Preached at Brampton Ash, 15th Sunday after Trinity, September 28, 1862.
“Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones, for I say unto you that in Heaven their Angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in Heaven.”—St. Matthew xviii. 10.
Tomorrow is the Festival of St. Michael and All Angels, what we call Michaelmas Day. The passage chosen for the epistle on that day, speaks of a war in heaven. Michael and his angels, it is said, fought against the devil and his angels, and conquered them. I believe that war in heaven has very much to do with us on earth. More may be meant by it than I know, but this I am sure is meant by it, that the devil has done his utmost to overcome Christ, and has failed; that Christ has proved good to be stronger than evil, light than darkness. He has done this for His whole universe, for the spirits in every other world, and for us poor men in this. The powers that are for us are greater than the powers that are against us. God our Father is for us; Christ, His only begotten Son, the express image of His person, is for us. A multitude of good angels, who never disobeyed Him, but who have always delighted to do His commandments, are for us. The spirits of just men made perfect, who were once on earth tempted as we are tempted, by the world, the flesh, and the devil, who sinned as we have sinned, but have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb, these are for us. And they are not idle; it is written they are ministers of those who are heirs of salvation. They are helping us in ways that we cannot think of or dream of. When you read a good book, written by a good man, no longer among us, that man is helping you. He knows more now that he could put into his book. He can speak to us out of it, and tell us what he meant in his book, and where he blundered in trying to express his meaning. The words of our parents, of dear friends that are gone, how they start up sometimes in our minds! how they come back to us as if they were speaking these very words to us! And are they not speaking these words to us? Do not they care for us far more than they did when they were less good, less loving? Cannot they teach us better now than then?
Yes, my friends, that battle in heaven is the beginning of many battles on earth; that victory in heaven is the assurance that we shall have a multitude of unseen friends in our battles on earth, and that we need never be overcome by the powers of wickedness, if they be ever so fierce. But after we have read this passage about the heavenly war, we pass on to a gospel about little children. Is not that a great change? From Michael and his archangels to infants? From those who could subdue evil spirits, to the weakest of all creatures upon earth! What can have brought them together? Our Lord Jesus Christ brings them together. He had a little child beside Him, and He said to His disciples, “Whosoever of you shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven!” He spake and He knew, for He is the King of Heaven; He is the Lord of Angels. All do Him homage. He spoke for He had humbled Himself to become a little child. He who was the Eternal Son of God had become the Son of the Virgin Mary. He had lain in a cradle. He had grown up to be a boy. He had risen to the stature of a man. And when He was using all the powers of the Son of Man, and of the Son of God; when He was healing the sick and casting out devils, He was still the humblest of all. “Come unto me,” He said, “and take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly of heart.” That was the way to be like the Lord and King of Heaven; that was the way to have power over evil spirits; to become meek and lowly of heart. He who could do that could enter into the victory of Michael and the angels.
This is part of what our Lord tells us in that gospel for St. Michael’s Day. I beseech you to lay it to heart and think well of it. We commonly suppose that our great difference from the angels is that they are strong and we are weak. No, brethren! the great difference between us and them is that they are obedient, and we are disobedient; that they are humble, and we are proud. All other differences lie in that. Their strength comes from their obedience. They have God’s strength because they depend upon Him and not upon themselves. The victory in heaven was the victory over spirits who think themselves strong, and, therefore, will not be dependent upon God; who will not be children; who will not rely upon a Father and give themselves to Him.
But our Lord, when He had begun to discourse about the little children, went on to tell us more wonderful things about them; very wonderful and very beautiful things; but also very useful for you that are parents, and for all people whatsoever to take note of and to remember. “Take heed,” He says, “that ye despise not one of these little ones, for I say unto you, that in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven.” Now these words were surely spoken by One who knew the temptations of men upon earth—their temptations to despise or think lightly of little children.
And they were spoken by One who knew the secrets of the kingdom of heaven. They were spoken by One who came to bind earth and heaven together. If we could in any degree enter into them we should find another reason why St. Michael’s Day speaks first of angels and then of children. Let us try to understand them at least as far as it is needful for us, that we may not transgress our Lord’s commandment.
I find a child very naughty, disagreeable, ill-behaved; well, I am tempted to dislike or despise the child; I must dislike or despise it if I think only of the child’s naughtiness, disagreeableness, ill-behaviour. I cannot help it. But that is not the child. What disfigures the child; that is what makes it different from what it is meant to be. That child—every child on this earth—has a true life in it, as well as this bad nature which leads it to show forth bad tempers and do bad things. This true life is what our Lord calls the child’s angel. His Father in heaven, He says, sees this angel in every child. This angel looks up to Him through the eye of every child. It beholds His face. These are good tidings. God sees the true child, loves the true child, when we are most finding fault with the false child. And our Lord would have us recollect this, that we may always see the true child underneath the false child, and speak to the true child, to the angel in the child which can hear us instead of speaking to the false child which cannot hear us. If I say to a child which has been naughty, ‘Now you know better than this; you have a better mind in you; you have yielded to the bad mind that is in you,’ the child will understand why I punish it, will confess in its heart that I am right to punish it, will feel that I am showing my love to it by punishing it. But if I see nothing but what is wrong in the child, if I never do justice to the right that is in it, I may punish it for ever but I shall never make it the least better; I shall make it harder and worse, and I shall make myself hard and worse too. All parents and teachers that are wise and good learn this lesson by degrees; mothers especially find it out very soon, for God teaches it them in their inmost souls. But all ought to learn it; and none will learn it thoroughly, not even fathers and mothers, unless they believe the words of our Lord Jesus, and really think that their Heavenly Father does Himself what He bids them do; that there is not a single child on earth, however perverse it may be, in which He does not see a divine and glorious and blessed creature made after His image.
Our Lord spake these mighty words, and He added other words to explain them that are mightier still. “For,” He said, “the Son of Man is come to save that which was lost.” As much as to say:—‘I have come from heaven, my Father’s house, to bring back His children that have wandered from Him, to tell you that in me He loves you, that in me He is well pleased with you, that in me He has restored you to your places in His family; do not, therefore,’ He says, ‘despise one of these little ones, for I have taken their nature and become one of them to save them from all their enemies, and make them brothers and sisters. Do not despise them, for in heaven they are not despised, but loved and cared for. Do not despise them, since I love and care for them. Do not despise them; since they belong to the great family of the angels, and of those who have been redeemed out of every kindred and nation and tongue and clime by my blood.’
My friends, if St. Michael’s Day teaches you to lay these things to heart it will be a festival indeed to you. It will tell you how to regard the little ones whom Christ has committed to your care below—the little ones of your parish and neighbourhood, as well as of your own households. It will tell you how to expect the day, when all the angel-children who have been taken hence to the home of their Father in heaven, shall come to greet you, and to rejoice with you that He who became a little child, has fought the fight and won the day for you and for them, and for His whole family of men and angels.