Part 5 (1/2)

The old order changeth, giving place to the new; And G.o.d fulfils Himself in many ways, Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.

And new methods and new inst.i.tutions have arisen, and will yet arise, for seeking and saving that which is lost. G.o.d's blessing on them all, to whatsoever party, church, or sect they may belong! Whosoever cast out devils in Christ's name, Christ has forbidden us to forbid them, whether they follow us or not. But yet shall we not still honour and love the old Evangelical School, and many an Inst.i.tution which it has left behind, as heirlooms to some of us, at least, from our mothers, or from women to whom we owed, in long past years, our earliest influences for good, our earliest examples of a practical Christian life, our earliest proofs that there was indeed a Spirit of G.o.d, a gracious Spirit, Who gave grace to the hearts, the deeds, the very looks and voices of those in whom He dwelt; Inst.i.tutions, which are too likely some of them to die, simply from the loss of old friends?

The loss of old friends. Yes, so it is always in this world. The old earnest hearts go home one by one to their rest; and the young earnest hearts--and who shall blame them?--go elsewhere; and try new fas.h.i.+ons of doing good, which are more graceful and more agreeable to them. For the religious world, like all other forms of the world, has its fas.h.i.+ons; and of them too stands true the saying of the apostle: That this world and the fas.h.i.+on thereof pa.s.s away. Many a good work, which once was somewhat fas.h.i.+onable in its way, has become somewhat unfas.h.i.+onable, and something else is fas.h.i.+onable in its place; and five-and-twenty years hence something else will have become fas.h.i.+onable; and our children will look back on our ways of doing good with pity, if not with contempt, as narrow and unenlightened, just as we are too apt to look back on our fathers'

ways. And all the while, what can they teach worth teaching, what can we teach worth teaching, save what our fathers and mothers taught, what the Spirit of G.o.d taught them, and has taught to all who would listen since the foundation of the world, ”shewing man what was good:” and what was that--”What doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy G.o.d?”

Ah! why do we, even in religious and moral matters, even in the doing good to the souls and bodies of our fellow-creatures, allow ourselves to be the puppets of fas.h.i.+ons? Of fas.h.i.+ons which even when harmless, even beautiful, are but the garments, or rather stage-properties, in which we dress up the high instincts which G.o.d's Spirit bestows on us, in order to make them agreeable enough for our own prejudices, or pretty enough for our own tastes. How little do we perceive our own danger--so little that we yield to it every day--the danger of mistaking our fas.h.i.+on of doing good for the good done; aye, for the very Spirit of G.o.d Who inspires that good; mistaking the garment for the person who wears it, the outward and visible sign for the inward and spiritual grace; and so in our hearts falling actually into that very error of transubstantiation, of which we repudiate the name!

Why, ah why, will we not take refuge from fas.h.i.+ons in Him in Whom are no fas.h.i.+ons--even in the Holy Spirit of G.o.d, Who is unchangeable and eternal as the Father and the Son from Whom He proceeds; Who has spoken words in sundry and divers manners to all the elect of G.o.d; Who has inspired every good thought and feeling which was ever thought or felt in earth or heaven; but Whose message of inspiration has been, and will be, for ever the same--”Do justly, love mercy, walk humbly with thy G.o.d”?

Could we but utterly trust Him, and utterly believe in His presence: then we should welcome all truth, under whatever outward forms of the mere intellect it was uttered; then we should bless every good deed, by whomsoever and howsoever it was done; then we should rise above all party strifes, party cries, party fas.h.i.+ons and s.h.i.+bboleths, to the contemplation of the One supreme good Spirit--the Spirit of Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever; and hold to the One Fas.h.i.+on of Almighty G.o.d, which never changes, for it is eternal by the necessity of His own eternal character; namely,--To be perfect, even as our Father in Heaven is perfect; because He causes His sun to s.h.i.+ne on the evil and on the good, and His rain to fall on the just and on the unjust.

SERMON VII. CONFUSION.

PSALM CXIX. 31.

I have stuck unto thy testimonies: O Lord, confound me not.

What is the meaning of this text? What is this which the Psalmist and prophets call being confounded; being put to shame and confusion of face?

What is it? It is something which they dread more than death; which they dread as much as h.e.l.l. Nay, it seems in the mind of some of them to be part and parcel of h.e.l.l itself; one of the very worst things which could happen to them after death: for what is written in the Book of the Prophet Daniel?--”Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.”

And we Christians are excusable if we dread it likewise. How often does St Paul speak of shame as an evil to be dreaded; just as he speaks, even more often, of glory and honour as a thing to be longed for and striven after. That one word, ”ashamed,” occurs twelve times and more in the New Testament, beside St John's warning, which alone is enough to prove what I allege, ”that we have not to be ashamed before Christ at his coming.”

And how does the Te Deum--the n.o.blest hymn written by man since St John finished his Book of Revelations--how does that end, but with the same old cry as that of the Psalmist in the 119th Psalm--

”O Lord, in thee have I trusted, let me never be confounded”?

Now it is difficult to tell men what being confounded means; difficult and almost needless; for there are those who know what it means without being told; and those who do not know what it means without being told, are not likely to know by my telling, or any man's telling. No, not if an angel from heaven came and told them what being confounded meant would they understand him, at least till they were confounded themselves; and then they would know by bitter experience--perhaps when it was too late.

And who are they? What sort of people are they?

First, silly persons; whom Solomon calls fools--though they often think themselves refined and clever enough--luxurious and ”fas.h.i.+onable” people, who do not care to learn, who think nothing worth learning save how to enjoy themselves; who call it ”bad form” to be earnest, and turn off all serious questions with a jest. These are they of whom Wisdom says--”How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity, and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge? I also will laugh at your calamity, and mock when your fear cometh.”

Next, mean and truly vulgar persons; who are shameless; who do not care if they are caught out in a lie or in a trick. These are they of whom it is written that outside of G.o.d's kingdom, in the outer darkness wherein are weeping and gnas.h.i.+ng of teeth, are dogs, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.

And next, and worst of all, self-conceited people. These are they of whom Solomon says, ”Seest thou a man who is wise in his own conceit?

There is more hope of a fool than of him.” They are the people who will not see when they are going wrong; who will not hear reason, nor take advice, no, nor even take scorn and contempt; who will not see that they are making fools of themselves, but, while all the world is laughing at them, walk on serenely self-satisfied, certain that they, and they only, know what the world is made of, and how to manage the world. These are they of whom it is written--”He that being often reproved, hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.” Then they will learn, and with a vengeance, what being confounded means by being confounded themselves, and finding themselves utterly wrong, where they thought themselves utterly right. Yet no. I do not think that even that would cure some people. There are those, I verily believe, who would not confess that they were in the wrong even in the bottomless pit, but, like Satan and his fallen angels in Milton's poem, would have excellent arguments to prove that they were injured and ill-used, deceived and betrayed, and lay the blame of their misery on G.o.d, on man, on anything but their own infallible selves.

Who, then, are the people who know what being confounded means; who are afraid, and terribly afraid, of being brought to shame and confusion efface?

I should say, all human beings in proportion as they are truly human beings, are not brutal; in proportion, that is, as they are good or have the capacity of goodness in them; that is, in proportion as the Spirit of G.o.d is working in them, giving them the tender heart, the quick feelings, the earnestness, the modesty, the conscientiousness, the reverence for the good opinion of their fellow-men, which is the beginning of eternal life. Do you not see it in the young? Modesty, bashfulness, shame-facedness--as the good old English word was--that is the very beginning of all goodness in boys and girls. It is the very material out of which all other goodness is made; and those who laugh at, or torment, young people for being modest and bashful, are doing the devil's work, and putting themselves under the curse which G.o.d, by the mouth of Solomon the wise, p.r.o.nounced against the scorners who love scorning, and the fools who hate knowledge.

This is the rule with dumb animals likewise. The more intelligent, the more high-bred they are, the more they are capable of feeling shame; and the more they are liable to be confounded, to lose their heads, and become frantic with doubt and fear. Who that has watched dogs does not know that the cleverer they are, the more they are capable of being actually ashamed of themselves, as human beings are, or ought to be? Who that has trained horses does not know that the stupid horse is never vicious, never takes fright? The failing which high-bred horses have of becoming utterly unmanageable, not so much from bodily fear, as from being confounded, not knowing what people want them to do--that is the very sign, the very effect, of their superior organization: and more shame to those who ill-use such horses. If G.o.d, my friends, dealt with us as cruelly and as clumsily as too many men deal with their horses, He would not be long in driving us mad with terror and shame and confusion.

But He remembers our frame; He knoweth whereof we are made, and remembereth that we are but dust: else the spirit would fail before Him, and the souls which He hath made. And to Him we can cry, even when we know that we have made fools of ourselves--Father who made me, Christ who died for me, Holy Spirit who teachest me, have patience with my stupidity and my ignorance. Lord, in thee have I trusted, let me never be confounded.