders to do nothing but spin, or birds only to build nests for ourselves, much less swine to do nothing but dig after roots and fruits, and get what we can out of the clods of the ground. We are the children of the Most High G.o.d; we have immortal souls within us; nay, more, we are our souls: our bodies are our husk--our sh.e.l.l--our clothes--our house--changing day by day, and year by year upon us, one day to drop off us till the Resurrection. But WE are our SOULS, and when G.o.d visits, it is our souls He visits, not merely our bodies. There is the whole secret. People forget G.o.d, and therefore they are glad to fancy that He has forgotten them, and has nothing to do with this world of His which they are misusing for their own selfish ends; and then G.o.d in His mercy visits them. He knocks at the door of their hearts, saying: ”See! I was close to you all the while.” He forces them to see Him and to confess that He is there whether they choose or not. G.o.d is not away from the world. He is away from people's hearts, because He has given people free wills, and with free wills the power of keeping Him out of their hearts or letting Him in. And when G.o.d visits He forces Himself on our attention. He knocks at the door of our hard hearts so loudly and sharply that He forces all to confess that He is there--all who are not utterly reprobate and spiritually dead. In blessings as well as in curses, G.o.d knocks at our hearts. By sudden good fortune, as well as by sudden mishap; by a great deliverance from enemies, by an abundant harvest, as well as by famine and pestilence. Therefore this cholera has been a true visitation of G.o.d. The poor had fancied that they might be as dirty, the rich had fancied that they might be as careless, as they chose; in short, that they might break G.o.d's laws of cleanliness and brotherly care without His troubling Himself about the matter. And lo! He has visited us; and shown us that He does care about the matter by taking it into His own hands with a vengeance. He who cannot see G.o.d's hand in the cholera must be as blind--as blind as who?--as blind as he that cannot see G.o.d's hand when there is no cholera; as blind as he who cannot see G.o.d's hand in every meal he eats, and every breath he draws; for that man is stone blind--he can be no blinder. The cholera came; everyone ought to see that it did not come by blind chance, but by the will of some wise and righteous Person; for in the first place G.o.d gave us fair warning. The cholera came from India at a steady pace. We knew to a month when it would arrive here. And it came, too, by no blind necessity, as if it was forced to take people whether it liked or not. Just as it was in the fever here, so it was in the cholera, ”One shall be taken and another left.” It took one of a street and left another; took one person in a family and left another: it took the rich man who fancied he was safe, as well as the poor man who did not care whether he was safe or not. The respectable man walking home to his comfortable house, pa.s.sed by some untrapped drain, and then poisonous gas struck him and he died. The rich physician who had been curing others, could not save himself from the poison of the crowded graveyard which had been allowed to remain at the back of his house. By all sorts of strange and unfathomable judgments the cholera showed itself to be working, not by a blind necessity, but at the will of a thinking Person, of a living G.o.d, whose ways are not as our own ways, and His paths are in the great deep. And yet the cholera showed--and this is what I want to make you feel--that it was working at the will of the same G.o.d in whom we live and move and have our being, who sends the food we eat, the water in which we wash, the air we breathe, and who has ordained for all these things natural laws, according to which they work, and which He never breaks, nor allows us to break them. For every case of cholera could be traced to some breaking of these laws--foul air--foul food--foul water, or careless and dirty contact with infected persons; so that by this G.o.d showed that He and not chance ruled the world, and that he was indeed the living and willing G.o.d. He showed at the same time that He was the wise G.o.d of order and of law; and that gas and earth, wind and vapour, fulfil His word, without His having to break His laws, or visit us by moving, as people fancy, out of a Heaven where He was, down to an earth, where He was not.

But, lastly, remember what I told you before, that the cholera being a visitation means that G.o.d, by it, has been visiting our hearts, knocking loudly at them that He may awaken us, and teach us a lesson.

And be sure that in the cholera, and this our own parish fever, there is a lesson for each and every one of us if we will learn it. To the simple poor man, first and foremost, G.o.d means by the cholera to teach the simple lesson of cleanliness; to the house-owner He means to teach that each man is his brother's keeper, and responsible for his property not being a nest of disease; to rulers it is intended to teach the lesson that G.o.d's laws cannot be put off to suit their laziness, cowardice, or party squabbles. But beside that, to each person, be sure such a visitation as this brings some private lesson.

Perhaps it has taught many a widow that she has a Friend stronger and more loving than even the husband whom she has lost by the pestilence--the G.o.d of the widow and the fatherless. Perhaps it has taught many a strong man not to trust in his strength and his youth, but in the G.o.d who gave them to him. Perhaps it has taught many a man, too, who has expected public authorities to do everything for him, ”not to put his trust in princes, nor in any child of man, for there is no help in them,” but to hear G.o.d's advice, ”Help thyself and G.o.d will help thee.” Perhaps it has stirred up many a benevolent man to find out fresh means for rooting out the miseries of society.

Perhaps it has taught many a philosopher new deep truths about the laws of G.o.d's world, which may enable him to enlighten and comfort ages yet unborn. Perhaps it has awakened many a slumbering heart, and brought many a careless sinner (for the first time in his life) face to face with G.o.d and his own sins. G.o.d's judgments are manifold; they are meant to work in different ways on different hearts. But oh! believe and be sure that they are meant to work upon all hearts--that they are not the punishments of a capricious tyrant, but the rod of a loving Father, who is trying to drive us home into His fold, when gentle entreaties and kind deeds have failed to allure us home. Oh my friends! if you wish really to thank G.o.d for having preserved you from these pestilences, show your thankfulness by learning the lesson which they bring. G.o.d's love has spoken of each and every one of us in the cholera. Be sure He has spoken so harshly only because a gentler tone of voice would have had no effect upon us. Thank Him for His severity. Thank Him for the cholera, the fever. Thank Him for anything which will awaken us to hear the Word of the Lord. But till you have learnt the lessons which these visitations are meant to teach you, there is no use thanking Him for taking them away. And therefore I beseech you solemnly, each and all, before you leave this church, now to pray to G.o.d to show you what lesson He means to teach you by this past awful visitation, and also by sparing you and me who are here present, not merely from cholera and fever, but from a thousand mishaps and evils, which we have deserved, and from which only His goodness has kept us. Oh may G.o.d stir up your hearts to ask advice of Him this day! and may He in His great mercy so teach us all His will on this day of joy, that we may not need to have it taught us hereafter on some day of sorrow.

XVII--THE COVENANT

The Lord hath chosen Jacob unto himself, and Israel for his own possession. For I know that the Lord is great, and that our Lord is above all G.o.ds. Whatsoever the Lord pleased, that did he in heaven and earth, and in the sea, and in all deep places.--PSALM cx.x.xv. 4, 5, 6.

Were you ever puzzled to find out why the Psalms are read every Sunday in Church, more read, indeed, than any other part of the Bible? If any of you say, No, I shall not think you the wiser. It is very easy not to be puzzled with a deep matter, if one never thinks about it at all. But when a man sets his mind to work seriously, to try to understand what he hears and sees around him, then he will be puzzled, and no shame to him; for he will find things every day of his life which will require years of thought to understand, ay, things which, though we see and know that they are true, and can use and profit by them, we can never understand at all, at least in this life.

But I do not think that G.o.d meant it to be so with these Psalms. He meant the Bible for a poor man's book: and therefore the men who wrote the Bible were almost all of them poor men, at least at one time or other of their life; and therefore we may expect that they would write as poor men would write, and such things as poor men may understand, if they are fairly and simply explained. Therefore I do not think you need be puzzled long to find out why these Psalms are read every Sunday. For the men who wrote them had G.o.d's spirit with them; and G.o.d's spirit is the spirit in which G.o.d made and governs this world, and just as G.o.d cannot change, so G.o.d's spirit cannot change; and therefore the rules and laws according to which the world runs on cannot change; and therefore these rules about G.o.d's government of the world, which G.o.d's spirit taught the old Hebrew Psalmists, are the very same rules by which He governs it now; and therefore all the rules in these Psalms, making allowance for the difference of circ.u.mstances, have just as much to do with France, and Germany, and England now, as they had with the Jews, and the Canaanites, and the Babylonians then.

St. Paul tells us so. He tells us that all that happened to the old Jews was written as an example to Christians, to the intent that they might not sin as the Jews did, and so (G.o.d's laws and ways being the same now as then) be punished as the Jews were. Moreover, St. Paul says, that Christians now are just as much G.o.d's chosen people as the Jews were. G.o.d told the Jews that they were to be a nation of kings and priests to Him. And St. John opens the Revelations by saying: ”Unto Him that loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto G.o.d and His Father, to Him be glory.” St. Paul tells the Ephesians, who had not a drop of Jewish blood in their veins, that through Jesus Christ both Jews and Gentiles had ”access by one Spirit unto the Father. Now, therefore,”

he goes on, ”ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow- citizens with the saints, and of the household of G.o.d.” In fact, he tells the Christians of every country to which he writes, that all the promises which G.o.d made to the Jews belonged to them just as much, that there was no more any difference between Jew and Gentile, that the Lord Jesus Christ was just as really among them, and with them, ruling and helping each people in their own country, as He was in Jerusalem when Isaiah saw His glory filling the Temple, and when Zion was called the place of His inheritance. Indeed, the Lord Jesus said the same thing Himself, for He said that all power was given to Him in heaven and earth; that He was with His churches (that is, with all companies of Christian people, such as England) even to the end of the world; that wherever two or three were gathered together in His name, He would be in the midst of them; and if those blessed words and good news be true, we Englishmen have a right to believe firmly that we belong to Him just as much as the old Jews did; and when we read these Psalms, to take every word of their good news--and their warnings also--to ourselves, and to our own land of England.

And when we read in the text, that the Lord chose Jacob unto Himself and Israel for His own possession, we have a right to say: ”And the Lord has chosen also England unto himself, and this favoured land of Britain for his own possession.” When we say in the Psalm: ”The Lord did what He pleased in heaven, and earth, and sea,” to educate and deliver the people of the Jews, we have a right to say just as boldly: ”And so He has done for England, for us, and for our forefathers.”

This then is the reason, the chief reason, why these Psalms are appointed to be read every Sunday in church, and every morning and evening where there is daily service--to teach us that the Lord takes care not only of one man's soul here, and another woman's soul there, but of the whole country of England; of its wars and its peace; of its laws and government, its progress and its afflictions; of all, in short, that happens to it as a nation, as one body of men, which it is. It must be so, my good friends, else we should be worse off than the old Jews, and not better off, as all the New Testament solemnly a.s.sures us a thousand times over that we are.

For in the covenant which G.o.d made with the Jews, and in the strange events, good and bad, which He caused to happen to their nation, not only the great saints among them were taken care of, but all cla.s.ses, and all characters, good and bad, even those who had not wisdom or spiritual life enough to seek G.o.d for themselves, still had their share in the good laws, in the teaching and guiding, and in the national blessings which He sent on the whole nation. They had a chance given them of rising, and improving, and prospering, as the rest of their countrymen rose, and improved, and prospered. And when the Lord came to visit Judaea in flesh and blood, we find that He went on the same method. He did not merely go to such men as Philip and Nathaniel, to the holy and elect ones among the Jews, but to the whole people; to the LOST sheep, as well as to those who were not lost. He did not part the good from the bad before he healed their sicknesses, and fed them with the loaves and fishes. It was enough for Him that they were Jews, citizens of the Jewish nation. G.o.d's promises belonged not to one Jew or another, but to the Jewish nation; and even the ignorant and the sinful had a share in the blessings of the covenant, great or small in proportion as they chose to live as Jews ought, or to forget and deny that they belonged to G.o.d's people.