Ninth Sunday after Trinity
(NOT PREACHED)
August 1, 1858
“Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear My voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me.”—Revelation iii. 20.
I took the text of my last sermon from a passage in one of those messages to the Church with which the Apocalypse opens. This sentence is from another of those messages.
Taken literally, it at once recalls to us that Lord’s Supper of which I have been speaking to you so much. Do we need to get rid of the letter, or to explain it away, that we may discover the spiritual signification of it? Surely not; unless you are determined that the Lord’s Supper shall not have a spiritual meaning, that that shall be a mere dry form. If you think that it speaks to us of a Presence into which only the spirit of a man is able to enter, of a Presence which is near to us, though we may refuse to own it, then it speaks as the text speaks; then one is the faithful interpreter of the other.
But the promise, I shall be reminded, was addressed to a particular Church, and that a Church of the primitive, the Apostolic, age. It certainly was; we ought never to forget it. And let us not forget what the particular Church was.—what notices we have of its character. Let me read to you the previous part of the message: “Unto the Angel of the Church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God; I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: I counsel thee to buy of Me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten; be zealous therefore, and repent.”
I. (1) Many of us would gladly accept this portrait as a full-length one of an Asiatic city, which had received the Greek civilization and been brought under the Roman rule. How exactly, we should have said, the exhausted, heartless, hopeless, and yet self-conceited temper of such a Society is exhibited here! How well the description applies to the period of the twelve Cæsars! But that these same qualities should be attributed to the Church which was set up in this city as a witness for what is highest and divinest, would cause us great scandal, if the charge came from some Pagan of that time, or some infidel of later times. We should resolutely maintain that the baptized body was the great exception to the general decay and corruption; that precisely the reverse of what was seen elsewhere was to be found there. “It may not be so now,” we should say; “for now the Church is mingled with the world, debased by State patronage, subject to no trials. But it was so in those days: only the blindness of unbelief could refuse to confess the fact. At all events,” we should continue, “the minister of the Church will have been an example to the Jews and heathens around him of the difference between those who received the Gospel and them.” All such a priori conclusions may possibly maintain their ground against the evidence—even what in other cases would be the strong evidence—of fallible men; they cannot stand for a moment against the testimony of St. John, and of One higher than St. John. We are bound to believe that—not a Greek, or Asiatic, or Romanized Society, but a Christian Society living under the eye of St. John;—not that Society apart from its angel or minister, but considered as a body represented by its angel or minister—answered to this report: “Thou art lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold.”
(2) I do not think that any additional words can make that description more vivid than it is, or can make us understand better the condition of those upon whom it was bestowed. They have no heat, no fervour, in any great cause, in pursuit of any great object; none of that earnestness which leads men
“To scorn delights, and live laborious days,”
to forget themselves, to throw themselves away. They are not cold; they still maintain the doctrines, as against other men, which have ceased to exercise any dominion over them, to inspire them with any courage and devotion. There is even a pleasant sensation of something approaching to warmth produced by the exertion to prove that those who differ with them are wrong; they can almost persuade themselves that they believe, whilst they convict other men of disbelieving.
(3) Better, says the message, any state than this; better the most rash, ill-judging vehemence in support of a conviction; better the coldness which causes acute pain. Calm energy may succeed to the first excess; those who are suffering from the second may send up a cry for a live coal to touch them and kindle them. “I would,” says the Lord of Man, “thou wert cold or hot. I, Who try the hearts and reins, know either of those states to be less deadly than this intermediate one. If this continues,—if it settles down into a permanent habit,—the Church must cease to be Mine, it must be left to itself. I will spue thee out of my mouth.”
(4) But near as the dissolution of a Society is, which has contracted this temper, there is no consciousness or apprehension of it. The Laodiceans “were rich and increased in goods, and thought they had need of nothing.” Wherever you find that lukewarmness which is denounced in the former verse, there I believe you will find the contentment and self-glorification which we are told of here. A Society which has discovered an exact and reasonable balance between excesses, which is able to say of itself, “We are not too zealous, like such and such foolish people; we are not inclined to infidelity, like those unhappy people. Thank God! we have hit the mean between enthusiasm and frigidity,”—such a Society is certainly wrapped up in vanity and Phariseeism; whether it fasts and gives tithes, or feasts and withholds tithes, it prays as the man prayed who exalted himself in the Temple, and did not go down to his house justified.
(5) For such a Society to discern that it is “poor, and miserable, and blind, and naked,” must be exceedingly difficult. And yet He Who spoke to the Church of Laodicea declares that this knowledge is necessary for its very existence. And why? Because this Society utters a lie in every one of its confessions,—is itself a lie, and the most terrible and blasphemous of all lies,—if all its riches and illumination and virtues are not in Christ, if it has anything whatever which it can claim as its own. This is the elementary truth which was involved in its baptism, which its members learnt when they were preparing for baptism. If it has been lost, every step of the way must be trodden again till it is recovered. If the Church of the Laodiceans fancied that what was acknowledged in the first hour of its establishment need not be acknowledged still; if any member of that Church fancied that though he was only poor and blind and naked in himself before his conversion, he had acquired some wealth and light and covering of his own since,—the sooner the delusion was torn from the eyes of both, even by humiliations the most terrible, the safer in the end it would be for them.
(6) And there is One Who declares that He has methods of discipline and correction which He is using for this very end. He cares for those whose lukewarmness is hurrying on their ruin. He cares for those who regard the symptoms of disease as signs of health, as reasons for confidence. Because He cares for them, He will not cease to punish them till He has brought them to loathe that which they are cherishing and boasting of; till He has made them earnest in self-renunciation, earnest in turning to Him. “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.”
II. (1) I have gone over the different parts of this exhortation, chiefly that I may show you how little there was in the state of this early community which could entitle it to any rare or special blessing. Consider, if you please, that this Laodicean Church was in a worse state than our own; regard its faults as of an entirely different kind from any which can be imputed to us,—these will not be reasons for saying that we may not claim the promise which our Lord makes to them. But I should be dishonest if I did not own that I discern a remarkable likeness between the condition of certain Churches in this day, and the one which we have been speaking of,—nay, if I allowed any ambiguity to rest on the word certain Churches; if I did not at once declare that among them I allude particularly to that one which I know best and love best. That quality of being neither hot nor cold,—of being not much in earnest for any principle, yet of preserving a decent respect for principles; that habit of congratulating ourselves on this temperance, as if it were a high virtue, prolific of fruits which could never grow in the torrid or in the frigid zone of bygone ages,—I cannot but regard as distinctive marks of our period and our country. We feel that they are so from what passes in ourselves. Each one of us finds it exceedingly hard to vanquish this lukewarmness in himself, to set any object before him, and pursue it as if it were a case of life and death; each one of us finds himself tempted to think that he is wiser, more clear-sighted, less in danger of being hurried into extremes, less a victim of delusions, than the men whom he reads of, and on whom he bestows a patronizing admiration. We can talk of the heroic times now and then, and wish ourselves in them. But if we render an honest account to ourselves of our own meaning, we shall find that we think those heroes were toiling, amongst much confusion, to make us what we are; we shall find that our compliments to their simple faith are accompanied with much secret self-congratulation that we are far beyond the stage at which such a faith was possible; we shall discern that at least one-half of all our praises of their energy are meant to explain why we may be, must be, ought to be, listless. The laudator temporis acti often exhibits the very same disposition, which comes forth more coarsely, more simply, in the man who is boasting all day long of our enlightenment and progress.
And how dare we pretend to draw distinctions between the people of England and the Church of England,—to say that no doubt the Laodicean vices are to be traced in the one, but that the other is exempt from them? No such distinction, we see, was possible in the first age, though then the Church appeared to stand out in direct contrast to the surrounding world. The Church, contemplated merely as a collection of men stamped with a certain name, professing certain opinions, could not exhibit any such contrast. Of necessity it embodied all the tendencies of those by whom it was surrounded. Nay more; the Church exhibited the evil which affected the heathen people in its root and principle; Churchmen presented that evil in a more complete form; what was dispersed in others was concentrated in them. Do not let us hide this truth from ourselves. By the very law of the Church’s existence it must be so. The horrors of ecclesiastical history are utterly inexplicable if we refuse to recognize the relation in which the Church stands to mankind; they are more appalling, but they are quite intelligible, in the light of it. I desire that we should bring the conviction home to our hearts; that we should test it less by the records of past times than by what we are doing and thinking;—still more, by what we are not doing and not thinking.
There is indeed in society at large a want of heat or cold—of courage to confess, of courage to deny, a skill in perceiving every difficulty which may be an excuse for not acting, an uncertainty whether there is any end which is worth the trouble of seeking it, whether those who make ventures for the sake of Truth will ever get back an adequate reward. But whence comes this habit of mind? From the half-belief of us who pretend to be the champions of belief; from the nervous anxiety which we show lest the doctrines which we declare to have proceeded from God should be shaken by the wit or ingenuity of men; from the proofs we give that we are calculating accurately the advantages of obeying God, and so are making His service the service of self. Here is the worldly temper, not only infecting our religion, but nourished by it,—growing strong and stronger from its influence.
Nor is the same remark less true of that other Laodicean symptom which was so closely connected with this. Have we the right to accuse any irreligious men of boasting that they are rich and increased with goods? Who are such boasters as we? When we talk of our Church—a convenient synonym for ourselves—how ready we are with the phrases, “What a delightful medium we have found between the tinsel and worldliness of Rome and the rigidness and nakedness of Geneva. No outrageous extremes, no vehemence—all mildness, equity, propriety. We honour the wealthy, we are very good to the poor. What have we need of?”
There are some who do not adopt this language. The Church established in the land is for them a mere outward Church, possessing certain privileges, but altogether distinct from the body of true believers. A very natural opinion! But does it save those who adopt it from saying that they, the believers—they, the true Church—are rich and increased in goods and have need of nothing? Does not this temptation lie fearfully near them when they are marking the boundaries between them and the world? Are they not copying the worst characteristics of the world, its pride and exclusiveness, in the very act of severing themselves from it? But perhaps we are aware of these dangers,—we have lived through them and escaped them. “We are not anxious to divide ourselves from Rome; we long for fellowship with it, that we may repulse those vile men who are content with the name of Protestants. Or we are not anxious to sever ourselves from our brethren in foreign Churches or among the Dissenters at home; we want their aid against the wretches who would bring us into communion with Rome.” Hopeful experiments both! But are those who engage in them not “rich and increased in goods,” very wise, very superior to their neighbours, needing nothing but that their own schemes may be realized?
(2) My brethren, I feel the danger of speaking thus of different classes of my fellow-Churchmen. I feel keenly how, in the act of referring to them, I am liable to commit the very faults which I am imputing to them; to think myself better than they are, possessed of some riches and wisdom which they have not. Why am I entering upon this subject at all, except that I may tell you so; that I may confess to you how hard and perilous I feel the task of warning and exhorting to be; how often I am ready to shrink from it in shame and confusion, knowing that in condemning others I am condemning myself,—that I can find no fault in them, which they might not detect in an aggravated form in me, if I have not detected it in myself? I admit at once that this is the fearful position of those whose office calls them to be reprovers; often they must feel as if it were a sin to open their lips, often as if it were a sin to be silent; often they will suspect that it signifies little, as far as other men are concerned, which course they take, since their words are mere sounds which mingle with the rest whereof the air is full, but scarcely produce the slightest flutter in any human spirit. But out of this uncertainty and despondency good proceeds. The minister who thought himself to be somebody, finds that he is nobody. His imaginary goods and riches disappear. He knows that he is poor and blind, and he knows Who has shown him that he is; One Who can make His reproofs and chastenings felt; One Who rebukes and chastens, not because He hates, but because He loves. And so the minister is able in some measure to understand the text; is able in some measure to present it to his congregation, as being written as well for every one of them as for him.
(3) “Behold, I stand at the door and knock.” I know that many persons say, “This is figurative language. We find it hard enough to acknowledge the history of the Bible. If we consent with some reluctance to accept that, must we also attach some special meaning to its metaphors?” I know that divines say, “This is spiritual language. Only spiritual persons can understand it. What we have to set before ordinary, worldly men are the plain declarations of Scripture. If they reject or only half confess the literal passages, how idle to discourse to them of these mysteries!”
My brethren, I never expect any man to believe the history of the Bible—to believe it, I mean, except as a tradition which he accepts from his fathers, and which he fears to reject—till he listens to these words. I am satisfied that in no day would the faith in the history without this, have been worth anything to man or in the sight of God; I am satisfied that without this, in our day, no doubter will be brought by the most pompous array of evidences, even so far as to an intellectual reception of the narratives in the Gospels, to say nothing of the articles of the Creed. Nor dare I grieve that God has so ordered it. For I cannot help finding the secret of our lukewarmness, and of our self-conceit, in the attempt which men are making to divide what He has joined together—the testimony of the Conscience, from the facts of the History; the voice of Christ at the door of the heart, from the voice of Christ in His acts upon earth, or in the Book which records these acts. If one of these voices is treated as figurative, so will the other be; if one of these voices is supposed to be only for a select class, so will the other be. And that select class will suffer even more than those whom they have cut off. They will substitute dead phrases for a living Christ; language which signified everything to their fathers will soon signify nothing to them. I hold therefore that we ought to declare constantly, with all the energy which is given us, that we know we are not using a figure of rhetoric when we repeat this text, but are announcing a fact which concerns us, and concerns every man; that when we speak of the conscience in a man, we mean that which God has created to hear this voice, and to answer it, and not any abstraction above which philosophers or divines may think it wise to debate.
If, in making this proclamation, we exalt valleys and level hills—if those who are called unbelievers discover that Christ is speaking to them, and calling on them to repent, and those who are called believers discover that He is speaking to them, and calling on them to repent,—that is just the office of John the Baptist when he came to witness of the Christ, and it should be ours. If in making this proclamation we appear to assume that a communion between God and Man is not merely the rare privilege of a few, but is the foundation on which the very existence of our race stands; that without it there would have been no thought, memory, hope, no feeling of kinsmanship, no possibility of friendship or affection,—we are only reaffirming the doctrine of the Bible, as well as confirming the anticipation of all nations; we are cutting down human pride, that the Lord alone may be exalted.
(4) Because the text asserts this great and comfortable truth, does it deny that men are excluding themselves, as far as they can, from this communion, are wishing to get rid of it altogether? No! else what would be the force of the invitation to open the door? Surely that implies a power in man to close his mind, to stop his ears. Such a terrible power all Scripture, all experience, compels us to recognize. Only be it always understood that it is a power to deny our proper rights, our true humanity; to make a lie.
The sensualist who blocks up his heart with all contemptible objects and vile imaginations,—the proud religionist, like those that persecuted St. Stephen and St. Paul, who blocks up his heart with pride in his own righteousness and contempt of others,—was created, was redeemed, that he might have fellowship with the Father and the Son. Christ is telling him so whilst he rejects it.
(5) Is it not then true that this communion—if in some sense it is the primary necessity of man, that which is implied in all he does, that which it costs him an effort to repel—is also the final reward of man, the perfect good, that which the purest and best have appeared not to have but to hope for? The words “I will come in to him and sup with him and he with Me,” fully sustain this doctrine. We know that they must mean the fullest intercourse which it is possible for a man to hold with Him Whom all the Host of Heaven worship. That we may feel it to be so, the language is of the simplest, earthliest kind, such as peasants can apprehend. The awfulness is increased by the familiarity. At the close of the divine Book, when we are reaching the last and highest revelation, all is still common and human. Less than ever is there a separation between the little and the great, the humble and the sublime, the Cross and the Throne. The verse carries us back to that Supper where Jesus sat with His disciples, and with the one who betrayed Him, the night before He suffered. It carries us on to the time when all shall be accomplished in the Kingdom of God. The Apostles sat at that Passover the representatives of their nation, giving thanks for its deliverance. They sat there as the representatives of Mankind, to whom they were to bear witness of the true Lamb that had been slain from the foundation of the world. These words tell every man that it is only the self-seeking Judas spirit which can cut him off from his great human promise;—when once he gives up the dream that he is rich, and increased with goods, and has need of nothing, it contains the pledge and assurance that he is the inheritor of all things.
Therefore, brethren, seeing that the Lord’s Supper is the renewal of this warning, this promise, and this hope, from generation to generation; seeing that it says to each one, “The Judge is at the door;” and says also, “If thou wilt open the door, that Judge is willing to claim thee as His friend, to remove from thee whatever separates thee from Him and from His Father, and from the whole universe;” seeing that it is the witness against all the vices which have destroyed Churches and nations, and turned them from witnesses for God into His greatest enemies; seeing it shows us how those vices may be eradicated, and we may become socially and individually all that we are intended to be,—I hold that it is a better remedy for the lukewarmness and the conceit of our time, than all schemes which man’s art can devise. We may try by sudden and desperate efforts to revive religion amongst us. But who are to be the revivers? Do not we, who should call others to repent, need repentance ourselves? Do not we, who would impart our faith to others, require that that faith should be sifted, that it may be seen how much of it is from above, how much of the earth, how much of the devil? We want One to rouse us out of death, in Whom dwells the Spirit of calm, eternal life—One Who does not wait for our vehement solicitation, but Who is ever standing at the door of our hearts and knocking,—One Who does not raise a few above the rest, but One Who humbles all that He may exalt all,—One Who does not terrify us into a self-seeking religion, but tells us that we shall have fellowship with Him; that if we overcome we shall “sit with Him on His throne, as He has overcome and has set down with His Father on His throne.”