[Lincoln's Inn, Sunday after Ascension (Thanksgiving-day), May 4, 1856.]
St. John VI. 62.
What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where He was before?
On this day the order of our Services would lead me to speak of our Lord's Ascension. On this day the Queen commands us to give thanks for the restoration of Peace. My text will tell you that I need not break the order of my discourses on St. John, if I desire to speak on the Church Festival. I believe there are lessons in the passage which would naturally come under our notice this afternoon, that belong equally to the National Festival. As long as we think of the Peace without any reference to God,—we mean by Peace, the Treaty of Peace; we question whether such and such articles in it are commensurate with the cost and success of the war,—whether boundary lines are fairly and wisely drawn,—whether new concessions might not have been obtained by a longer struggle? Or perhaps we mean by Peace merely the cessation of those hostilities by which all the nations that have taken part in them are more or less exhausted. Or perhaps we identify it with the material prosperity of the classes which have money,—a prosperity that seems to some closely connected with social and intellectual progress, if not the source of it. All these subjects deserve our most serious consideration. I believe that a Thanksgiving-day is to increase the earnestness with which we reflect on them, to take away the looseness and levity of our thoughts respecting them. But it must do this by opening to us another view of Peace,—not as based upon treaties and conventions,—not as being sustained by these; but as deriving its ultimate strength from the mind and will of Him who rules the universe, its subordinate security from our conformity to His mind and will. Such a day teaches us to look upon Peace not merely as the end of a war, but as the normal state of a Christian and human society; a state which is interrupted by the lusts that war in our members,—the interruption being most terrible when it exhibits itself in internal strifes and hatreds. Such a day calls upon us to reflect that what, in the dialect of the money-market, is called prosperity, is not one of those symptoms of Peace which we are to rest in with confidence,—not one which we are ever to contemplate without trembling. For it does not mean the growth and vital energy of the whole body, but an unnatural swelling and bloating of certain portions of the body. It often leads to ignoble aims, frantic speculations, systematic fraud,—to everything that destroys the force of a people, and makes it a silly, gambling, slavish people. It compels wise men frequently to regard war, with all its horrors, as an inevitable punishment; nay, even as a positive blessing. Therefore such a day as this obliges us to seek diligently for the springs of the moral life of societies,—for the secret of their inward peace and coherency.
The Lawgiver of the Jewish people had told them that all the discipline they passed through in the wilderness had been to teach them that 'man does not live by bread alone, but that by every word which proceedeth out of the mouth of God, doth man live.' He was speaking to them as the members of a nation. He was telling them that the endurance of their national polity from age to age would depend not upon material bread, but upon another kind of nourishment and strength which it would derive from an unseen Presence. The lesson was repeated by every prophet, ratified by the darkest and the brightest passages of Jewish history. They were a wise and understanding people, strong and united,—however poor in numbers and physical appliances,—just so far as they believed in a One God, who watched over them, in whom they might confide. They were a contemptible people, essentially weak, full of elements of strife and dissolution,—however numerous they were, however rich,—when numbers and riches became the objects of their worship, when the righteous and living King was forgotten. Do you think that this, which is the maxim of the Old Testament, is forgotten in the New? Do you think that Jesus introduced a new law which set this law aside,—a law that had reference to individuals merely, and not to societies? I believe that the great misery and sin of the Jews, in the time when our Lord appeared among them in the flesh, was that they had lost the feeling of national unity,—that they had become mere covetous individuals, herding together in sects, knit to each other by opinions and antipathies, not by the sense of a common origin, a common country, a common Lord. Jesus came to gather together the lost sheep of the house of Israel under their true Shepherd. Jesus claimed publicans and sinners as part of the same nation, as heirs of the same covenant with the most devout. Jesus was in continual conflict with the sects, because they were substituting a self-seeking religion for the faith of Israelites. It is true that He was unfolding the faith of Israelites into a human and universal faith; but in doing so, He was establishing, not undermining, that which sustained the nation, and must sustain every nation.
When, therefore, He answered those who spoke to Him of the manna which their fathers ate in the wilderness, by telling them of the true Bread which came down from Heaven, He was, I conceive, expounding the words of Moses,—those which He had used in His own temptation. He was showing that neither the life of Israel nor the life of humanity can be sustained by earthly bread; that both demand another food; that He could tell them what that food was, whence it came, how it might be received. By keeping this thought in our minds through the latter part of this wonderful discourse, I believe we shall do something to rescue it from the fangs of systematisers and controversialists, as well as to deduce needful instruction from it for England on this day.
The 40th verse of this chapter appears, as I observed last Sunday, to close our Lord's dialogue with the people who had crossed the lake to see Him, because they had eaten of the loaves on the previous day. An interval has passed before the 41st verse. Then we hear of certain Jews who were murmuring at the words, 'I am the bread that came down from heaven.' These Jews, I conjectured, were Scribes belonging to the synagogue of Capernaum,—men who had caught the notions and habits of the Scribes in the capital, and yet could avail themselves of the local prejudices of Galilæans. Their temper is clearly indicated in the 42d verse:—'And they said, Is not this Jesus the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? how is it then that He saith, I came down from heaven?' The difficulty about Heaven, of which I spoke last week, was really not less for the Scribe than for the peasant,—only the one could talk learnedly about a second, or third, or seventh heaven, while the other, more honestly and more wisely, did not pretend to know about anything but the actual firmament which was over his head. Yet the consciousness which man has of some better heaven than this, was indicated by the confused experiments of the former to conceive one, and dwelt in the heart of the latter, awaiting some divine touch to call it forth. The spring was touched when our Lord spoke of a Father; the new heaven which the spirit of man in each man craves for, is contained in that name; where the Father is, it is. If we demand a more accurate definition, we may try our skill in framing it,—God's revelation will not help us. For that revelation does not cheat us with formulas when we are in want of realities; does not give us stones when we ask for bread.
Jesus, therefore, told the cavillers just what He had told the crowd. 'Murmur not among yourselves. No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent Me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.' All their reasonings and debatings would not bring them nearer to Heaven or to Him, than the feet and the eyes of the people who had eaten of the loaves had brought them. The Father of spirits must draw their spirits to Him who was the source of their life and light, whom He had sent to raise their spirits out of their darkness and death; when they were drawn, when they did embrace Him as their deliverer and friend, no death of the body, no darkness of the grave, should have power over them; He will raise them up to the fulness of life in the last day.
Was this new doctrine? 'Was it not written in their Prophets, Ye shall be all taught of God?' Was it not the very promise,—the highest promise,—to the people of God's covenant, to those who were circumcised and withdrawn from fleshly idols, that they should hear His voice speaking to them? What did that promise imply but that God was a Father who was educating the creatures who are formed in His image to know that image? 'Every man therefore that hath heard and learnt of the Father, cometh unto Me.' 'He comes to Me as that Word who was in the beginning with the Father,—as that Word who has been, and is, and will be always, the light of men.'
'Not—He goes on—that any man hath seen the Father, save He which is of God, He hath seen the Father.' It is not that any man has had a vision of Him who, by a thousand mysterious influences, is every hour acting upon him, and whom he has either obeyed or resisted; only He who is of God—only the Son, who has come forth from the Father—has had this vision; only He has entered into that Love which has been guiding the universe, and penetrating into the hearts of human beings.