Part 18 (2/2)
”I became dumb and opened not my mouth; for it was Thy doing.”
So says the Burial psalm. So let us say likewise.
”I became dumb:” not with rage, not with despair; but because it was Thy doing; and therefore it was done well. It was the deed, not of chance, not of necessity: for had it been, then those who loved him might have been excused had they cursed chance, cursed necessity, cursed the day in which they entered a universe so cruel, so capricious. Not so. For it was the deed of The Father, without whom a sparrow falls not to the ground; of The Son, who died upon the Cross in the utterness of His desire to save; of The Holy Ghost, who is the Lord and Giver of life to all created things.
It was the deed of One who delights in life and not in death; in bliss and not in woe; in light and not in darkness; in order and not in anarchy; in good and not in evil. It had a final cause, a meaning, a purpose: and that purpose is very good. What it is, we know not: and we need not know. To guess at it would be indeed to meddle with matters too high for us. So let us be dumb: but dumb not from despair, but from faith; dumb not like a wretch weary with calling for help which does not come, but dumb like a child sitting at its mother's feet; and looking up into her face, and watching her doings; understanding none of them as yet, but certain that they all are done in Love.
SERMON XXVI. G.o.d AND MAMMON.
MATTHEW VI. 24.
Ye cannot serve G.o.d and Mammon.
This is part of the Gospel for this Sunday; and a specially fit text for this day, which happens to be St Matthew's Day.
On this day we commemorate one who made up his mind, once and for all, that whoever could serve G.o.d and money at once, he could not: and who therefore threw up all his prospects in life--which were those of a peculiarly lucrative profession, that of a farmer of Roman taxes--in order to become the wandering disciple of a reputed carpenter's son. He became, it is true, in due time, an Apostle, an Evangelist, and a Martyr; and if posthumous fame be worth the ambition of any man, Matthew the publican--Saint Matthew as we call him--has his share thereof, because he discovered, like a wise man, that he could not serve G.o.d and money; and therefore, when Jesus saw him sitting at the receipt of custom, and bade him ”Follow Me,” he rose up, and left his money-bags, and followed Him, whom he afterwards discovered to be no less than G.o.d made man. ”Ye cannot serve G.o.d and Mammon.” It is very difficult to make men believe these words. So difficult, that our Lord Himself could not make the Jews believe them, especially the rich and comfortable religious people among them. When He told them that they could not serve two masters; that they could not wors.h.i.+p G.o.d and money at the same time, the Pharisees, who were covetous, derided Him. They laughed to scorn the notion that they could not be very religious, and respectable, and so forth, and yet set their hearts on making money all the while. They thought that they could have their treasure on earth and in heaven also; and they went their way, in spite of our Lord's warnings; and made money, honestly no doubt, if they could, but if not, why then dishonestly; for money must be made, at all risks.
St Paul warned them, by his disciple Timothy, of their danger. He told them that the love of money is the root of all evil; and that those who will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful l.u.s.ts, which drown men in destruction and perdition.
St James warned them even more sternly; and told the rich men among the Jews of his day to weep and howl for the miseries which were coming on them. They had heaped up treasure for the last days, when it would be of no use to them. They were fattening their hearts--he told them--against a day of slaughter.
But they listened to St Paul and St James no more than they did to our Lord. After the fall of Jerusalem, even more than before, they became the money-makers and the money-lenders of the whole world. And what befel them? Their wealth stirred up the envy and the suspicion of the Gentiles. They were persecuted, robbed, slaughtered, again and again for the sake of their money. And yet they would not give up their ruinous pa.s.sion. Throughout all the middle ages, here in England, just as much as on the Continent, they lent money at exorbitant interest; and then their debtors, to escape payment, turned on them for not being Christians; accused them of poisoning the wells, and what not; ma.s.sacred them, burnt them alive, and committed the most horrible atrocities; fulfilling the warnings of our Lord and His Apostles, only too terribly and brutally, again and again.
Do I say this to make any man dislike or despise the Jews? G.o.d forbid.
The Jews have n.o.ble qualities in them, by which they have prospered, and for the sake of which--as I believe--G.o.d's blessing rests on them to this day. They have prospered: not by their love of money, not even by their extraordinary courage, persistence, and intellectual power; but by their keeping two at least of the commandments, as no other people on earth has kept them. They have kept the second commandment; and hated idolatry, and any approach to it, with a stern and n.o.ble hatred, which would G.o.d that all who call themselves Christians would imitate. They have kept, likewise, the fifth commandment; and have honoured their parents, as no other people on earth have done, except it may be the Chinese, who prosper still, in spite of many sins. Their family affections are so intense, their family life is so pure and sound, that they put to shame too many Christians; and where the family life is sound, the heart of a people is sure to be sound likewise; and all will come right with them at last: and meanwhile the days of the Jews will be long in whatsoever land the Lord their G.o.d shall give them, till the day of which St Paul prophesied, when the veil shall be taken off their hearts, and they shall acknowledge that Christ, whom their forefathers crucified in their blindness, for their King, and Lord, and G.o.d; and so all Israel shall be saved. Amen. Amen.
And meanwhile, who are we that we should complain of the Jews now, or the Jews of our Lord's time, for being too fond of money? Is anything more certain, than that we English are becoming given up, more and more, to the pa.s.sion for making money at all risks, and by all means fair or foul?
Our covetousness is--alas! that it should be so--become a by-word among foreign nations; while our old English commercial honesty--which was once our strength, and protected us from, and all but atoned for, our covetousness--is going fast; and leaving us, feared indeed for our power; but suspected for our chicanery; and odious for our arrogance.
And it is most sad, but most certain, that we are like those Pharisees of old in this also, that we too have made up our mind that we can serve G.o.d and Mammon at once; that the very cla.s.ses among us who are most utterly given up to money-making, are the very cla.s.ses which, in all denominations, make the loudest religious profession; that our churches and chapels are crowded on Sundays by people whose souls are set, the whole week through, upon gain and nothing but gain; who pretend to reverence Scripture, while they despise the warning of Scripture, that the love of money is the root of all evil.
Have we not seen in our own days persons of the highest religious profession, whose names were the foremost on every charitable subscription list, so devoured by this mad love for money for its own sake, that though they had already more money than they could spend, or enjoy in any way soever, save by saying to themselves--I have got it, I have got it--they must needs, in the mere l.u.s.t for becoming richer still, ruin themselves and others by frantic speculations? Have we not seen--but why should I defile myself, and you, and this holy place by telling you what I have seen; and what I hope, and hope alas! in vain, that I shall never see again, among those who must needs serve G.o.d and Mammon? Has not the love of money become such a chronic disease among us, that we can actually calculate, now, when the disease will come to a head; and relieve itself for a while: though alas! only for a while?
About every eleven years, I am informed, we are to expect a commercial crisis; panics, bankruptcies, and misery and ruin to hundreds; a sort of terrible but beneficent thunderstorm, which clears the foul atmosphere of our commercial system at the expense, alas! not merely of the guilty, but of the innocent; involving the widow and the orphan, the poor and the simple, in the same fate as the rich and powerful whom they have trusted to their own ruin. And yet we boast of our civilization and of our Christianity; and hardly one, here and there, lays the lesson to heart, but each man, like a moth about a candle, unwarned by the fate of his fellows, fancies that he at least can flutter round the flames and not be burned; that whoever else cannot serve G.o.d and Mammon, he can do it; and holds, by virtue of his superior prudence, a special dispensation from the plain warnings of Holy Scripture.
But every reasonable man knows what advantages money, and nothing but money, will obtain, not only for a man himself but for his children; and answers me--If I wish to rise in life, if I wish my children to rise in life, how can I do it, without making money?
G.o.d forbid that I should check an honourable ambition, and a desire to rise in life. We all ought to rise in life, and to rise far higher than most of us are likely to rise. But I ask you to consider very seriously what you mean by rising in life.
Do you mean by rising in life, merely becoming a richer man; living in a larger house, eating, drinking, clothing, better; having more servants, carriages, plate? Is that to be the highest triumph of all your labours?
Is that your notion of rising in life? If it is, you are not singular in your notion. There are thousands who call themselves civilized and Christians, and yet have no higher notion of what man's highest good may be. But do you mean by rising in life, simply becoming a n.o.bler, because a better man? For if you mean that latter, I seriously advise you to hearken to what the Creator and Governor of all heaven and earth, Jesus Christ our Lord, has told you on that matter, when He said--”Seek ye first the kingdom of G.o.d, and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.”
Seek ye first the kingdom of G.o.d. Alas! this money-making generation talks a great deal about religion and saving their souls, being quite indifferent to the serious question--whether their souls are worth saving or not: but as for the kingdom of G.o.d, of which our Lord and His Apostles speak so often, they have forgotten altogether what it is. They talk too, a great deal, about the righteousness of Christ: but they have forgotten also what the righteousness of Christ, which is also the righteousness of G.o.d, is like.
The kingdom of G.o.d; the government of G.o.d; the laws and rules by which Christ, King of kings, and King, too, of every nation and man on earth, whether they know it or not, governs mankind, that is what you have to seek, because it is there already. You are in Christ's kingdom. If you wish to prosper in it, find out what its laws are. That will be true wisdom. For in keeping the commandments of G.o.d, and in obeying His laws; in that alone is life; life for body and soul; life for time and for eternity.
<script>