Preached at Ockham, 9th Sunday after Trinity, August 21, 1859.
“Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities; for we know not what we should pray for as we ought; but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered.”— Romans viii. 26.
You have been praying this prayer to-day: “Grant to us, Lord, we beseech thee, the spirit to think and to do always such things as be rightful; that we who cannot do anything that is good without thee, may by thee be enabled to live according to thy will; through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Did you consider what you were asking for when you said these words? You were not asking for sunshine or rain, for food or raiment, to be stronger in body, or to have more money. You were asking the God of Heaven and Earth to give you His own Spirit; to give you the Spirit which dwelt in our Lord Jesus Christ; the Spirit which urged Him to go about doing good when He was upon earth; the Spirit by which He offered Himself to God upon the cross; the Spirit who raised Him from the dead; the Spirit in whom He and the Father have been united before the worlds were, and will be united for ever.
It was a mighty petition. How did we dare to offer it? God Himself can give us no greater gift. What have we done to deserve it? Look at the Collect again and see: “We who cannot do anything that is good without Thee.” We confess that we cannot stand before God and say we have done any good things which can entitle us to this blessing, or to any blessing at Thy Hands. We say plainly, if we are to be good, Thou must make us good; if we are to do any right thing, Thou must enable us to do that right thing. Without Thee we shall do wrong things. Nay, without Thee we cannot even think right things. These thoughts of ours will all go awry. They will be vain and silly; they will be full of mischief. We shall have bad devices in our hearts, and the bad devices will turn into bad deeds. And because we have had so many of these bad thoughts, and because we have done so many bad deeds—because we are helpless and sinful—because we feel that we are, and every day makes us feel it more, therefore we ask this of Thee, which is more than food and raiment, than sun and rain, than health and wealth; therefore we ask Thee to grant us this Divine Spirit—Thine own Spirit.
The more we look into this prayer, the more wonderful it seems. What could an angel in Heaven wish for more than that he should be like God—that he should have the very heart and mind of God in Heaven? And yet here we are asking it because we are so little like angels—because we are continually tempted to break God’s commandments—because we have broken them—because all sorts of vile desires come into our minds—because we find it so very hard to get any better desires into them.
Yes! that is the way we are taught and trained to say this prayer. We find out how inclined we are to be unkind, unclean, unjust, untrue; we look hither and thither for help. We try if no one can tell us what we ought to do, and how we are to do it.
Many are ready with their advice, and often we would give the world to follow it. But they cannot make us follow it; they cannot get down into the heart of us and mould and fashion that. Our thoughts go on taking their own course; whatever good words we hear, the words seem as if they could not catch these thoughts—they run so fast, and in all strange zigzag ways. We want someone who can overlook them—who knows them all, yours and mine; and the man’s who is at the other side of the globe. And He who is able to do that—who can enter into all the thoughts of men everywhere, who knows them, who can guide them, who can turn them from bad to good, from darkness to light, from false to true, He must be the Spirit of the living God. For that Spirit we dare to ask, because we are sure that God does not wish us to be disorderly, miserable, evil creatures, and yet we are sure it will come to that if He does not take the government over us and enable us to live according to His will.
But though we find out how much we need this Spirit, and how little any other can help us in our straits, we might still think it was only a few people here and there who could ever hope to win such a blessing. People have had that belief, and they have it still. They have said to themselves, ‘These ministers, who preach to us and give us God’s sacraments, they may receive this Spirit of God, or men who have got some new and rare wisdom or can tell us about some better way of being religious than our fathers have told us, they may have it; all we poor, common people can do is to listen to what these ministers or these wise people say, and to get some crumbs that fall from their tables.’ It would be very natural for you to say these words, and I am afraid that we should be wicked enough to be pleased with you for saying them, and to boast that we were greater favourites with the Father of all than you are. But mark how the last words of the prayer mock this insolence and vanity of ours; how they teach us that the Spirit is for you as much as for us, “through Jesus Christ our Lord”—through Him, who took upon Him the nature of us all—through Him, who was called the carpenter’s son—through Him, who ate and drank with publicans and sinners—through Him, who preached the Gospel to the poor—through Him, who died for all men—through Him, who rose again for all men—through Him, who ascended on high, to be the Advocate of all before His Father—through Him, who sent His Apostles to tell all that they are the children of God in Him—through Him, who came into the world that He might baptize men with His Spirit. Do you not see that this language would be a mockery and a lie if we dared to set up any pretension for ourselves which would separate us from any one of you? What we are sent to testify is, that the highest gift of God is that which is for all alike. We need the Spirit of God for the works we have to do. We can speak no true, honest, sound word, unless we ask Him to teach us what we shall say, and how we shall say it. But, most of all, we need His help to take the conceit and self-sufficiency out of us—to make us understand that we can of ourselves make you do no right deed, and think no right thought; that we cannot of ourselves do any right deed, or think any right thought; that we are all on a level—all feeble, and paltry, and sinful, without God; all redeemed and purchased by Him; all able to live according to His will, if His own Spirit, as He promises, worketh in us to will and to do of His good pleasure.
I have been speaking to you so far about the Collect, because I wished you to use it as if its words were true, mighty, blessed words, such as I take them to be, and that you should not merely repeat them as if they meant nothing. But I should not have spoken to you of anything in the Prayer Book, if I did not think its lessons were in the Bible, and if they did not send you back to the Bible, where you will find them more bright, clear, and full. The passage I have taken out of the Epistle to the Romans tells us something more even than the Collect. We need to know it, if this Collect, or any of the Collects, is to do us real lasting good. We often say in our hearts—I have said it to myself a thousand times—yes! we might have this Spirit of God, if we could pray for such a gift. But I do not feel that I can. My tongue seems tied, or what is worse, I speak readily enough; but there is nothing in my heart that answers to the speech, as a poor miserable king, who had murdered his brother, said, after he had tried to say a prayer:—
My words fly up, my thoughts remain below,
Words, without thoughts, never to heaven go.
Now, brethren, what is the way out of this perplexity for you, and me, and all of us? What are we to do when we feel as if we could not pray? as if that were the greatest difficulty of all. Hear what St. Paul says, for he had suffered in this way, as in most other ways that was his training to be an Apostle:—“Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities, for we know not what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us, with groanings that cannot be uttered.” So you see it is the Spirit who helps us not only to think and to do, but also to pray—who draws out our desires towards God, who speaks more for us and in us than we know. It is very wonderful, but yet it must be so. We could not pray if God Himself were not stirring up prayer in us. It is not we who seek first for fellowship with Him, He seeks to have fellowship with us. The children begin to ask for their Father, because the Father has been first seeking for His children. That is what our Lord is teaching us in such a number of passages. It was, as I may say, the ground of all His teaching. The Pharisees complained of His keeping company with sinners. Nay, He said, but what does a shepherd do who has lost a sheep out of his fold? What does a woman do who has lost a piece of money? What does a father do whose child has wandered away from him? Whatever these do, He said, that your Father in Heaven is doing for His sheep that are running into the pits and falling over precipices—for the hearts that He has lost—for the children that are forgetting themselves and Him. And he said that He was come to do His Father’s will, which was, that all should come to the knowledge of their true state and should live. Be sure, then, brethren, that when we are able to ask for God’s Spirit to help us, it is because He is seeking after us, and prompting that wish of ours, and stirring us up that it may not be a lazy half-wish, but a real, strong, earnest cry. Be sure that when we feel as if we needed to pray, but cannot, God’s Spirit is teaching us our weakness, and His strength; how much more He cares for us than we care for Him; how impossible it is for us to be right, or to be at peace, till we believe in Him and yield to Him. Be sure that these deep longings, which there are in all of us, even in those who are going most wrong, are the groanings of that Spirit whom we have grieved and resisted. Be sure that He speaks to our true, better mind; that the other mind, which is contrary to His, is a false, accursed, devilish one, which we may ask Him to cast out. And oh! is it not a blessed thought that this Spirit is uttering His groans for the deliverance of this world of ours from all its sin and slavery, and wretchedness? Should not we rejoice that God knows what is the mind of this Spirit; for it is His own mind? Should not we confess that all the evil that there is in us, and in all men, comes from our fighting against that gracious mind of the Father and of the Son? Should not we trust, with all our hearts, that His will should at last be done on earth as it is in Heaven? And do not think that those who have prayed that prayer here on earth, pray it less fervently when they leave the earth. Then their tongues are loosed; then they can pray for us and all their friends fighting here below, as God’s Spirit would have them pray; then they begin to know that no prayer, or groan, that has been uttered in the lowliest chamber, or in the darkest dungeon, shall be in vain. God’s Spirit inspired those prayers and groans, and His new Heaven and new Earth will be the answer to them.