We pride ourselves on our superior light, and our improved civilisation, and look down on the old Roman Catholic missionaries, who converted our forefathers from heathendom in the Middle Ages. Now, I am a Protestant, if ever there was one, and I know well that these men had their superstitions and false doctrines. They made mistakes, and often worse than mistakes, for they were but men. But this I tell you, that if they had not had a deep and sound belief that they were in the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven; and that they and all men must obey the laws of the kingdom of heaven; and that the first law of it was, that wrongdoing would be punished, and rightdoing rewarded, in this life, every day, and all day long, as sure as Christ the living Lord reigned in righteousness over all the earth; if they had not believed that, I say, and acted on it, we should probably have been heathen at this day. As it is, unless we Protestants get back the old belief, that God is a living God, and that His judgments are abroad in the earth, and that only in keeping His commandments can we get life, and not perish, we shall be seriously in danger of sinking at last into that hopeless state of popular feeling, into which more than one nation in our own time has fallen,—that, as the prophet of old says, a wonderful and horrible thing is committed in the land; the prophets—that is, the preachers and teachers—prophesy falsely; and the priests—the ministers of religion—bear rule by their means; and my people love to have it so—love to have their consciences drugged by the news that they may live bad lives, and yet die good deaths.
“And what will ye do in the end thereof?” asks Jeremiah. What indeed! What the Jews did in the end thereof you may read in the book of the prophet Jeremiah. They did nothing, and could do nothing—with their morality their manhood was gone. Sin had borne its certain fruit of anarchy and decrepitude. The wrath of God revealed itself as usual, by no miracle, but through inscrutable social laws. They had to submit, cowardly and broken-hearted, to an invasion, a siege, and an utter ruin. I do not say, God forbid, that we shall ever sink so low, and have to endure so terrible a chastisement: but this I say, that the only way in which any nation of which I ever read in history, can escape, sooner or later, from such a fate, is to remember every day, and all day long, that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ill-doing of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness, knowing what is true and what is right, yet telling lies, and doing wrong.
Let us lay this to heart, with seriousness and godly fear. For so we shall look up with reverence, and yet with hope, to Christ the ascended king, to whom all power is given in heaven and earth; for ever asking Him for His Holy Spirit, to put into our minds good desires, and to enable us to bring these desires to good effect. And so we shall live for ever under our great taskmaster’s eye, and find out that that eye is not merely the eye of a just judge, not merely the eye of a bountiful king, but more the eye of a loving and merciful Saviour, in whose presence is life even here on earth; and at whose right hand, even in this sinful world, are pleasures for evermore.
SERMON XXXI. THE UNCHANGEABLE CHRIST
Eversley. 1845.
Hebrews xiii. 8. “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever.”
Let me first briefly remind you, as the truth upon which my whole explanation of this text is built, that man is not meant either for solitude or independence. He is meant to live with his fellow-men, to live by them, and to live for them. He is healthy and godly, only when he knows all men for his brothers; and himself, in some way or other, as the servant of all, and bound in ties of love and duty to every one around him.
It is not, however, my intention to dwell upon this truth, deep and necessary as it is, but to turn your attention to one of its consequences; I mean to the disappointment and regret of which so many complain, who try, more or less healthily, to keep that truth before them, and shew it forth in their daily life.
It has been, and is now, a common complaint with many who interest themselves about their fellow-creatures, and the welfare of the human race, that nothing in this world is sure,—nothing is permanent; a continual ebb and flow seems to be the only law of human life. Men change, they say; their friendships are fickle; their minds, like their bodies, alter from day to day. The heart whom you trust to-day, to-morrow may deceive; the friend for whom you have sacrificed so much, will not in his turn endure the trial of his friendship. The child on whom you may have reposed your whole affection for years, grows up and goes forth into the world, and forms new ties, and you are left alone. Why then love man? Why care for any born of woman, if the happiness which depends on them is exposed to a thousand chances—a thousand changes? Again; we hear the complaint that not only men, but circumstances change. Why knit myself, people will ask, to one who to-morrow may be whirled away from me by some eddy of circumstances, and so go on his way, while I see him no more? Why relieve distress which fresh accidents may bring back again to-morrow, with all its miseries? Why attach ourselves to a home which we may leave to-morrow,—to pursuits which fortune may force us to relinquish,—to bright hopes which the rolling clouds may shut out from us,—to opinions which the next generation may find to have been utterly mistaken,—to a circle of acquaintances who must in a few years be lying silent and solitary, each in his grave? Why, in short, set our affections on anything in this earth, or struggle to improve or settle aught in a world where all seems so temporary, changeful, and uncertain, that “nought doth endure but mutability?”
Such is and has been the complaint, mixed up of truth and falsehood, poured out for ages by thousands who have loved (as the world would say) “too well”—who have tried to build up for themselves homes in this world; forgetting that they were strangers and pilgrims in it; and so, when the floods came, and swept away that small fool’s paradise of theirs, repined, and were astonished, as though some strange thing had happened to them.