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And then think of yourselves, called to copy God, each in his station, and to be fellow-workers with God for the good of each other and of yourselves. Called to work, because you are made in God’s image, and redeemed to be the children of God. Not like the brutes, who cannot work, and can therefore never improve themselves, or the earth around them; but like children of God, whom he has called to the high honour of subduing and replenishing this earth which he has given you, and of handing down by your labour blessings without number to generations yet unborn. And when you go back, one to his farm, another to his shop, another to his daily labour, say to yourselves, This, too, as well as my prayers in church, is my heavenly Father’s command; in doing this my daily duty honestly and well, I can do Christ’s will, copy Christ, approve myself to Christ; single-eyed and single-handed, doing my work as unto God, and not unto men; and so hear, I may hope at last, Christ’s voice saying to me, ‘Well done, thou good and faithful servant. I set thee not to govern kingdoms, to lead senates, to command armies, to preach the gospel, to build churches, to give large charities, to write learned books, to do any great work in the eyes of men. I set thee simply to buy and sell, to plough and reap like a Christian man, and to bring up thy family thereby, in the fear of God and in the faith of Christ. And thou hast done thy duty more or less; and, in doing thy duty, has taught thyself deeper and sounder lessons about thy life, character, and immortal soul, than all books could teach thee. And now thou hast thy reward. Thou hast been faithful over a few things: I will make thee ruler over many things. Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.’
SERMON XIII. FALSE PROPHETS
(Eighth Sunday after Trinity.)
Matthew vii. 16. Ye shall know them by their fruits.
People are apt to overlook, I think, the real meaning of these words. They do so, because they part them from the words which go just before them, about false prophets.
They consider that ‘fruit’ means only a man’s conduct,—that a man is known by his conduct. That professions are worth nothing, and practice worth everything. That the good man, after all, is the man who does right; and the bad man, the man who does wrong. Excellent doctrine; and always needed. God grant that we may never forget it.
But the text surely does not quite mean that. ‘Fruit’ here does not mean a man’s own conduct, but the conduct of those whom he teaches. For see,—our Lord is talking of prophets; that is preachers, who set up to preach the Word of God, in the name of God. ‘Beware,’ he says, ‘of false prophets. By their fruits ye shall know them. By what you gather from them,’ he says. ‘For do men gather grapes off thorns, or figs off thistles?’
Now what is a preacher’s fruit? Surely the fruit of his preaching; and that is, not what he does himself, but what he makes you do. His fruit is what you gather from him; and what you gather from him is, not merely the notions and doctrines which he puts into your head, but the way of life in which he makes you live. What he makes you do, is the fruit which you get from him. Does he make you a better man, or does he not? that is the question. That is the test whether he is a false prophet, or a true one; whether he is preaching to you the eternal truth of God, or man’s inventions and devil’s lies.
Does he make you a better man? Not—Does he make you feel better? but—Does he make you behave better? There is too much preaching in the world which makes men feel better—so much better, indeed, that they go about like the Pharisee, thanking God that they are not as other men, before they have any sound reason to believe that they are not as other men; because they live just such lives as other men do, as far as respectability, and the fear of hurting their custom or their character, allow them to do. They have their prophets, their preachers who teach them; and by their fruits in these men, the preachers may be known, by those who have eyes to see, and hearts to understand.
Therefore beware of false prophets. There are too many of them in the world now, as there were in our Lord’s time; men who go about with the name of God on their lips, and the Bible in their hands, in sheep’s clothing outwardly; but inwardly ravening wolves. In sheep’s clothing, truly, smooth and sanctimonious, meek, and sleek. But wolves at heart; wolves in cunning and slyness, as you will find, if you have to deal with them; wolves in fierceness and cruelty, as you will find if you have to differ from them; wolves in greediness and covetousness, and care of their own interest and their own pockets. And wolves, too, in hardness of heart; in the hard, dark, horrible, unjust doctrines, which they preach with a smile upon their lips, not merely in sermons, but in books and tracts innumerable, making out the Heavenly Father, the God whose name is Love and Justice, to be even such a one as themselves. Wolves, too, in their habit of hunting in packs, each keeping up his courage by listening to the howl of his fellows. They may come in the name of God. They may tell you that they preach the Gospel; that no one but they preach the Gospel. But by their fruits ye shall know them.
Will they make you better men? Is it not written, ‘The disciple is not above his master?’ What will you learn from them, but to be like them? And the more you take in their doctrines, the more like them you will be; for is it not written, ‘He that is perfect shall be as his master.’ Can they lead you to eternal life? Is it not written, ‘If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch?’
But by their fruits ye shall know them. By their fruits in the world at large, if you have eyes to see it. By their fruits in your own lives, if you give yourselves up to listen to their false doctrines, for you will surely find, that, in the first place, they will not make you honest men. They will not teach you to be just and true in all your dealings. They will not teach you common morality. No, my friends, it is most sad to see, how much preaching and tract-writing there is in England now, which talks loud about Protestant doctrine, and Gospel truths, while all the fruit of it seems to be, to teach men to abuse the Pope, and to fancy that every one is going to hell, who does not agree with their opinions; while their own lives, their own conduct, their own morality, seems not improved one whit by all this preaching. And yet men like such preaching, and run to hear it. Of course they do; for it leaves them to behave all the week as if there was no Law of God, if only they will go on Sundays, and listen to what is called, I fear most untruly, the Gospel of God; leaves them, on condition of belonging to some particular party, and listening to some favourite preacher, free to give way to their passions, their spite, their meanness; to grind their servants, cheat their masters, trick their customers, adulterate their goods, and behave in money-matters as if all was fair in business, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ had nothing to do with common honesty; and all the while,
Compound for sins they are inclined to.
By damning those they have no mind to.
My friends, these things ought not so to be. There is a Gospel of God, which preaches full forgiveness for the sake of Jesus Christ, to all who turn from their sins. But there is a Law of God, likewise, which executes sure vengeance against all who do not turn from their sins; be their professions as high, or their doctrines as correct as they may. A law which is in the Gospel itself, and says, by the mouth of the Apostle St. John, ‘Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as God is righteous’—he—and not he who expects to be saved by listening to some false preacher who teaches his congregation how to go to heaven without having thought one heavenly thought, or done one heavenly-deed.
Yes. There is an eternal law of God, which people are forgetting, I often fear, more and more, in England just now. I sometimes dread, lest we should be sinking into that hideous state of which the old Hebrew prophet speaks—‘The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and my people love to have it so: and what will ye do in the end thereof?’ What, indeed; if people are to be taught more and more, that religion is a matter merely of doctrines and fancies and feelings, and has nothing to do with common morality, and common honesty, and common self-control and improvement of character and conduct?
My friends, in these dangerous days, for dangerous they truly are—like those of the Scribes and Pharisees of old; days in which bigotry and hardness of heart, hypocrisy and lip-profession stalk triumphant; days, in which men, like the Scribes and Pharisees of old, boast of the Bible, worship the Bible, think they have eternal life in the Bible, spend vast sums every year in spreading the Bible; and yet will neither read the Bible honestly, nor obey its plain commands—In such days as these, what prophet shall we fall back upon? What preacher shall we trust?
We can at least trust our Bible. We can read it honestly, if only there be in us the honest and good heart; we can obey its plain commands, if only we hunger and thirst after righteousness, and desire really to become good men. Read your Bibles for yourselves with a single eye, and with a pure heart which longs to know God’s will because it longs to do God’s will; and you will need no false prophets, under pretence of explaining it to you, to draw you away from the Holy Catholic faith into which you were baptized.
But if you must have a commentary on the Bible; if you must have some book to give you a general notion of what the Bible teaches you, and what it expects of you; go to the prayer-book. Go to the good old Catechism which you learnt at school. There, though not from the popular preachers, you will learn that God is just and true, loving and merciful, and no respecter of persons. There you will learn, that Christ died not for a few elect, but for the sins of the whole world. There you will learn that in baptism, by God’s free grace, and not by any experiences or feelings of your own, you were made children of God, members of Christ, and inheritors of the kingdom of heaven. There you will learn, that the elect whom the Holy Spirit sanctifies, are not merely a favoured few, but you—every baptized man, woman, and child. That the Holy Spirit is with you, every one of you, to sanctify you, if you will open your hearts to his gracious inspirations. And there you will learn what sanctification really means. Not a few fancies and feelings about which any man can deceive himself, and any man, also, deceive his neighbours. No, that sanctification means being made holy, righteous, virtuous, good. That sanctification means ‘To love your neighbour as yourself, and to do to all men as they should do unto you—to love, honour, and succour your father and mother’—Shall I go on? Or do you all know the plain old duty to your neighbours, which stands in the Church Catechism. If you do, thank God that you were taught it in your youth. Read it over and over again. Think over it. Pray to God to give you grace to act upon it, and to shew the fruit of it in your lives. And then, ‘By its fruits you shall know it.’ By its fruits you shall know the virtue of the Catechism, and of the great and good men, true prophets of God, who wrote that Catechism. Yes. Cling to that Catechism, even if it convinces you of many sins, and makes you sadly ashamed of yourselves again and again; for, believe me, it will prove your best safeguard in doctrine, your best teacher in practice, in these dangerous days—days in which every man who believes that right is right, and wrong is wrong, has need to pray with all his heart—‘From all false doctrine, heresy, and schism; from hardness of heart, and contempt of thy word and commandments; good Lord, deliver us!’
SERMON XIV. THE ROCK OF AGES
(Ninth Sunday after Trinity.)
1 Corinthians x. 4. They drank of that Spiritual Rock which followed them; and that Rock was Christ.
St. Paul has been speaking to the Corinthians about the Holy Communion.
In this text, St. Paul is warning the Corinthians about it. He says, ‘You may be Christian men; you may have the means of grace; you may come to the Communion and use the means of grace; and yet you may become castaways.’ St. Paul himself says, in the very verse before, ‘I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest . . . . I myself should be a castaway.’ Look, he says then, ‘at the old Jews in the wilderness. They all partook of God’s grace: but they were not all saved. They were all baptized to Moses in the cloud and in the sea. They all ate the same spiritual meat, the manna from heaven. They all drank the same spiritual drink, the water out of the rock in Horeb. And yet with many of them God was not well pleased;’ for they were overthrown—their corpses were scattered far and wide—in the wilderness. The spiritual meat and the spiritual drink could not keep them alive, if they sinned, and deserved death. ‘So,’ says St. Paul, ‘with you. You are members of Christ’s body. The cup of blessing which we bless, is the communion of the blood of Christ; the bread which we break, is the communion of the body of Christ:’ but beware, they will not save you, if you sin. Nothing will save you, if you sin. If you lust after evil things, as those old Jews did; if you are idolaters, as they were; if you are profligates, as they were; if you tempt Christ, as they did; if you murmur against God, as they murmured, you will be destroyed like them.
Note here two things. First, that St. Paul says that we really receive Christ in the Holy Communion. He does not say, as some do, that the Communion is merely a remembrance of Christ’s death. He says that the faithful verily and indeed receive Christ’s body and blood in the Sacrament. He says so, distinctly, plainly, literally; and if that be not true, his whole argument goes for nothing, and will not stand. The Jews, he says, drank of the spiritual Rock which followed them, and that Rock was Christ; and so he says to you. But that did not save them from the punishment of their sins, when they went and sinned afresh: neither will it save you.
But now—What are these strange words which St. Paul uses? These old Jews drank of the spiritual Rock which followed them, and that Rock was Christ? Where in the Old Testament do we read of the Rock following them? We read of Moses striking the rock in Horeb, at the beginning of their wanderings in the wilderness; but not of its following them afterwards.
St. Paul is here using a beautiful old tradition of the Rabbis, that the rock which Moses struck in Horeb followed the Jews through all their forty years’ wanderings, and that on every Sabbath day when they stopped, it stopped also, and the elders called to it, ‘Flow out, O fountain,’ and the water flowed. A beautiful old story, which St. Paul turns into an allegory, to teach, as by a picture, the deepest and the highest truth. Whether that rock followed them or not, he says, there was One who did follow them, from whom flowed living water; and that Rock is Christ. Christ followed them. Christ the creator, the preserver, the inspirer, the light, the life, the guide of men, and of all the universe. It was to Christ they owed their deliverance from Egypt; to Christ they owed their knowledge of God, and of the law of God, to Christ they owed whatever reason, justice, righteousness, good government, there was among them. And to Christ we owe the same.
The rock was a type of him from whom flows living water. As he himself said on earth, ‘Whosoever drinketh of the water which I shall give him, shall never thirst; but the water which I shall give him shall be in him a well of water, springing up to everlasting life.’ Just as the manna also was a type of him, as he himself declared, when the Jews talked to him of the manna; ‘Our fathers did eat manna in the desert, as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’ Then Jesus said to them, ‘Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven.’ No: but only a type and picture of it. ‘My Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world. . . . I am that bread of life.’
My friends, herein is a great mystery. Something of what it means, however, we may learn from that wise and good Jew, Philo, who was St. Paul’s teacher according to the flesh, before he became a Christian; and who himself was so near to the kingdom of God, that St. Paul often in his epistles uses Philo’s very words, putting into them a Christian meaning. And what says he concerning the Rock of living waters?
The soul, he says, falls in with a scorpion in the wilderness; and then thirst, which is the thirst of the passions—of the lusts which war in our members—seizes on it; till God sends forth on it the stream of his own perfect wisdom, and causes the changed soul to drink of unchangeable health. For the steep rock is the wisdom of God (by whom he means the Word of God, whom Philo knew not in the flesh, but whom we know, as the Lord Jesus Christ), which, being both sublime and the first of all things; he quarried out of his own powers; and of it he gives drink to the souls which love God; and they, when they have drunk, are filled with the most universal manna.
So says Philo, the good Jew, who knew not Christ; and therefore he says only a part of the truth. If you wish to learn the whole truth, you must read St. John’s Gospel, and St. Paul’s Epistles, especially this very text; and again, the opening of the Epistle to the Ephesians; and again, that most royal passage in the opening of the Colossians, where he speaks of the Everlasting Being of Christ, who is before all things, and by whom all things consist—in whom dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, and in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
Therefore he is rightly called the Rock, the Rock of Ages, the Eternal Rock; because on him all things rest, and have rested since the foundation of the world, being made, and kept together, and ruled, and inspired by him alone. Therefore he is rightly called the Rock of living waters; for in him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, and from him they flow forth freely to all who cry to him in their thirst after truth and holiness. Yes, my friends, by Christ all things live; and therefore, most of all, by Christ our souls live. To be parted from Christ is death. To be joined to Christ and the body of Christ is life.
But what life? The life of the soul. And what is the life of the soul? Holiness, righteousness, sanctification, virtue,—call it what pleases you best. I shall call it goodness. That is the only life of the soul. And why? Because it is the life of Christ. That is the only wisdom of the soul. And why? Because it is the mind of Christ. That is the living water. And why? Because it flows eternally from Christ.
For who is Christ, but the likeness of God, and the glory of God? And what is the likeness of God, but goodness; and what is the glory of God, but goodness? Therefore Christ is goodness itself, as it is written, ‘Now the Lord is that Spirit.’ Yes, if you will believe it, Christ, the only-begotten Son, co-equal and co-eternal, is the very and essential goodness of the Father, coming out everlastingly in action and in life, in himself, and in his people, who are his mystical body, filled with the Spirit of him and his Father; who is the Holy Spirit, the spirit of goodness. From Christ, and not from any created being, comes all goodness in man or angel. Comes from Christ? It were more right, and more according to St. Paul’s own words, to say, that all goodness is Christ; Christ dwelling in a man, Christ forming himself in a man, little by little, step by step, as he grows in grace, in purity, in self-control, in experience, in knowledge, in wisdom, in strength, in patience, in love, in charity; till he comes to the stature of a perfect man, to the measure of the fulness of Christ.
Meanwhile, let the good which a man does be much, or be it little, he must say, ‘The good which I do, I do not, but Christ who dwelleth in me.’
For in every age of man, it is Christ who is awakening in him the hunger and thirst after righteousness, and then satisfying it with the only thing which can satisfy them, namely, his most blessed self.
Yes, believe it. It is Christ in the child which makes it speak the truth; Christ in the child which makes it shrink from whatever it has been told is wrong. It is Christ in the young man, which fills him with lofty aspirations, hopes of bettering the world around him, hopes of training his soul to be all that it can be, and of putting forth all his powers in the service of Christ. It is Christ in the middle-aged man, which makes him strong in good works, labouring patiently, wisely, and sturdily; so that having drunk of the living waters himself, they may flow out of him again to others in good deeds; a fountain springing up in him to an eternal life of goodness. It is Christ in the old man, which makes him look on with calm content while his own body and mind decay, knowing that the kingdom of God cannot decay; for Christ is ruling it in righteousness; and all will be well with him, and with his children after him, and with all mankind, and all heaven and earth, if they themselves only will it, long after he has been gathered to his fathers.
Yes, such a man knows in whom he has believed. He knows that the spiritual Rock has been following him through all his wanderings in this weary world; and that that Rock is Christ. He can recollect how, again and again, at his Sabbath haltings in his life’s journey, it was to him in the Holy Communion as to the Israelites of old in their haltings in the wilderness, when the priests of Jehovah cried to the mystic rock, ‘Flow forth, O fountain,’ and the waters flowed. So can he recollect how, in Holy Communion, there flowed into his soul streams of living water, the water of life, quenching that thirst of his soul, which no created thing could slake; the water of life; of Christ’s life, which is the light of men, shewing them what they ought to be and do; the life which is the light; the life which is according to the eternal and divine reason; the life of wisdom; which is the life of love; which is the life of justice; which is the life of Christ; which is the life of God.
But if these things are so—and so they are, for Christ has said it, St. Paul has said it, St. John has said it—but if these things are so, will they not teach us much about Holy Communion, how we may receive it worthily, and how unworthily?
If what we receive in the Communion be Christ himself, the good Christ who is to make us good; then how can we receive it worthily, if we do not hunger and thirst after goodness? If we do not come thither, longing to be made good, and sanctified, then we come for the wrong thing, to the wrong place. We are like those Corinthians who came to the Lord’s supper not to be made good men, but to exalt their own spiritual self-conceit; and so only ate and drank their own damnation, not discerning the Lord’s body, that it was a holy body, a body of righteousness and goodness.
But if we come hungering and thirsting to be made good men, then we come for the right thing, to the right place. Then we need not stay away, because we feel ourselves intolerably burdened with many sins; that will be our very reason for coming, that we may be cleansed from our sins—cleansed not only from their guilt, but from their power; and cry, in spirit and in truth, as we kneel at that holy table—
Rock of ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in thee;
By the water and the blood,
From thy riven side which flowed,
Be of sin the double cure,
Cleanse me from its guilt and power.
Yes, from its guilt and from its power also. Let us all pray, each in his own fashion:—
Oh Lamb eternal, beyond all place and time! Oh Lamb slain eternally, before the foundation of the world! Oh Lamb, which liest slain eternally, in the midst of the throne of God! Let the blood of life, which flows from thee, procure me pardon for the past; let the water of life, which flows from thee, give me strength for the future. I come to cast away my own life, my life of self and selfishness, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, that I may live it no more; and to receive thy life, which is created after the likeness of God, in righteousness and true holiness, that I may live it for ever and ever, and find it a well of life springing up in me to everlasting life. Eternal Goodness, make me good like thee. Eternal Wisdom, make me wise like thee. Eternal Justice, make me just like thee. Eternal Love, make me loving like thee. Then I shall hunger no more, and thirst no more; for
Thou, O Christ, art all I want;
More than all in thee I find;
Raise me, fallen; cheer me, faint;
Heal me, sick; and lead me, blind.
Thou of life the fountain art;
Freely let me take of thee;
Spring thou up within my heart;
Rise to all eternity.
Oh come to Holy Communion with the words of that glorious hymn not merely on your lips, but in your hearts; and you will never come amiss.
