Quinquagesima Sunday

“And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.”—1 Corinthians xiii. 13.

This sentence does not merely affirm the superiority of Charity to Faith and Hope. There is an important verb in it which our translators, rightly I think, and in strict accordance with the context, have rendered “abideth.” St. Paul had been speaking of very great and blessed gifts which yet, as they were the signs of an imperfect state, should cease in a perfect state. Prophecies, Tongues, Gnoses, are all referred to this class. The last of these, indeed, Gnosis, he does not identify with Knowledge in its proper and complete sense; for the great reward which he looks to is that he shall know even as he is known. It is the childish habit of seeing things only on one side, sometimes even inverted, which is to disappear, along with the prophecies and the divided tongues which are the utterance of partial and infantine perception. But is there nothing which is precious to us now that shall be precious to us always? Yes! Faith, Hope, Charity, are not to disappear: these abide.

No attentive reader, I think, can refuse to see this import in St. Paul’s expressions. And yet, if we do see it, we must abandon some notions which have become very prevalent amongst us, nay, which have passed into theological commonplaces. It is said to be the consequence of our exile from Heaven that we walk by Faith, not by sight. A time, we are promised, will come, when Faith shall be lost in sight. So again of Hope. We are often assured that Hope in the world to come is to be drowned in fruition; that it is necessary to us here because we are not come to our inheritance. I am far from saying that there is not a truth latent in this language, or that we ought not to inquire diligently what that truth is. But surely we cannot hope to arrive at it by directly contradicting an Apostle. He is writing about Charity. He is expressly magnifying that above Faith and Hope. And yet he says, in so many words, that all three are to continue when partial things have vanished away.

I. I shall not impose upon you my definition of Faith. No definition ought to content you. I say so boldly, because, when the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews gives what schoolmen call a definition (though it is so unlike theirs that they immediately begin defining again in order to make it intelligible), he proceeds at once to translate his words into life. He goes through the history of his land, that he may exhibit Faith in its actual exercises. From the deeds of men we are to learn how it is “the substance of things hoped for,” how it is “the evidence of things not seen.” If one meditates upon any single one of these deeds, one perceives the force and appropriateness of the word Substance. This belief of Jewish fathers, lawgivers, prophets, made them substantial men. It stood under them; it bore witness of a ground beneath itself. That famous and continually recurring phrase in the Old Testament, “They put their trust in the Lord,” explains, as none other can, how they became substantial. The earth which they beheld was very fair and good. They had nothing to complain of its trees, or flowers, or fountains, of the sky that looked down upon it, of the sun which gave it light. Only they could not find their own foundation in these. They tried to refer themselves to them by making them Gods. All became capricious and uncertain. The things were firm enough; they had no firmness; they were the sports of every gale and of every change of season. These things might be feared, might in some sort be loved; but not trusted. Were these men therefore driven back upon the thoughts and speculations of their own minds, because they could find no rest in the things they saw? That was looser, more shifting sand still; sometimes it was quicksand. “They sank in deep mire, where no ground was.” No, they could not trust in themselves more than in the winds or waves. Then “they cried unto the Lord.” From amidst the idols of sense they cried; out of the mire that was in themselves they cried, and He heard them. He made them feel that He was there. He made them feel that they might trust Him. They did trust, and were not confounded.

Thus Faith was the substance of their daily life; their strength in their daily battles. But it was also, says the Epistle, “the substance of the things they hoped for.” What was not in possession it made theirs. The unborn child, the seed that was to be as the stars of heaven, became integral portions of their enjoyment—yes, of their existence—no less than the flocks and herds which they watched by day and folded at night. The Promiser was the same as the Giver. If they had confidence in Him for to-day, they might have the like in Him for to-morrow. The sense of truth and the sense of perseverance grew up in their minds together. The Lord could not lie; what He was now, He would be always.

And so the second clause of the definition—if definition we are to call it—rises naturally out of the first. Faith is “the evidence of things not seen.” Truth, Righteousness, Mercy, are not objects for the eye. The Jew was taught that a God of Truth, of Righteousness, of Mercy, actually lived; that He was his Lord; that He might be trusted. This trust or Faith then conversed with invisible things; with things which were; which it could not create more than the eye created the things which made themselves evident to it. In both cases there is a revelation. The outward world reveals itself to the eye. God reveals Himself to Faith. The eye being blind, there is no revelation to it, though all the Universe is revealing itself. Faith being absent in a man, there is no revelation of God to him; though God is ever revealing Himself. Faith is the evidence in one case, as Sight is in the other.

When therefore people speak of Faith being changed into Sight, what do they mean? Are Truth, and Righteousness, and Mercy, to undergo some awful change? Are they to be translated into objects of sense? Is God to be changed into an object of sense? Have we been fighting with idolatry all through our stay upon earth; fighting with it as the great earthly sin; as that which degraded God to the level and nature of earth; and are we to become idolaters as soon as our eyes close upon the earth? is that to be the great celestial reward? Or is Faith, as identical with Trust, to cease? Is the glorified Saint no longer to depend upon God for all that he has and for all that he is? Will some new and higher security be conferred upon him than that which is derived from unceasing trust?

These propositions have but to be stated in words, that every devout man may turn from them with horror and loathing. Yet from not putting them fairly before ourselves, from allowing them to lie hid under seemly phrases, more mischief than we can measure creeps into our souls. We do fancy that in some way or other the eternal things will be brought within the range of our senses; that they will become to all intents and purposes like the things of time. And again we half suppose that, as the price of our having trusted God’s promises here, a day may come when we shall enter upon a possession that will be assured to us, as lands or goods are assured to us; which we may hold not of God, but as if it were our own. Fearful habits of mind to cherish! the more fearful, because so congenial to our indolence and to our selfishness. Oh! let us resolutely cast them off, however closely they may cleave to us. Let us remember that when the Son of Man actually presented Himself, in a body that might be seen and handled, to those whom He was not ashamed to call His brethren, it was to their Faith that He addressed Himself; it was their Faith that, by His words and His acts of healing, He sought to call forth. When it did not answer to His summons, He said to those who were surrounding Him, “You know me not, though you see me; you do not come to me, though you follow me.” It was to Faith only that He revealed Himself, when the senses appeared most capable of giving a report concerning Him. And let us be sure that it must always be so. Faith must pierce through the robes of His visible Majesty, as Faith did pierce through the robes of His Humiliation. We must know what He is in Himself, His own pure, essential Nature, otherwise there can be no delight in His presence. If the adoration is not paid to the Lamb that was slain, it is not the adoration of the saints about the throne. And is it not still more certain that this is the difference between the condition of those whose garments are made entirely white in the blood of that Lamb, and those whose garments are still stained with earthly foulness, that the one will trust absolutely,—that the trust of the other is mixed with doubt and suspicion? Some say that they have an assurance of attaining the bliss of Heaven, and that without this assurance none can live the true life of a man. I would rather look for the honest sense which may be wrapped in such words, than for the hideous use which has been and will be made of them. If Assurance means Faith or Trust in a God Who has reconciled the world to Himself, and has said to us in Christ, “I will be to you a Father; ye shall be to Me Sons and Daughters,” I cannot doubt that the more we hold to that Faith, and fight with all that assaults it or undermines it, the more clear, healthy, manly our minds will be. We shall be able to do the works which God has given us to do, because we shall be sure that they are His, not ours. And since the bliss of Heaven, I conceive, must consist in the entire freedom from that unbelief and suspicion which have been the great hindrances to all sound action and to all comfortable intercourse, to all inward serenity here, I cannot question that such a Faith, the more continually and vigorously it is exercised, must be the right induction to such a bliss; in fact an entrance upon it. But doubt, infidelity, temporary despair, would be a good and blessed exchange for such assurance, if it is grounded on any notion of a privilege conferred upon us which the Incarnation and Death of Christ have not made the common inheritance of all; or if we think that inheritance can be anything else than a full discovery of Him, Whom our want of Faith and Trust, and our wish for some felicity of our own, have prevented us from beholding.

Let us believe then, with St. Paul, that Faith must abide always with us, if we are to be blessed creatures. No distinction which belongs to God’s divine order can be abolished. Faith and Sight may both be perfected; the invisible things may become more real and certain to us than the things of sense. We may be sure that they are the substances apart from which the others would be mere shadows. Hereafter, this world, which has been so full of unfathomed secrets, may disclose them and their deepest signification to the purified searcher. Every sense may put forth its fullest energy. The glorified body may be fit to understand the glorified earth. Faith and sight may be the divinest allies, instead of being, as they so often are with us, murderous antagonists. But neither will usurp the other’s place. There will be no confusion in their functions. Such confusions are the effect of our twilight; they will be scattered in God’s perfect Day.

II. It has not been possible to speak of Faith without alluding to Hope; seeing that Faith is said to be “the substance of things hoped for.” And I have had occasion lately to connect Hope with the glory which Isaiah says is to be revealed, and which all flesh is to see together. What can be those things hoped for, of which the Apostle tells us? Are they the same with the glory of which the Prophet discourses? If so, consider, I pray you, how far the fruition of such a Hope can be said to extinguish it. Is not the Hope of the glory of God the Hope of that which is infinite, which must be always unfolding itself more to him who is in communion with it, which must therefore always be kindling fresh Hope? Suppose for one moment that a man ever reached a Hercules’ Pillar on his voyage of discovery; suppose it could ever be said to him, “Now you know all; there is no further depth to fathom, or height to ascend;”——would not the hope he had dared to nourish be frustrated instead of realized? And would not he become at once a dwarfed and stunted creature, returned once again to the self-sufficiency out of which God had delivered him? Oh, be sure the Hope which maketh not ashamed, the Hope which purifies, cannot be of this kind! That has Faith for its substance, because it has God for its substance, God for its end. That comes from Him, and can only be satisfied in Him.

Not, indeed, that because He is the ground and ultimate satisfaction of Hope, it disdains any inferior objects. All things shine in His light; all things glow with His life. But for that very reason the pettiest man, the pettiest insect and reptile, must be beyond the comprehension, not of us, but of saints and angels; they must have given over the ambition to comprehend; they must be ever filled with the Hope of apprehending a little more of the divine secret, which God sets before them for their endless inquiry and admiration. Surely it is in this babyhood of an existence that we dream of grasping the waters in the hollow of our hand, or of finding the end of the rainbow. When we come to our manhood, and begin to see things as they are, we shall cry out, not with terror or shame or discouragement, but with awe, thanksgiving, Hope, “How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out!”

III. And thus, I conceive, we arrive naturally and in order at the Apostle’s conclusion: “The greatest of these is Charity.” If he had said, as some say, “The only one which will abide is Charity,” he would have adopted, it seems to me, the Pantheistical doctrine, that the creature is to sink and be lost in God. For this assuredly is his reason for exalting Charity above Faith and Hope, that he regards them as pointing to His Being and Nature, and Charity as constituting His Being and Nature. That must be greatest, without which the other two could not be. That must be greatest, without which they could have no object. A Being who is not altogether Charity does not ask Faith or Trust of His creatures. He bids them distrust Him, tremble at Him, shrink from Him. A Being who is not altogether Charity does not bid His creatures hope in Him. He bids them despair, because He has the power to destroy them, and at any moment he might loose His power. A Being who is not perfect Charity is no object on which Faith can rest. It must always be seeking some other; it must always be flickering and uncertain, while it is directed towards Him. A Being who is not perfect Charity is no object for Hope. As long as it lasts, it must look some day or another to escape from the atmosphere which surrounds Him, into some clearer, warmer region. Therefore, if Faith abides, if Hope abides, Charity must abide. Because that is the fixed eternal Substance, they have substance. Because that cannot fail, they are not to fail.

Perhaps it may strike you that this is a perverse application of the word on which St. Paul has been dwelling throughout this chapter. It must have the same meaning, you will say, in the last verse as in the first. But in the first, he says, “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not Charity, I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal.” Then human Charity must be his subject. How can it have been converted into divine Charity here?

A most important question! What we want to know is, how we can have that Charity without which St. Paul says that we must be tinkling cymbals, how St. Paul himself became possessed of that treasure. You know that he speaks elsewhere of our being saved by Faith, and being saved by Hope. He spoke from his own experience. He knew that he was lost in his own selfishness till he began to believe in God, till he began to hope in God. Faith and Hope lifted him out of that abyss. But Faith and Hope in what God? —In a God of absolute Love or Charity. This was the God Who revealed Himself to him on his way to Damascus. This was the God Whom, from that time, he sought to serve by preaching to all men the Gospel of Christ, Who was His perfect Image. Then first, he, who had had much knowledge,—yes, and a Faith (of gloomy kind) that could remove mountains,—began to have Love working in his heart. For these saving powers of Faith and Hope brought him into fellowship with that which was greater than themselves. He found them to be the conductors of its shocks, the unseen wires whereby the life which was in the Father passed into those whom He has formed to be one body in His Son. He found that God brings men into that body,—not that they may speak with tongues, not that they may remove mountains, not that they may give their bodies to be burned, though He may perchance call upon them to do any one of these things, and may endue them with strength to do them; but for this end, says St. Paul, are we all baptized into one body, have we all one Faith, one Lord, that we may receive that one Spirit which is the Spirit of Love, and that He may stir us to do the works which Love would have us do.

This is our teaching for the Sunday before Lent. What then, brethren, should be the subject of our confession during Lent? We shall all, I think, be ready to own: The Love which bears all things, hopes all things, which never seeks its own, has been weak enough in us—if we can say that it has had any hold of us at all. But what good is there in owning this? We cannot make ourselves loving towards God by thinking how heavily He will punish us hereafter if we do not love Him. We cannot make ourselves loving or charitable to our brother, by thinking how much we may gain hereafter by cultivating such affections. It is when we bring our ordinary religious motives to this test that they fail so utterly, and prove themselves to be as unpractical as they are coarse and grovelling. But if Faith and Hope have that relation to Love of which I have spoken in this Sermon,—if Faith and Hope are substantial and good for men because Love or Charity is the Eternal Substance of God,—then we may begin to look upon ourselves more humbly, less despondingly. We may give over the proud and idle dream that we can work ourselves into Love by any artifices or calculations. We may discover that without Faith or Trust in God’s Love it is impossible, by the laws of the Universe, by the relation in which the creature stands to the Creator, that there should be any Love in us. We shall discover also that this Faith must itself be the gift of God; that it could not be in us if His Love did not awaken it. And that thought, instead of creating uncertainty, will be the beginning of all confidence. If God desires Faith in us, He must plant it in us. By every act of His discipline He is planting it in us, He is bidding us trust in Him. That voice is never clearer than when it reminds us of failures, neglects, heartlessness, selfishness. Every conviction of our own want of Charity is a call to turn to His infinite Charity. The more hollow we are, the more we need that which can fill the hollow in us. The more cause we see for despair in all we are and in all we do, the more are we goaded and impelled to hope in the Living God. So our confessions become sincere; our repentance one that is not to be repented of. We do not complain of God for having left us bare of that without which we cannot please Him, or live. We complain of ourselves for not having understood His invitation to unbounded trust, His promise to make all which most threatens to destroy Hope work together to keep it alive. We complain of ourselves that when His Spirit of Love has been about us, working upon us, seeking to enter into us, we have permitted another Spirit, the Spirit of Self-seeking, to possess us and rule us instead of Him. And such confessions will not lose themselves in vagueness and infinity. It is the round of daily life, the omissions of acts which might have been done, and which might have added to the wellbeing of our fellow-men, the careless thoughts and habits which hinder us from helping them, the reckless words and deeds which lower their moral life and ours—it is these which God brings to our mind; it is through these we learn the mysteries of our Nature and of His. Through these we are driven to the sense of a separation between us and His Charity; through these we are led to understand how the Atonement between us and Him must have been His work and not ours; through these we are led to feel that He can only be satisfied with us because He sees us in that Son Who perfectly reflects His Charity, Who believed in it, hoped in it, in the days of His humiliation, and so was able to endure the burden and agony of our sins and death; Who believes in it and hopes in it now, and so is able to present the Sacrifice of all His redeemed creatures with the incense of His own perfect Sacrifice to the Father. Through those sins which torment and perplex our life from day to day, we learn what the cause of all sin is, in others as well as ourselves. That it springs from suspicion of God; that it spreads and multiplies in suspicion of each other; that the Spirit of God makes us aware of it, because He is fighting with it in each of us; that if we yield to Him He will drive out of us those great enemies of men, and will endue us with those three choicest blessings, Faith, Hope, and Charity, which are to abide with us, and to make us one with God and with our brethren for ever.