Plain Sermons, preached at Archbishop Tenison's Chapel, Regent Street. Second Series

by James Galloway Cowan

I have dwelt much on this part of the subject, because of the general forgetfulness of it; a forgetfulness which prevents many from rendering acceptable service to God, and from obtaining the full help and comfort which religion affords to all who rightly use it.

But there are many other kinds of ignorant worship. It is possible to cast down all idols, and worship God alone, and yet err. The so-called spiritualist does this: the man who supposes that addressing himself directly to God, is sufficient, without the use of appointed forms and ordinances; who attaches no importance to baptism and holy communion; who thinks that no grace accompanies their use, or that he can have the grace without the sign; who says that praying at home is a good substitute for congregational worship; who boasts that he can read a sermon for himself, and a better one than he can hear in church; or that the Bible is sufficiently clear to him without an interpreter.

Such an one ignorantly worships an unknown God. He dictates, instead of obeying; he chooses, instead of submitting to what is appointed for him; he puts reason in the place of faith; he refuses to walk in God’s way of salvation; he disputes the Divine wisdom in requiring him to be baptised, and to partake of the Cup and Bread of Blessing; in warning not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together; in asking, “How shall they hear without a preacher?” in appointing a standing ministry; he rebels against God, when he disregards these ordinances; he makes God a liar when he presumes to deem them unnecessary. Oh, he has great need that the God whom he ignorantly worships, should be plainly declared unto him!

Again, that man ignorantly worships God, who substitutes the forms for the life of religion; who supposes that a sanctuary service atones for all want of service elsewhere; who prays in church, but not in his closet; who hears the Bible read or expounded, but does not search it diligently for himself; who receives sacraments, but does not foster, and use, and develop the sacramental grace, which is entrusted to him as an awful talent to be increased and accounted for; who balances the religion of Sunday against the worldliness of the whole week; who every seventh day eases his conscience of its sin, by sighing out the general confession, and forthwith takes to himself the comfort of the declaration of forgiveness, and then goes back to his old transgressions and omissions, till the holy day comes round again. Of course whoever does this, or any part of it deliberately, is grossly, culpably ignorant of the God whom he professes to worship; but it is not of such that I speak now. I have in mind professing Christians, persons who busy themselves about religion, who are regular in their attendance on means of grace, who never wilfully desecrate the Lord’s day, who knowing that unpardoned sin separates from God, and that without grace, life is unblessed, are anxious for pardon and grace, and frequently seek them in God’s appointed ways; but yet, forget, are not impressed with the danger of a relapse, and the sin of non-improvement, and so somehow or other, fall into a routine of formal religion on Sunday, which is not in their thoughts, except as a matter that belongs to next Sunday all through the week. This is to worship ignorantly an unknown God—a God Who does not accept intermittent worship, Who bestows pardon only on repentance and amendment of life, Who gives grace for use, Whose sacraments are meals to sustain life and strengthen for service, Whose Sabbath is a holy rest to refresh for holy work, in Whom we live, and move, and have our being, Whose glory is to be our constant aim, His presence our perpetual joy. But these, and many other ignorances—such as the disregard of particular attributes, the picturing for oneself what God ought to be like, and so varying the picture according to the fancy of him who draws it, instead of searching how, and what manner of God He has declared Himself to be, and what worship is appointed, and therefore acceptable—these, I say, are the faults of individuals, or of certain classes only. Let me now speak of an ignorance, a respect in which God is more or less unknown, which concerns us all. And here, dear brethren, my object is not to censure, to blame you for what you have not, but pointing out to you the God whom Scripture reveals, to help you to correct what is amiss, to fill up what is wanting in your conceptions of God, and so to attain to the blessedness of knowing Him fully, and to discharge the duty of worshipping Him in spirit and in truth.

Observe St. Paul, while acknowledging the religious reverence of the Athenians, evidently deals with them as men who understood not the truths, the objects, the blessings of religion; as those who when they had built their altars, and celebrated their holy days, and offered their sacrifices, thought they had fulfilled all that religion required of them, and who expected to get nothing by their religion, but exemption from certain grievous pestilences, or help perhaps in war—mere occasional miraculous manifestations of dreadful power—who had no conceptions of sanctifying influence, of moral responsibility, of rewards of righteousness. To them he declares God to be, One not far from them, One whom they might find, in Whom they then lived and moved, and had their being, Who henceforth would not wink at any ignorance, Who was at present treating them, and regarding them with a view to a coming judgment. Now we are better (thank God, who maketh us to differ!) than these Athenians; but still we want somewhat of the heart-knowledge which Paul would have impressed on them. We want to be more fully convinced that religion is not a pastime, but a business; that not only duty, but interest, momentous interest, is involved in it, especially that it is not a mere concern and preparation and provision for the future, but a present substantial reality; that God is not the object of distant worship; that His wrath and His mercy are, not rarely, but constantly, being exercised here; that He is not a departed Lord, Who has set us to do His work against His return, and will take no account of us till some far off day; that He has not left us unrewarded, unpunished, unhelped in the present, not caring what we are, what we do, what we suffer, so as when He comes back, we have either done what He appointed, or have assumed the position of penitents for offence, and supplicants of compassion.

Is it not matter of experience that we are not sufficiently influenced by the hopes and fears of religion, that we do not adequately reverence God, or seek Him, and rest on Him, because we suppose that He is afar off, and that all that we have to expect from Him, will only begin to be realised in the next world? God, as a present God, is too much unknown to us. We do not feel that He is now about us; that His eye is watching us, and His arm upraised over each of us at every moment of our lives; that He is a guest actually in us, to be honoured and waited on now. We do not know of His present closeness, of His immediate rewards and punishments, His pleasure or displeasure, His instant succour, or instant withdrawal from us, according to what He sees in us. We do all, and bear all in distant expectation, and therefore we do negligently, and bear feebly and impatiently. Could we realise the perpetual working, the instant retribution, the very touching of God now, it would be easy to regard and serve Him, it would be all but impossible to neglect Him. No man could prefer dross to gold, misery to bliss, death to life, if they were both offered him at the same moment. No one could hesitate whom to obey, whom to trust, whom to fear, whom to love, if God were seen on the one side, and fellow man on the other. It is because God, and the things of God, are supposed to be far off, that we first prefer the other, and then practically regard it as that which alone has real existence.

Well, then, this is what we have to mend. I have been urging the mending on these Sundays in Advent, in striving to show you that there is a God present to superintend, and provide, and care for you in this life, and in every event and moment of this life; that there is an actual and immediate judgment of every deed, good and evil, and that there is a present business of religion, and a direct service of God to be now attended to. It is not head-knowledge that you want, but heart-perception, and realisation. You want to feel what you must know (because the Bible has told you that God is a God at hand, and not a God afar off); that godliness has the promise of the life that now is, as well as of that which is to come; that the irreligious is condemned already. No expectation, no delay, no vision. All fulfilled, immediate, and substantially real. You fancy, perhaps, that it cannot be so. You urge that it is contrary to your experience; you have served God, and not been rewarded; you have trusted in Him, and not been supported; you have sinned against Him, and not been punished. Brethren, believe me, you have not. “Experience” means that which has been ascertained by trial. Make trial, and all will be proved. Devote yourselves now to God, follow Him, give up for Him to-day, and you shall be rewarded to-day. Sin against Him to-day, and you shall be punished to-day. Invoke His aid to-day, and you shall surely have it. Do not prescribe your own mode of visitation. Be sure that He will use His, and watch for it, and seek to know it, and then you will have an experience to quote. I only repeat to you what He has said. When you know Him, you will find that He is true. Then wait on Him, acquaint yourselves with Him, serve Him in the present, and look for Him in the present, and you will find Him in the present.

SERMON V.
FAITH AND ITS BLESSEDNESS.

St. John, xx., 29.

Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.

Does our Lord mean to say that there was no blessedness in the sight which he then presented?—that it was not a precious privilege actually to see Him, to hear Him, to be perceptibly with Him? Would He, too, withdraw and reverse the blessing He had formerly pronounced—“Blessed are the eyes which see the things that ye see”? Would He tell us that the kings and prophets, who saw the promises only afar off, who fancied and conjectured, and died in hope, were more blessed than the hearers of the Sermon of the Mount, the spectators of the Transfiguration, the companions of that three years’ ministry, the guests at Emmaus, the disciple that reclined on His bosom? No, surely! The blessedness of the Apostles, in certainly seeing, and being with Christ in the flesh, is, in its peace and joy, a blessedness which stands pre-eminent and alone, and must do till again He is seen in Heaven. But peace and joy are not the greatest blessings. That which calms, that which gladdens, is nothing in comparison with that which sanctifies and elevates; and there is a blessedness which does this; and which, therefore, is greater. It is the blessedness which faith produces. “Blessed (i.e., more blessed) are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.” Belief, faith—what is it? It may be described as the assent of the understanding, to that which is not proved to any of our senses, but which appears credible because of the testimony given to it. We all have this faith, in human affairs. We all of us accept as true—are convinced of their truth, and act upon the conviction—things which are not proved to us, but are supported by reliable statement. If you serve for wages, or sell goods on credit, or become surety for another, or go out to seek a new home in a distant land, you do it in faith. You cannot see into the heart, and be sure of the honesty of your employer, your customer, your friend; but what appears, from what you are told by others of him, you rely on him. And so again, you do not actually know that there is such a land as you propose to seek, but you believe it, because of all that travellers have said of it, of the goods you have seen, the letters you have read, which are stated to have come from it. Of course, as the testimony varies in its credibility, this faith is of different degrees. You have such faith in your well-tried friend, in his integrity and his wisdom, that you know, you say, that he will not deceive you, and that he cannot be deceived himself. Others, of whom you know less, you believe more slowly. Some, you think, are not qualified to give testimony; they have the thing second-hand, or they were not competent to judge of what they saw, and heard, and felt; or they are not truthful, and may wilfully misrepresent: and even, in the best cases, faith is sometimes misplaced. Therefore, your faith in human things, has always, perhaps (and should have) a trace of doubt in it—sometimes is weak, sometimes fails altogether. It would be wrong and injurious to have equal faith in all; but, on the other hand, to be always doubting, to refuse to believe without seeing, would be misery, and folly, and mockery of self. Divine faith is different: the accepting (that is) of what is recommended to us by the testimony of God, by well-proved miracles, by prophecies since fulfilled, by any other of God’s witnesses. This is perfect. It admits of no doubts and qualifications. It is as sure of what it believes, as if it handled, and heard, and saw it: yea, surer, for its own judgment might be deceived; but God knows all things and judges rightly, and God cannot deceive. Therefore, when God reveals, we may not question the plausibility of what is shown; we have no room for doubt as to His opportunities of knowing, His truthfulness in communicating what is narrated. All we may do, is to ask—Has God spoken, are these things His testimony? And this we ought to do; for there is no blessing pronounced by the text on the credulous, who take everything as from God, without examination. Thomas surely would have erred, if, simply because some one told him of Christ’s resurrection, he had straightway believed it. We are exhorted not to believe every spirit, but to try the spirits whether they be of God. We have to examine miracles, to see whether they are real or pretended, and prophecies, to see that they were not written after the professed fulfilments, and all revelations, lest they should be spurious. Failing to do this, we might have followed Theudas, who came to nought, or Joan of Arc: we might become Mohammedans or Mormonites. We have to guard against this; not to be credulous; to be sure that it is God that speaks: but then, being sure, whatever He describes, however incomprehensible or improbable, whatever He commands, no matter how apparently unreasonable, whatever He promises, against experience, against opinion, against hope, to accept all, and rely on all, and lead the life of reliance. Yes, brethren, this is the believing which alone is blessed; the believing which leads to doing. Faith is the evidence by which we see things naturally unseen; it is the substance, the very handled reality, of things naturally only hoped for; and which, by its revelations of beauty and bliss, by its sanctions and persuasions, and by all that it shows us of the present, and promises or threatens in the future, makes us fly to God, and cling to Him, and depend on Him, and live for Him, and look for Him. Less than this—mere assent of the understanding, without heart-embracing, and life-demonstrating, and exercising—is not the belief that is blessed. Faith without works is dead, being alone. If then, brethren, you would be partakers of the blessedness promised in the text, you must have fully received, and be acting upon the form of religion which God has given you. You must have implicit trust in Him for help and support and peace and blessing. You must know that whatever He has described is real, whatever He has promised or threatened will surely be fulfilled, on the conditions He has laid down; and you must testify and act upon your knowledge by a corresponding life. I do not say that all this is demanded of you in perfection; that the hope of blessing is gone, if you fail of aught of it: but I do say that, if in anything you distrust God, if you question or demand further proof of, or are indifferent to anything He has revealed, and deliberately do not live by it, then you cannot claim the benediction of the text.