Sermons for the Times

And whence has all this waste come?  Simply because these Russian rulers have chosen to seek first, not God’s kingdom, but their own.  Instead of behaving like God’s ministers and God’s stewards, and asking, ‘How would God our King have us rule His kingdom?’ they have laboured for their own power, conquering all the nations round them, removing their neighbour’s landmark, and wasting the wealth of their country on armies, and fortresses, and fleets, with which they intended to conquer more and more of the earth which did not belong to them.  Because, instead of seeking God’s righteousness, and saying to themselves, ‘How shall we be righteous, even as our Heavenly Father is righteous, and how shall we teach this great people to be righteous likewise?’ they have sought their own pleasure, and lived in profligacy, covetous and cheating almost beyond belief; and instead of behaving righteously to the people, or teaching them to be righteous, they have crushed down the people, stupefied and corrupted them by slavery, and maddened them by superstitions which are not the righteousness of God, till they have made them easy tools in their unjust wars, and are able to drive them, even by force, like sheep to the slaughter, to die miserably in a cause in which, even if those unhappy slaves conquered, they would only rivet their own chains more tightly, and put more power into the hands of the very rulers who are robbing them of their earnings, dishonouring their daughters, and driving off their sons to die in a foreign land.  Ah, my friends, if these men had but sought first the kingdom of God and His righteousness; if the great wealth, and the wonderful industry and prudence of Russia had been but spent in doing justly, and loving mercy, what a rich and honourable country of brave and industrious Christian men might Russia be; a blessing, and not a curse, to half the earth of God!

Let us pray that she will become so, some day; and we may have hope for her, for she is but young, and has time yet for repentance.

But some may say—indeed, we are all ready enough to say—‘Then the evil of this war is the Russians’ fault, and not ours; and so in every other case.  In every other evil and misery they are rather other people’s fault than ours.  If we do our duty well enough, and if other people would but do theirs, all would be well.’

We are all apt to say this in our hearts.  But our Lord does not say so.  His promise is to all mankind: but His promise is to each of us also.  When He says, Seek ye first God’s kingdom and righteousness, He speaks to you and to me, to every soul now here.  Believe it, my friends.  The more that I see of life, the more I see how much of our sorrow is our own fault; how much of our happiness is in our own hands; and the more I see how little use there is in finding fault with this government, or that, the more I see how much use there is in every man’s finding fault with himself, and taking his share of the blame.

I do not doubt that if the whole people of England, for the last forty years, had sought first God’s kingdom and God’s righteousness, and said to themselves in every matter, not merely ‘What is profitable for us to do?’ but ‘What is right for us to do?’ we should have been spared the expenses and the sorrows of this war: but as for blaming our government, my friends,—what they are we are; we choose them, Englishmen like ourselves, and they truly represent us.  Not one complaint can we make against them, which we may not as justly make against ourselves; and if we had been in their places, we should have done what they did; for the seeds of the same sins are in us; and we yield, each in his own household and his own business, to the same temptations as they, to the sins which so easily beset Englishmen at this present time.  I say, frankly, I see not one charge brought against them in the newspapers which might not quite as justly be brought against me, and, for aught I know, against every one of us here; and while we are not faithful over a few things, what right have we to complain of them for not having been faithful over many things?  Believe, rather (I believe it), that if we had been in their place, we should have done far worse than they; and ask yourselves, ‘Do I seek first God’s kingdom and God’s righteousness; for if I do not, what right have I to lay the blame of my bad success on other men’s not seeking them?’  To each of us, as much as to our government, or to the Russian empire, is Christ’s command; and each of us must take the consequences, if we break it.  Let us look at ourselves, and mend ourselves, and try whether God’s promise will not hold true for us, each in his station, let the world round us go as it will.  Be sure that God is just, and that every man bears his own burden: that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from Thee, O God!  Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?  Be sure that those who trust in Him shall never be confounded, though the earth be moved, and the mountains carried into the midst of the sea, as it is written, ‘Trust in the Lord, and be doing good; dwell in the land, and work where God has placed thee, and verily thou shalt be fed.’

But have we done so, my friends? have we sought first God’s kingdom and His righteousness? have we not rather forgotten the meaning of the text, and what God’s kingdom is, and what His righteousness is?  Do not most people fancy that God’s kingdom only means some pleasant place to which people are to go after they die? and that seeking God’s righteousness only means having Christ’s righteousness imputed to us (as they call it), without our being righteous and good ourselves?  Do not most of us fancy that this very text means, ‘Do you take care of your souls, and God will take care of your bodies; do you see after the salvation of your souls, and God will see after the salvation of your bodies’? a meaning which, in the first place, is not true, for God will do no such thing; and all the religion in the world will not prevent a man’s having to work for his daily bread, or pay his debts for him without money; and a meaning which, in the second place, people themselves do not believe; for religious professors in general now are just as keen about money as irreligious ones, and even more so; so that covetousness and cunning, ambition and greediness to rise in life, seem now-a-days to go hand in hand with a high religious profession; and those who fancy themselves the children of light have become just as wise in their generation as the children of this world whom they despise.

No, my friends, that is not the meaning of the text; and when I ask you, Have you obeyed the text? I do not ask you that question; but one which I believe is something far more spiritual and more deep, something at least which is far more heart-searching, and likely to prick a man’s conscience, perhaps to make him angry with me who ask.

Do you seek first God’s kingdom, or your own profit, your own pleasure, your own reputation?  Do you believe that you are in God’s kingdom, that He is your King, and has called you to the station in which you are to do good and useful work for Him upon this earth of His?  Whatever be your calling, whether you be servant, labourer, farmer, tradesman, gentleman, maid, wife, or widow, father, son, or husband, do you ask yourself every day, ‘Now what are the laws of God’s kingdom about this station of mine? what is my duty here? how can I obey God, and His laws here, and do what He requires of me, and so be a good servant, a good labourer, a good tradesman, a good master, a good parish officer, a good wife, a good parent, pleasing to God, useful to my neighbours and to my countrymen?’  Or do you say to yourselves, ‘How can I get the greatest quantity of money and pleasure out of my station, with the least trouble to myself?’  My dearest friends, ask yourselves, each of you, in which of these two ways do you look at your own station in life?

And do you seek first God’s righteousness?  There can be no mistake as to what God’s righteousness is; for God’s righteousness must be Christ’s righteousness, seeing that He is the express image of His Father.  Now do you ask yourselves, ‘How am I to be righteous in my station, as Christ was in His? how can I do my Heavenly Father’s will, as Christ did? how can I behave like Christ in my station? how would the Lord Jesus Christ have behaved, if He had been in my place, when He was on earth?’  My friends, that is the question, the searching question, the question which must convince us all of sin, and show us so many faults of our own to complain of, that we shall find no time to throw stones at our neighbours.  How would the Lord Jesus Christ have behaved, if He had been in my place when He was upon earth?

My dear friends, till we can all of us answer that question somewhat better than we can now, we have no need to look as far as Russia, or as our forefathers’ mistakes, or our rulers’ mistakes, to find out why this trouble and that trouble come upon us: for we shall find the reason in our own selfish, greedy, self-willed hearts.

Oh, my friends, let us each search our own lives, and repent, and amend, and resolve to do our duty, as sons of God, in the station to which God has called us, by the help of the Spirit of God, which He has promised freely to those who ask Him.  And now, this day, as we thank God for this great victory, let us thank Him, not with our lips merely, but with our lives, by living such lives as He loves to see, such lives as He meant us to live, lives of loyalty to God, and of usefulness to our brethren, and of industry and prudence in our calling, and so help forward, each of us, however humble our station, the glory of God; because we shall each of us, in the cottage and in the field, in the shop and in the mansion, in this our little parish, and therefore in the great nation of which it is a part, help forward the fulfilment of those blessed words, Our Father which art in heaven; Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven; and therefore, also, the fulfilment of the words which come after them, and not before them; Give us this day our daily bread.

SERMON XIV.  ENGLAND’S STRENGTH

2 Kings xix. 34.  I will defend this city, to save it for mine own sake.

The first lesson for this morning’s service is of the grandest in the whole Old Testament; grander perhaps than all, except the story of the passage of the Red Sea, and the giving of the Law on Sinai.  It follows out the story which you heard in the first lesson for last Sunday afternoon, of the invasion of Judea by the Assyrians.  You heard then how this great Assyrian conqueror, Sennacherib, after taking all the fortified towns of Judah, and sweeping the whole country with fire and sword, sent three of his generals up to the very walls of Jerusalem, commanding King Hezekiah to surrender at discretion, and throw himself and his people on Sennacherib’s mercy; how proudly and boastfully he taunted the Jews with their weakness; how, like the Russian emperor now, he called in religion as the excuse for his conquests and robberies, saying, as if God’s blessings were on them, ‘Am I now come up without the Lord against this place to destroy it?  The Lord said to me, Go up against this place to destroy it;’ while all the time what he really trusted in (as his own words showed) was what the Russian emperors trust in, their own strength and the number of their armies.

Jerusalem was thus in utter need and danger; the vast army of the Assyrians was encamped at Lachish, not more than ten miles off; and however strong the walls of Jerusalem might be, and however advantageously it might stand on its high hill, with lofty rocks and cliffs on three sides of it, yet Hezekiah knew well that no strength of his could stand more than a few days against Sennacherib’s army.  For these Assyrians had brought the art of war to a greater perfection than any nation of the old world: they lived for war, and studied, it seems, only how to conquer.  And they have left behind them very remarkable proofs of what sort of men they were, of which I think it right to tell you all; for they are most instructive, not merely because they prove the truth of Isaiah’s account, but because they explain it, and help us in many ways to understand his prophecies.  They are a number of sculptures and paintings, representing Sennacherib, his army, and his different conquests, which were painted by his command, in his palace; and having been lately discovered there, among the ruins of Nineveh, have been brought to England, and are now in the British Museum, while copies of many of them are in the Crystal Palace.  There we see these terrible Assyrian conquerors defeating their enemies, torturing and slaughtering their prisoners, swimming rivers, beating down castles, sweeping on from land to land like a devouring fire, while over their heads fly fierce spirits who protect and prosper their cruelties, and eagles who trail in their claws the entrails of the slain.  The very expression of their faces is frightful for its fierceness; the countenances of a ‘bitter and hasty nation,’ as the Prophet calls them, whose feet were swift to shed blood.  And as for the art of war, and their power of taking walled towns like Jerusalem, you may see them in these pictures battering down and undermining forts and castles, with instruments so well made and powerful, that all other nations who came after them, for more than two thousand years, seem to have been content to copy from them, and hardly to have improved on the old Assyrian engines.

Such, and so terrible, they came up against Jerusalem: to attempt to fight them would have been useless madness; and Hezekiah had but one means of escaping from them, and that was to cast himself and his people upon the boundless mercy, and faithfulness, and power of God.

And Hezekiah had his answer by Isaiah the prophet: and more than an answer.  The Lord took the matter into His own hand, and showed Sennacherib which was the stronger, his soldiers and horses and engines, or the Lord God; and so that terrible Assyrian army came utterly to nought, and vanished off the face of the earth.

Now, my friends, has this noble history no lesson in it for us?  God forbid!  It has a lesson which ought to come nearer to our hearts than to the hearts of any nation: for though we or our forefathers have never been, for nearly three hundred years, in such utter need and danger as Jerusalem was, yet be sure that we might have been so, again and again, had it not been for the mercy of the same God who delivered Jerusalem from the Assyrians.  It is now three hundred years ago that the Lord delivered this country from as terrible an invader as Sennacherib himself; when He three times scattered by storms the fleets of the King of Spain, which were coming to lay waste this land with fire and sword: and since then no foreign foe has set foot on English soil, and we almost alone, of all the nations of Europe, have been preserved from those horrors of war, even to speak of which is dreadful!  Oh, my friends! we know not half God’s goodness to us!

And if you ask me, why God has so blest and favoured this land, I can only answer—and I am not ashamed or afraid to answer—I believe it is on account of the Church of England; it is because God has put His name here in a peculiar way, as He did among the Jews of old, and that He is jealous for His Church, and for the special knowledge of His Gospel and His Law, which He has given us in our Prayer-book and in our Church Catechism, lighting therein a candle in England which I believe will never be put out.  It is not merely that we are a Protestant country,—great blessing as that is,—it is, I believe, that there is something in the Church of England which there is not in Protestant countries abroad, unless perhaps Sweden: for every one of them (except Sweden and ourselves) has suffered, from time to time, invading armies, and the unspeakable horrors of war.  In some of them the light of the Gospel has been quenched utterly, and in others it lingers like a candle flickering down into the socket.  By horrible persecutions, and murder, and war, and pillage, have those nations been tormented from time to time; and who are we, that we should escape?  Certainly from no righteousness of our own.  Some may say, It is our great wealth which has made us strong.  My friends, believe it not.  Look at Spain, which was once the richest of all nations; and did her riches preserve her?  Has she not dwindled down into the most miserable and helpless of all nations?  Has not her very wealth vanished from her, because she sold herself to work all unrighteousness with greediness?

Some may say, It is our freedom which makes us strong.  My friends, believe it not.  Freedom is a vast blessing from God, but freedom alone will preserve no nation.  How many free nations have fallen into every sort of misery, ay, into bitter slavery, in spite of all their freedom.  How many free nations in Europe lie now in bondage, gnawing their tongues for pain, and weary with waiting for the deliverance which does not come?  No, my friends, freedom is of little use without something else—and that is loyalty; reverence for law and obedience to the powers that be, because men believe those powers to be ordained of God; because men believe that Christ is their King, and they His ministers and stewards, and that He it is who appoints all orders and degrees of men in His Holy Church.  True freedom can only live with true loyalty and obedience, such as our Prayer-book, our Catechism, our Church of England preaches to us.  It is a Church meant for free men, who stand each face to face with their Heavenly Father: but it is a Church meant also for loyal men, who look on the law as the ordinance of God, and on their rulers as the ministers of God; and if our freedom has had anything to do (as no doubt it has) with our prosperity, I believe that we owe the greater part of our freedom to the teaching and the general tone of mind which our Prayer-book has given to us and to our forefathers for now three hundred years.

Not that we have listened to that teaching, or acted up to it: God knows, we have been but too like the Jews in Isaiah’s time, who had the Law of God, and yet did every man what was right in his own eyes; we, like them, have been hypocritical; we, like them, have neglected the poor, and the widow, and the orphan; we, like them, have been too apt to pay tithe of mint and anise, and neglect the weightier matters of the law, justice, mercy, and judgment.  When we read that awful first chapter of Isaiah, we may well tremble; for all the charges which he brings against the Jews of his time would just as well apply to us; but yet we can trust in the Lord, as Isaiah did, and believe that He will be jealous for His land, and for His name’s sake, and not suffer the nations to say of us, ‘Where is now their God?’  We can trust Him, that if He turn His hand on us, as He did on the Jews of old, and bring us into danger and trouble, yet it will be in love and mercy, that He may purge away our dross, and take away all our alloy, and restore our rulers as at the first, and our counsellors as at the beginning, that we may be called, ‘The city of righteousness, the faithful city.’  True, we must not fancy that we have any righteousness of our own, that we merit God’s favour above other people; our consciences ought to tell us that cannot be; our Bibles tell us that is an empty boast.  Did we not hear this morning, ‘Bring forth fruits meet for repentance: and think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father; for God is able of these stones to raise up children to Abraham.’  But we may comfort ourselves with the thought that there is One standing among us (though we see Him not) who will, ay, and does, ‘baptize us with the Holy Ghost and with fire, whose fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly purge His floor, and gather the wheat into His garner,’ for the use of our children after us, and the generations yet unborn, while the chaff, all among us which is empty, and light, and rotten, and useless, He will burn up (thanks be to His holy name) with fire unquenchable, which neither the falsehood and folly of man, nor the malice of the Devil, can put out, but which will purge this land of all its sins.

This is our hope, and this is the cause of our thankfulness.  For who but we should be thankful this day that we are Englishmen, members of Christ’s Church of England, inhabitants of, perhaps, the only country in Europe which is not now perplexed with fear of change, while men’s hearts fail them for dread, and looking for those things which are coming on the earth? a country which has never seen, as all the countries round have seen, a foreign army trampling down their crops, burning their farms, cutting down their trees, plundering their towns, destroying in a day the labour of years, while women are dishonoured, men tortured to make them give up their money, the able-bodied driven from their homes, ruined and wanderers, and the sick and aged left to perish of famine and neglect.  My friends, all these things were going on but last year upon the Danube.  They are going on now in Asia: even with all the mercy and moderation of our soldiers and sailors, we have not been able to avoid inflicting some of these very miseries upon our own enemies; and yet here we are, going about our business in peace and safety in a land in which we and our forefathers have found, now for many a year, that just laws make a quiet and prosperous people; that the effect of righteousness is peace, and the fruit of righteousness, quietness and assurance for ever;—a land in which the good are not terrified, the industrious hampered, and the greedy and lawless made eager and restless by expectation of change in government; but every man can boldly and hopefully work in his calling, and ‘whatsoever his hand finds to do, do it with all his might,’ in fair hope that the money which he earns in his manhood he will be able to enjoy quietly in his old age, and hand it down safely to his children, and his children’s children;—a land which for hundreds of years has not felt the unspeakable horrors of war; a land which even now is safely and peacefully gathering in its harvest, while so many countries lie wasted with fire and sword.  Oh, my friends, who made us to differ from others, or what have we that we did not receive?  Not to ourselves do we owe our blessings; hardly even to our wise forefathers: but to God Himself, and the Spirit of God which was with them, and is with us still, in spite of all our shortcomings.  We owe it to our wise Constitution, to our wise Church, the principle of which is that God is Judge and Christ is King, in peace as well as in war, in times of quiet as well as in times of change; I say, to our wise Constitution and to our wise Church, which teach us that all power is of God; that all men who have power, great or small, are His stewards; that all orders and degrees of men in His Holy Church, from the queen on the throne to the labourer in the harvest-field, are called by God to their ministry and vocation, and are responsible to God for their conduct therein.  How then shall we show forth our thankfulness, not only in our lips, but in our lives?  How, but by believing that very principle, that very truth which He has taught us, and by which England stands, that we are God’s people, and God’s servants?  He has indeed showed us what is good, and our fathers before us; and what does the Lord require of us in return, but to do the good which He has showed us, to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with our God?

Oh, my friends, come frankly and joyfully to the Lord’s Table this day.  Confess your sins and shortcomings to Him, and entreat Him to enable you to live more worthily of your many blessings.  Offer to Him the sacrifice of your praise and thankfulness, imperfect though it is, and join with angels and archangels in blessing Him for what He is, and what He has been to you: and then receive your share of His most perfect sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, the bread and the wine which tell you that you are members of His Church; that His body gives you whatsoever life and strength your souls have; that His blood washes out all your sins and shortcomings; that His Spirit shall be renewed in you day by day, to teach you to do the good work which He has prepared already for you, and to walk in the old paths which have led our forefathers, and will lead us too, I trust, safe through the chances and changes of this mortal life, and the fall of mighty kingdoms, towards that perfect City of God which is eternal in the heavens.