Christian Marriage Indissoluble. A plain Sermon preached at Archbishop Tenison’s Chapel, on the fifth Sunday after Trinity. By James Galloway Cowan, Minister of the Chapel. 4d.
A SERMON,
ETC.
Micah, vi, 9.
“Hear ye the rod, and Who hath appointed it.”
We believe that there is a God: that this God is the Maker and Preserver of all things visible and invisible; that He does now and ever shall rule over all as He has done from the beginning; that He calls the stars by name and numbers the very hairs of our heads; so that nothing, great or small, happens in heaven or earth but by His will or permission. We believe that His rule is exercised, not simply in the maintenance of fixed laws, always working the same ends by the same means, but also, in active special interferences in particular cases. We believe God’s rule to be a strictly moral one, that is to say, that He ever recognises and rewards what is right, and condemns and punishes what is wrong. His times of interference, it is true, are not always such as we should fix on. He often allows righteousness to be long without its rewards, and wickedness without its punishment. In the case of the individual, reward may be deferred till he enters the future state which awaits him; and so may punishment; or, it may be immediately consequent upon the act which has earned it: while not unfrequently the moral law may seem even to be for a time inverted by the prosperity of the wicked or the adversity of the godly—God’s patience long bears with the wilful, while His love quickly chastens the weak but willing. In the case of nations, the same discipline seems to be observed; only, as they have but a temporal existence, they are always ultimately dealt with here according to their deserts. For a time, indeed, what God is pleased to account a righteous nation may for their shortcomings and offences be abased and troubled; but ere long it will be exalted: while a sinful people, though they wax strong and are counted the excellent, and mighty, and honourable of the earth, shall soon know terribly that sin is a reproach and an everlasting destruction.
In administering temporal reward and punishment, God does not call into being new elements, out of which to construct His instruments; but He avails Himself of what already exist, either directing, perhaps diverting, natural agencies, or making the dispositions or doings of men, the ministers of His providence. It is thus that He orders rain to make the earth fruitful or to flood it: wind to waft health or to bring pestilence: lightning to ripen the fruit or to blast the tree. It is thus, too, that He rewards the well-doers, out of their good thoughts and ways, and punishes sinners out of their lusts and evil pursuits, making men’s own hearts and lives to be their friends or enemies.
These are the well-established principles of God’s moral government—universal in their application, unfailing in their effects. In applying them now to the case of nations, let us remember that each nation has a purpose appointed by God to answer—a course to follow. It may or it may not answer that purpose and follow that course. If it does, it is blessed with prosperity; if it does not, calamity will fall upon it; and, if one and another chastisement, one and another call to repentance and amendment, prove fruitless, utter destruction is its inevitable doom. “Thus saith the Lord; If ye will not hearken to Me, to walk in my law, which I have set before you, to hearken to the words of My servants the prophets, whom I sent unto you, both rising up early, and sending them, but ye have not hearkened; then will I make this house like Shiloh” (which at that time lay desolate), “and will make this city a curse to all the nations of the earth.” (Jer., xxvi, 4–6.) The kingdom of Judah was on a last trial when thus addressed by the prophet Jeremiah. Calamity after calamity had fallen upon it, combining chastisement and warning. Prophets had been sent to interpret these calamities, to reprove the people for their transgressions and to exhort them to amendment, with the promise of consequent restoration to Divine favour; but all was in vain: they would not see, they would not hear, they would not return; and so within two years Jerusalem was “an heap of stones, and her king and people were wailing captives beside the river of Babylon.”
A warning this, and a very solemn one, to all nations; but more especially to ours, my brethren, because we seem to be chosen like the Jews to be a peculiar people to the Lord—our privileges are higher, and consequently our responsibilities greater, than those of other nations. If sin is a reproach to any people, we are sure it must be a crying offence in us: for what nation is there that hath God so nigh unto them as the Lord our God is to us in all things that we call upon Him for? And if He has drawn us thus nigh to Him, does He not require us more than others to draw nigh to Him? If we are, as we boast of being, “the temple of the Lord,” surely we shall be more displeasing to Him than un-consecrated ground, if we become a den of thieves or a house of unholy traffic. He has exalted us to be the first of nations in religious, political, and social privileges. He has done great things for us. He therefore expects much of us. If, then, we grow unmindful of Him, and nationally dishonour His holy name, whereby we are called, either by neglect or transgression, we may expect His rod of chastisement, His visitation of judgment. In some of the ways in which He afflicted His people of old, He will afflict us, and with the same design; for a long time, to correct us and restore us to obedience and so to favour; but ultimately, if we refuse to be reformed, to make us feel the weight of His wrath and to cause us to cease from among the nations of the earth. I am not going to adduce proofs that God so deals with nations. Every reader of the Bible can find them for himself. He has but to study in Scripture light the history of kingdoms, to ascertain beyond a doubt that righteousness ever exalts a nation, and that sin is ever the reproach, and sin persisted in ever the ruin of any people; and that by God’s irreversible appointment and by His superintending Providence. Now this knowledge we may use in two ways. Anticipating the effect from the cause, we may deter ourselves from national sin, by considering that its commission will surely provoke a national judgment: or looking back from the effect to its cause, we may find in national judgments a sure indication that as a people we have displeased God, that there is something in us which He would correct and punish.
We shall not be at a loss to ascertain what are national judgments, if we bear in mind that in Scripture they are represented as identical with national calamities. Anything that affects the honour, the influence, the lives, the resources of our people is a judgment, of mercy or wrath—of mercy it will prove, if we heed it; of wrath if we heed it not. When, then, a famine starves our people, or a pestilence cuts them off, or an enemy assails them, or they are involved in an aggressive war, or perplexed by civil commotions and intestine broils, we may be sure that God’s judgment is upon the earth, that He is requiring us to learn righteousness, or to eat the fruits of iniquity. War in all its forms, aggressive, defensive, or intestine, is assuredly a Divine judgment. It may be, often is, that the sword is put into a people’s hand for them to use as the soldiers of God: but that sword is always two-edged, wounding those who wield it as well as those on whom it falls. To be thus enlisted in the service of God should never be the source of self-gratulation or be regarded as a proof of Divine favour. It is a calamity (that is, a Divine judgment), even when we maintain the righteous cause of a weak ally, or defend ourselves from a wanton aggressor, or put down our wickedly rebellious subjects. Assyria’s hosts in fighting God’s battles were made to punish themselves. Israel had no warfare to wage when God was well pleased with it, but only when it required correction. And we, my brethren, in our last two righteous wars, had surely proofs enough in the loss of our best blood, the drain upon our resources, the griefs, the anxieties, the perplexities, that to be God’s agents of vengeance is no privilege to be coveted; that is a scourge, a fearful scourge, which a God who never afflicts willingly—that is, in mere caprice—would not have laid upon us, had we not needed chastisement, had we not provoked Him to displeasure.
And what shall we say of that which is uppermost in all men’s minds and foremost on all their tongues at this time—our warfare in India? Is our part therein a righteous one? Assuredly. Do those to whom we are opposed merit the severest chastisement our sword can inflict on them? Who dare doubt it? Does God call on us to punish them, in His name and as His deputies? We all reverently believe that He does. Is it then all glory, all privilege, all favour—that we are thus employed? Surely the many disasters, the sad, sad troubles we have already encountered, the further troubles which, without a prophet’s skill, we can see to be awaiting us, must convince us to the contrary. The famine-stricken garrison allowed by Him who can save by few as well as by many, who can give food from Heaven, or sustain without it, to yield itself to the foully treacherous foe—the pestilence-stricken band of noble, righteous warriors checked in their good career—are these proofs of God’s unmingled approbation? Would He without a purpose ever have allowed such contending elements as Hindooism and Mohammedanism to combine against us? Would He who restrained this ripe rebellion when our forces were elsewhere doing His work, have given a loose to it now, had He deemed us worthy of His constantly protective power? Would not He, who in some cases has caused a mere handful of men to put to flight a host, a woman to keep at bay a score of infuriated agents of Satan—would not He have led us in all cases to easy triumph—have crowned us long since with complete bloodless victory and trampled all those that hate us under our uninjured feet—had we not deserved the rod of chastisement? By His occasional intervention on our behalf, He has vindicated the general righteousness of our cause, and manifested His power to help us when He will. Would not that aid, then, have been more frequent, would it not have been constant, had we so deserved to conquer? Recollect (it cannot be too strongly or too frequently impressed upon you) God is free from all caprice; He does not afflict without a cause. He may and does spare when we deserve punishment; He cannot afflict without provocation.
In thus tracing effects to their causes, I am not pointing at the calamities which have befallen individuals, further than as illustrations of the general judgment. They were not sinners above the rest of men, upon whom the tower in Siloam fell. The wicked man often lives on in outward prosperity and comes in no misfortune like other folk; while the righteous is afflicted and goes mourning all his days, or is cut off in the midst of them. Inoffensive women, innocent children, godly servants of the Cross have endured unspeakable agonies, and gone dishonoured before men to the grave; while unbelievers, and blasphemers, and licentious, have, perchance, escaped unhurt, unassailed. No matter: a future state will set that right—Lazarus is comforted—Dives has as yet his good things; but if he haste not to repent, he will ere long be tormented. But, as before urged, there is no future state for nations. Their visitations therefore are always judicial; and when, as in our present case, they are full of calamity, it is clearly manifest that they are the fruit of sin.