Sermon 8. The Church and the World
"After that ye have known God, or rather are known of God,
how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye
desire again to be in bondage?" Gal. iv. 9.
{95} IT is a doctrine frequently used by St. Paul, I need scarcely say,
as by the other sacred writers, that the New Covenant of the Gospel
has superseded the Jewish Law and all its ordinances; that by Baptism
all who believed, Jews as well as Gentiles, were rescued through
Christ from all elements of this world, and therefore from the Jewish
Law, which henceforth had no power over them. This he expresses in the
text, in which he rebukes the Galatians for wishing to return to the
bondage of Judaism, after they had known the God of grace. Again, he
says to the Colossians, "If ye be dead with Christ from the
rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye
subject to ordinances?" Again, to the Romans he says, "Ye
are become dead to the Law by the body of Christ, that ye should be
married to another, even to Him who is raised from the dead."
Again, "Now we are delivered from the Law, that being dead
wherein we were held; {96} that we should serve in newness of spirit, and
not in the oldness of the letter." And again, "There is
verily a disannulling of the commandment going before, for the
weakness and unprofitableness thereof. For the Law made nothing
perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did ... The Law maketh
men high priests which have infirmity; but the word of the oath, which
was since the Law, maketh the Son, who is consecrated for
evermore." [Col. ii. 20. Rom. vii. 4, 6. Heb. vii. 18, 19, 28.]
And in token of this, when our Lord gave up the ghost upon the cross,
the veil of the Temple was rent in twain; for the sanctity of that
Holy Place hitherto had been, but now was no more.
Such is the great doctrine which was of especial interest when St.
Paul preached, ere yet the Temple was destroyed by the Romans; viz.
that though we must be children of Abraham, if we would be saved, yet
it is faith that makes us children; though we must be of Israel to be
elect, yet that the election follows the line of the spiritual Israel,
the line of Christ, the chosen Seed, and of those who are born of the
Spirit of Christ; that though we must belong to the Church of God, yet
that that Church is now no longer local or at Jerusalem only, but is
to be found and may be propagated in all lands; that though we are
under the Law, yet it is the new, or Gospel Law, which we are under,
not the Law of the Letter, the Law of Moses; and "in that He
saith a new Covenant, He hath made the first old. Now that which
decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away." [Heb. viii.
13.] The Law of Moses then has failed and is gone, because Christ has
come. {97}
Now when this is said, it is sometimes asked, "If all this be
so, if the Jewish Law is dead, how could it ever have been alive? If
the Law ever had power, it must have been a power from God, and if
from God it must abide. Either it is not from God, or it could not
come to an end. Either it never lived, or it never died. How can the
appointments of the Law be what St. Paul calls them in the text, 'weak
and beggarly elements,' or 'rudiments of the world,' or 'dead
ordinances,' if they were divine? and that they were divine the New
Testament as well as the Old assures us."
This is a question which I shall now attempt to answer.
The case
then seems to be as follows:—Almighty God, in what He has graciously
done for man from the beginning, has not acted against the
appointments of this world, but through them. He has made those
things, which in themselves were weak and unprofitable, good by His
blessing; but when He withdrew His blessing, they were weak again. The
Jewish polity was an element of earth, made divine by His presence,
and while His presence lasted; when He withdrew it, it was again
earthly, as it had been at first. Let me explain myself.
I mean this:—When God would raise up a people to be a witness of
His name, He did not send on earth a race of Angels, He did not frame
a polity such as man had never seen, but He took a polity of earth,
and breathed His Spirit into it, that it became a living soul. Of
course the Jewish government and nation were in many respects peculiar
and unlike the nations around them; but they were peculiar much more
{98} in the object aimed at, viz. the worship of the true God, than in the
means of promoting it. Unbelievers have been very eager before now to
make out that many parts, if not the whole, of the law and customs of
Moses are to be found in other nations. Thus, for instance, the rite
of circumcision, which God gave to Abraham, is found to have existed
among the Egyptians and elsewhere. And this holds good of a great
number of the Jewish rites and usages. Accordingly, unbelievers have
said with scorn, "This, then, after all, is your singular people;
this is what their claim to a divine origin ends in! No part of
Judaism is original; it is taken from the Egyptians and their other
neighbours: it is not divine." And they have gone on to consider
the Jews and to place their history in a mere secular light, and with
a good deal of success. They have shown that the nation had its rise
and fall like other nations, that the same political principles were
in operation, the same events occurred. They have treated of the rise
of the monarchy as a natural result of existing causes; and of the
revolt of the tribes under Jeroboam, as a natural and justifiable
revolution. They have spoken of the wealth of the Jews, and of their
trade, and of their wars, and of their agriculture, all in the same
worldly way, philosophically, as they have called it, and with no
little disdain and superciliousness.
But in all this they have missed what was the real peculiarity of
Judaism. Certainly it was, for the most part, moulded on the model to
which other Eastern nations were conformed; but it differed from them
in this, that, however much it was the same outwardly, there was a
different principle within it. An invisible {99} Divine Agency was at work
there, giving it an object distinct from all other polities, and
drawing it up towards God. It had an external aspect, and an inward.
To men of the world it looked like a polity of this world; but to the
pure in heart, and to them whose eyes were opened, it would seem to
be, what it really was, a minister of God. To men like Saul and Ahab
it was but an earthly kingdom. Probably they saw no kind of
difference, they were not sensible of any difference, between the
Temple at Jerusalem, and the heathen temple at Gaza or Ascalon, or the
house of Rimmon, or of Ashtaroth, the goddess of the Sidonians, except
that the latter might please their taste better; as the altar at
Damascus approved itself to King Ahaz. They were not aware of any
thing in the Holy Land which was not in Syria or Philistia. Miracles
were not so common as we are apt to suppose. They looked at Jerusalem,
and its priests, and its temple, and its ceremonies, very much as
worldly men regard the Church Catholic in this day, as a mere
establishment.
Further, such being God's pleasure, the Jewish polity being, like
other polities, and in itself, and apart from His presence, but an
element of the world, would have a beginning and an end, a rise and a
fall. All powers have come to an end, and so did the Jewish; I mean,
from the natural progress of events. This is a circumstance which
especially deceives the unbeliever. He thinks he sees in its
mutability and mortality a mark that the Jewish nation was but like
other nations, and that God did not reveal Himself in and through the
Jews. He sees that natural causes did work a beginning {100} and an end to
the nation; and having what he calls accounted for its history, he
thinks he need do no more: whereas, in truth, laws of operation mark
the presence, not the absence, of the Divine Hand, and though the
outward form of Judaism was earthly, God had secretly inspired it and
used it for His purposes.
The case is the same with Christianity also. Unbelievers have been
busy in assigning human causes for its rise,—such as the discipline
of the Church, or the doctrine of a future life; and some of its
defenders have been as eager to show that these cannot be assigned. It
seems, however, to matter little whether we determine the question
this way or that; or, rather, it is more likely beforehand that human
causes did effect, as we familiarly use the word
"effect," what is imputed to them. Unbelievers of this day,
who profess to be philosophical, speak of Christianity as a wonderful
fact indeed in the history of the world, but still as being human. Now
we need not deny that in one sense it is human; that is, as far as it
is viewed externally. It is a divine treasure, but in earthly vessels.
Its history is that of a certain principle of universal empire,
repressed and thwarted by circumstances; its conquests, indeed, were
achieved by moral instruments, "weapons not carnal," as St.
Paul speaks, but still they were conquests; and it may be compared to
empires of this world, to the conquests of Nebuchadnezzar, or of the
Romans, made with the sword; or, again, it may be spoken of as a
philosophy, and compared to the philosophies of men. But if it be an
empire, if it be a philosophy, as it had its rise, it will have its
fall. This is what unbelievers prophesy. They look out {101} calmly and
confidently for the fall of Christianity at length, because it rose.
Since they read of its beginning, they look for its end; since the
world preceded it, they think the world will outlive it. Well, and
were not Scripture pledged that it should continue to the end, when
Christ shall come, I see nothing to startle us, though it were to
fall, and other religions to succeed it. God works by human means. As
He employs individual men, and inspires them, and yet they die; so,
doubtless, He might employ a body or society of men, which at length,
after its course of two thousand years, might come to an end. It might
be withdrawn, as other gifts of God are withdrawn, when abused.
Doubtless Christianity might be such; it might be destined to expire,
just as an individual man expires. Nay, it may actually be
destined so to expire; it may be destined to age, to decay, and at
length to die;—but we know that when it dies, at least the world
will die with it. The world's duration is measured by it. If the
Church dies, the world's time is run. The world shall never exult over
the Church. If the Church falls sick, the world shall utter a wail for
its own sake; for, like Samson, the Church will bury all with it. But
still, so it may be in very truth, that the Christian Church may come
to an end, may well come to an end, as the Jewish Church did; that is,
so far as it is mortal, so far as its members are mortal.
This peculiarity of God's Providence which has now been noticed, is
almost seen in the creation of man himself. Man was made rational,
after he was made corporeal. "The Lord God formed man of the dust
of the {102} ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and
man became a living soul." [Gen. ii. 7.] Here are two acts
on the part of the Creator,—the forming the dust, and the breathing
the life; and they are to the point here as illustrating the principle
I have been insisting on. Man is confessedly formed on the same mould
as other animals; his skeleton is like theirs; he is very like some of
them. And unbelievers, in consequence, have been forward to assert
that he does not really differ from them; and because he is outwardly
like them, and has an organized body, and can be treated by medical
art, as if he were but a framework of matter, and is obliged to employ
his brain as an instrument of thought, that in consequence, he has not
a soul; just as in regard to Judaism they have denied it to have a
heavenly spirit in it, because it had an earthly body.
And the case is the same as regards the Sacraments of the Gospel.
God does not make for us new and miraculous instruments wherewith to
convey His benefits, but He takes, He adopts means already existing.
He takes water, which already is the means of natural health and
purity, and consecrates it to convey spiritual life. He changes the
use of it. Again He selects bread and wine, the chief means and
symbols of bodily nourishment,—He takes them, He blesses them; He
does not dispense with them, but He uses them. He leaves them in
appearance what they were; but He gifts them with a Divine Presence,
which before they had not. As He filled the Jewish Temple of wood and
stone with glory, on its consecration; as He breathed the breath of
life {103} into the dust of the earth, and made it man; so He comes down in
power on His chosen symbols, weak though they be in themselves, and
makes them what they were not.
Now, from what has been said, this lesson may be learnt,—that
things of this world are only valuable so far as God's Presence is in
them, so far as He has breathed on them; in themselves they are but
dust and vanity; and it is as monstrous and insane, if we thought
aright, to be enamoured of any thing earthly, except it be instinct
with a light from heaven, as to desire to feed on ashes, or to be
chained to a corpse.
This was the fault of the Jews, as regards their Law; and this is
why St. Paul calls it "ordinances," "rudiments of the
world," "weak and beggarly elements,"
"carnal," and "unprofitable." They were indeed at
all times such, compared with the Christian worship; but they were
peculiarly so, when viewed in their then state, when God had left
them. The Gospel restored man to the same state, or rather to a higher
state than that from which he had fallen. When Adam was in paradise,
he had a gift which afterwards he had not,—the gift of the Spirit;
he was inhabited by a divine glory, or heavenly power, which he lost
on sinning; after sinning, only his natural soul remained to him; and
when he died, then that soul went away too. The Gospel then is as far
above the Law, even in the best estate of the Law, as the spirit is
above the mere soul, as the man of God is above the natural man. Such
was the Law at best, being but a step towards restoration in those
privileges in which man was first created; framed by God, but not
{104} the
dwelling-place of God's Holy Spirit; only visited by Him from time to
time, and having in it a certain Presence of God which sanctified it,
and made it live. But when Christ came with the recovered gift of
grace and glory, then that Divine Presence, whatever it was, which
once had been in the Law, left it: then it was altogether dead, it was
reduced back again to the mere condition of the world from which it
had been taken; it relapsed into the deadness and unprofitableness of
a fallen and perishable state of being; and for Christians to concern
themselves with it, or to profess it, as the Galatians and others did,
was as preposterous and as perverse as to join themselves to the world
in any other way,—in the service of ambition and the pursuit of
wealth. Well then might the Apostle say, in the words of the text,
"After ye have known God, how turn ye again to the weak and
beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?"
And now, too, we are able to see how far the warning of St. Paul
against subjection to ordinances applies to us. Granting that this age
is in no danger of Judaism,—about which I will not here pronounce,—yet,
at any rate, there are dead things besides the Law of Moses, on which
we are in danger of setting our hearts. The Law became carnal when
God left it; but there are things which never were otherwise than
carnal, in which God never was at all: and these may be our
temptations, as the Jewish Law was a temptation to the Jews. St. John
says expressly, "Love not the world, neither the things that are
in the world; for all that is in the world, the lust of the
flesh, and the lust of the {105} eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the
Father, but of the world." And again, "The world lieth in
wickedness." The world may be in one age somewhat better or
somewhat worse than in another, but it is in substance always the
same. I mean, that the whole visible course of things, nations,
empires, states, polities, professions, trades, society, pursuits of
all kinds, are, I do not say directly and formally sinful (of course
not), but they "come of evil;" they hold of evil, and
they are the instruments of evil; they have in them the nature of
evil; they are the progeny of sinful Adam, they have in them the
infection of Adam's fall; they never would have been as we see them,
but for Adam's fall. All of them, every thing in the world is in
itself alien from God, and at first sight must be regarded and treated
as being so; and though there are (blessed be God) exceptions to the
rule through the power of the Gospel, and it is our duty to aim at
increasing these, yet they must be proved to be such before we can
take them to be such. Satan is the god of this world. God created all
things good; but when man fell, an evil spirit possessed them, and
they are evil till God touches them again with His Divine Light. In
Abraham, He made a new beginning and sanctified a holy household, and
that spread into a nation, and that nation became holy to the Lord.
And then the mass fell away, and He preserved a remnant; and from it
He has spread and diffused abroad a spiritual and regenerate kingdom
far and wide, and this has encroached in a blessed way upon the world.
But it is only in proportion as things that be are brought into this
kingdom, and made subservient {106} to it; it is only as kings and princes,
nobles and rulers, men of business and men of letters, the craftsman,
and the trader, and the labourer, humble themselves to Christ's
Church, and (in the language of the prophet Isaiah) "bow down to
her with their faces toward the earth, and lick up the dust of her
feet," [Isa. xlix. 23.] that the world becomes living and
spiritual, and a fit object of love and a resting-place to the
Christian.
Now it is plain how little the mass of men aim at taking their
standard of things, or seeking a blessing on what they do, from
religion. Instead of raising the world by faith to the level of a
regenerate son of God, they debase themselves to the world and its
ordinances. It is plain, as any one will find who gives himself the
trouble to attend to it, that men in general do not give, or feel, or
seek for religious reasons for what they do. So little is religion
even the profession of the world at present, that men, who do feel its
claims, dare not avow their feelings,—they dare not recommend
measures of whatever sort on religious grounds. If they defend a
measure publicly, or use persuasion in private, they are obliged to
conceal or put aside the motives which one should hope do govern them,
and they allege others inferior,—nay, worldly reasons,—reasons
drawn from policy, or expedience, or common-sense (as it is called),
or prudence. If they neglect to do this, they are despised as
ill-judging and unreasonable. Nay, they are obliged thus to act, else
they will not succeed in good objects, and (what is more to the
purpose) else they will be casting pearls before {107} swine. Can we have a
clearer proof than this, that the current of things at present, in
spite of the boasts of men, is essentially and radically evil,—more
evil indeed, because of their boasts?
Or, again, take any of the plans and systems now in fashion,—plans
for the well-being of the poor, or of the young, or of the community
at large; you will find, so far from their being built on religion,
religion is actually in the way, it is an encumbrance. The advocates
and promoters of these plans confess that they do not know what to do
with religion; their plans work very well but for religion; religion
suggests difficulties which cannot be got over. On a subject of this
kind one cannot go into detail; but those who look about them will
recognize what I mean, and, I think, will acknowledge its truth.
And so again in those efforts which are laudably made for the sake
of preserving things as they are, and hindering ruin and destruction
coming on the country, men are afraid to take their stand on "the
old commandment which ye have heard from the beginning." [1 John
ii. 7.] They are afraid to kindle their fire from the altar of God;
they are afraid to acknowledge her through whom only they gain light
and strength and salvation, the Mother of Saints.
When we go into the details of life, the same truth, as in every
age, comes upon us forcibly and convincingly. I am not going to the
question whether this age is better or worse than former ages; this is
not to the present purpose. The world always "lieth in {108} wickedness;" but we are accustomed sufficiently to confess the
faults of former times, which do not concern us; we do not see what is
evil in our own. Therefore, we need to be reminded of it. We need to
be reminded that all our daily pursuits and doings need not be proved
evil, but are certainly evil without proof, unless they can be proved
to be good. Unless that holy and superhuman influence which came forth
from Christ when He breathed on the Apostles, which they handed
onwards, which has ever since gone through the world like a leaven,
renewing it in righteousness,—which came on us first in Baptism, and
reclaimed us from the service of Satan,—unless this Divine Gift has
been cherished and improved within us, and is spread round about and
from us, upon the objects of our aims and exertions, upon our plans
and pursuits, our words and our works, surely all these are evil,
without being formally proved to be so. If we engage in a trade or
profession, if we make money, if we form connexions in life, if we
marry and settle, if we educate our children, whatever we do, we have
no right to take it for granted that this is not earthly, sensual, and
of this world; it will be so without our trouble, unless we take
trouble the other way, unless we aim and pray that it may not be so.
Left to itself, human nature tends to death, and utter apostasy from
God, however plausible it may look externally. What was it men were
doing before the flood came? things very different from what men do
now? No; they did the same things as we. "They did eat, they
drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, they bought,
they sold, they planted, {109} they builded." [Luke xvii. 27, 28.] Are
these things evil? Yes; they are evil unless they are good; they are
evil unless they have become good; they are evil until Christ
sanctifies them; and then, and not till then, are they good. They are
evil in the case of every one of us, except Christ has sanctified them
in us, unless they have been touched with the finger of God, and
illuminated by the doctrine and the power of His Son.
In all things, then, we must spiritualize this world; and if you
ask for instances how to do this, I give you the following.
When a nation enters Christ's Church, and takes her yoke upon its
shoulder, then it formally joins itself to the cause of God,
and separates itself from the evil world. When the civil magistrate
defends the Christian faith, and sets it up in all honour in high
places, as a beacon to the world, so far he gives himself to
God, and sanctifies and spiritualizes that portion of it over which he
has power. When men put aside a portion of their gains for God's
service, then they sanctify those gains. When the head of a
household observes family prayer and other religious offices, and
shows that, like Abraham, he is determined with God's help to honour
Him, then he joins himself to the kingdom of God, and rescues his
household from its natural relationship with this unprofitable world.
When a man hallows in his private conduct holy seasons, this is
offering up of God's gifts to God, and sanctifying all seasons by the
sacrifice of some. When a man who is rich, and whose duty calls on him
to be hospitable, is {110} careful also to feed the hungry and clothe the
naked, thus he sanctifies his riches. When he is in the midst
of plenty, and observes self-denial; when he builds his house, but
builds Churches too; when he plants and sows, but pays tithes; when he
buys and sells, but withal gives largely to religion; when he does
nothing in the world without being suspicious of the world, being
jealous of himself, trying himself, lest he be seduced by the world,
making sacrifices to prove his earnestness;—in all these ways he
circumcises himself from the world by the circumcision of Christ. This
is the circumcision of the heart from the world. This is deliverance
from dead ordinances; and though, even if this were done perfectly, it
would not be enough, for we have to separate ourselves from the flesh
also, yet, at least, it is the victory over a chief and formidable
enemy.
My brethren, this is no matter of words: a thing to be listened to
carelessly, because we have heard it often before. The death and
resurrection of Christ is ever a call upon you to die to time, and to
live to eternity. Do not be satisfied with the state in which you find
yourselves; do not be satisfied with nature; be satisfied only with
grace. Beware of taking up with a low standard of duty, and aiming at
nothing but what you can easily fulfil. Pray God to enlighten you with
a knowledge of the extent of your duty, to enlighten you with a true
view of this world. Beware lest the world seduce you. It will aim at
persuading you that itself is rational and sensible, that religion is
very well in its way, but that we are born for the world. And you will
be seduced {111} most certainly, unless you watch and pray that you enter
not into temptation. You must either conquer the world, or the world
will conquer you. You must be either master or slave. Take your part
then, and "stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made
us free." [Gal. v. 1.]
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