Fifth Sunday in Lent, April 9, 1848.
Matthew VI. 13.
AS this Doxology occurs in only one Evangelist, the Church, in her repetitions of the prayer, omits it at least as often as she uses it. The idea contained in the words has been expressed already; it is involved in all the petitions. But the distinct utterance of it at the close of the prayer teaches us some lessons which the prayer might fail to teach us, and yet which we must always remember if we would say it truly.
I. The words, ‘Thine is the kingdom,’ certainly assume that it is not ours. Now if by ‘Kingdom’ we understand the kingdom of Nature, the courses of the planets, the succession of day and night, of seed-time and harvest, perhaps the temptation to say, ‘This is ours,’ may not be very great. Some Opifex Mundi, or Intelligent Principle, or Demiurgus, or fixed law, may be admitted to preside over these arrangements. But if we apply ‘kingdom,’ as I suppose most of us would, to the order and conduct of human society generally, or in some of its particular divisions, the feeling is very different. Here we have a claim to be masters; over this order man exercises a most evident influence. Is there any thing monstrous in the notion, that he established it, and that he upholds it? There can be nothing strange in it, for we all drop into it most easily and naturally. True, there are old forms which denote a belief the most opposite of this, forms which indicate that the highest ruler of the land, and every subordinate magistrate, derives his authority from an Invisible Person, to whom he is under a fearful responsibility for the fulfilment of his duties. The recognition of an actual King of kings, and Lord of lords, of One not only interfering at certain crises to disturb an existing monotony, but present at all times, the real source of government, through whatever hands it may be administered,—this recognition enters assuredly into the institutions and laws of every nation in Christendom; I might say, of every nation in the world. But we have become more and more convinced that these witnesses are, as to their real and original intent, obsolete. They belong, it is said, to a theocratic period of the world’s history; when that had passed away they lingered still and are even now not without their use in enforcing obligations, the true ground of which cannot be apprehended by the people at large, in giving an historical sacredness and mystery to that which would else seem a creature of the present, in sustaining the force of laws by sympathies and affections, by the terrors or hopes of another world. But all these explanations and apologies clearly assume, that the schemes for upholding society, be they religious or secular, are of our creation; that society itself is.
Some would throw a decent veil over its origin; some would lay bare the savage contests, victories of cunning and terror, contests of the weak many and the strong few, out of which it arose; some would find a resting-place in the physical conformation and mental temperament of different races; ultimately, the great majority of those who think for themselves, and of those who are thought for, subside into the conclusion, that man is an absolute sovereign over his own social relations; or, at all events, that there is merely a reserved right dwelling with some other power, which in ordinary calculations hardly needs to be taken into account. It may happen, undoubtedly, that this claim of sovereignty assumes a shape which we find startling. We may be suddenly required to recognize, not the abstract phantom, but the practical exercise of popular supremacy. Then we begin to observe, that whenever that which is in conception so sublime takes a concrete form, it is a very coarse and very narrow one; the most ignorant part of some city or district embodying the great idea. We may begin to ask, Whether that which seems to be the highest achievement of liberty does not involve a perpetual alternation of despotism and servility; whether that which is the last and highest effort of reason does not lead to incessant contradiction? Such expressions may be true, such doubts amply justified, but do not they come too late? Have we not already admitted the principle, sanctioned the contradiction? If this ultimate sovereignty resides in any creatures, surely there must be a law of gravitation which will make it settle at last where we dread to think that it is settling now. That law cannot for ever be resisted by mere prescription, or tricks of diplomacy, or arms which may lose their edge and change their object; or, lastly, by spiritual influences which we resort to for a purpose, which we wish to be effectual for others but can trifle with ourselves. Surely all these things must come to nought; all, that is to say, which interposes between us or any country, and the abyss of self-willed mob dominion, if these words which we utter so often have not a reality in them above all realities, a depth beneath all depths. “Yours,” says our Lord, “is not the kingdom, though you may be called to sit down in it, and occupy honourable places in it; though each of you has some place in it; some work and office assigned you by the Great King, a rule over a portion of his subjects. Yours is not the kingdom; nor, as so many of you come to think, when all your plots have failed, and you are desperate of overcoming evil and establishing good in your fashion, is it the Devil’s kingdom. He claims it; he says to you, as he said to Me, ‘It is mine, and I give it to whomsoever I will.’ On the strength of that assertion he bids you, as he bade Me, fall down and worship him. He asks you to traffic with him for the means of regenerating your fellow-creatures, and getting the kingdom out of his hands. But you can answer him as I answered: ‘It is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord God, and Him only shalt thou serve.’ You can say, ‘Thine is the kingdom; thine it is now; not thine it shall be hereafter. Thine it is who art our Father, and hast called us to be thy children. Thine it is, whom we have asked according to thy will to deliver us from the evil.’”
Now, my brethren, in making this ascription, we do not affirm Theocracy in the sense which some persons give to that word, and which may well have made it hateful. We do not say, ‘Thine is the kingdom,’ meaning that it belongs not really to an invisible Father, but really to certain visible priests, who claim the homage due to Him for themselves, and bring men into bondage by the perversion of that truth which is alone able to set them free. We do not mean, according to the Filmer and Sacheverel doctrine, that the divine power is transferred to certain visible kings, in whom it rests absolutely and indefeasibly. We do not mean, according to the fifth-monarchy teachers, that this kingdom resides in a certain body of saints whom God has authorized to claim the world as their possession. All these doctrines we should reject, not as exaggerations, but as evasions; not more for their folly than for their profaneness. If the words, ‘Thine is the kingdom,’ are true words, priests, kings, saints, must say as much as any, yea, more than any: ‘It is not ours. We exist only to testify whose it is, only to bring all whom we can reach within the experience of its blessedness.’ They are to make it manifest that their consecration is not a falsehood; that all the services by which we hallow our civil acts are not horrible mockeries; that all the forms of human discourse which unconsciously witness of a divine order and government, need not for the sake of honesty be cast out of it, till it is reduced to little more than the chattering of savages. They are to declare—we all of us, brethren, are pledged by our baptismal vows, to declare,—that there is an actual eternal ground for what we have treated as fictions, for what men declare, and declare rightly if we could by our lie make God’s truth of none effect, to be worn-out fictions. We are bound to affirm, that a Fatherly kingdom is established in the world; that to be members of it is our highest title, and that the beggars of the land share it with us; that in it the chief of all is the servant of all; that under Him all may in their respective spheres reign according to this law; that all ranks and orders stand upon this tenure, and are preserved or overturned by their honour or contempt for it; that all offices, the highest and lowest, have hence their responsibility and dignity; that this kingdom has its highest throne over the human will, and its secret impulses and determinations; that it reaches to the most trifling acts and words; that not one of the suffering myriads in a crowded city is forgotten by Him who is its Ruler, any more than one of the spirits of just men made perfect; that when all the subordinate vassals of the kingdom shall confess their dependence upon Him, shall know that He is, and shall feel towards those who are beneath them and to one another as He feels towards them, then His kingdom which is now, will indeed have come in power.
II. And so it shall come; for Thine is the Power. Different words from the last, however closely allied to them; and I think harder words to say in perfect sincerity. Here we are not limited, as in the other case. We were obliged to confess that we did not call the Kingdom of Nature into existence. But we do put forth a great and notorious power over that kingdom; men can say, with much apparent justification, ‘Ours is the power,’ even there. Accordingly they did say it. The students of Nature went forth, like the Persian king, with the chains wherewith to bind her, with the magical sounds which were to make her do their biddings. But then the humbling maxim was proclaimed, which has been the foundation of all real discovery and victory in this department: ‘Man, the servant and interpreter of Nature, knows nothing, can do nothing, except what he had first observed in her.’ All the boastings to which two centuries of wonderful success might have given birth are stopped by the recollection, that obedience to this canon has been the single secret of success, that any one who would resist it, and determine to conquer without stooping, has gone away discomfited. Nature, even when she seems most confessing the dominion of man, is saying with all her voices, ‘Yours is not the power; you are learners, interpreters, receivers; you can use the strength which you have first asked for; that is all.’
Yet how wide a field remains, if this is denied us! Ours is surely the power, in some way or other, to affect our fellow-men. There is the direct power which lies in relationship, station, age; the power of outward attractions; the power of wealth; the power of conversation; the power of moving crowds by speech; the power of written words and of song; these, with all the innumerable subtle mysterious agencies which are only known in their operation. Surely, whatever may be said of the objects to which these powers are directed, their existence must be admitted. It cannot be said that they are not put forth by human beings, that they are not human powers. Can it be pretended that they would be in any respect better if they were less vigorous, that there is in power itself an inherent curse? Such a proposition would, I believe, be a denial as great as there can be, of the truth which this ascription affirms. But upon this point experience has its own testimony to bear, which must be listened to, and which cannot be at variance with that which comes from any true authority. These exercises of power do not only bring with them pain, which might be easily understood, but after them, disappointment. And this not only when the end sought for has been mean, but when it has been glorious; when it has been the triumph over wrong and the setting up of right. A bitter wail is heard again and again, that weak insignificant men do the work of the world, and that those who could do it are kept back or crushed; a wail which they who make it are half ashamed of, but which, nevertheless, they cannot suppress. The thing that was aimed at is not achieved; hopeless obstacles from the force of circumstances, and the ignorance of mankind, are said to stand in the way. What is stranger still, those in whom no power is apparent, who are not conscious of its existence in them, are seen to exert it; the meek people whom the world does not regard, whom the men of power have been used to look upon with scorn, effect what they cannot; at some time or other that influence reaches even them and overmasters them. Strange facts, but recurring continually, making up the history of mankind! How can they be explained? They are not explained, I think, to any person who has much vaunted of his own powers, till he is led to perceive that man, the servant and student of the ways of God, knows nothing in morals, can do nothing in influencing his fellow-men, except what he hath first perceived in Him after whose image he is formed. In other and much better words, he learns to say, ‘Thine is the power. Thine are all those powers which I have found in myself and called mine. From Thee they came, by Thee they must be sustained and directed. That perpetual restlessness which I have experienced, which sometimes made me curse the world, sometimes myself, sometimes thy gifts, was the effect of my claiming that which did not belong to me, trying to wield armour which was too weighty. Those whom I complained of because they were set in high places, with so little right to be there, were less mischievous than I should have been, because they did less, struggled less, and left more room for Thy working. Those whose strength I was forced to admit, though naturally I despised them, might have fewer powers than mine, but what they had were submitted to Thee, were confessed to be Thine; therefore they had Omnipotence with them. And now, since Thou hast taught me, by sore and tremendous discipline, that I cannot strive with Thee, I believe, indeed, that Thine is the power; the power to make this will conformable to thine; the power to use what Thou hast endowed me with as thine own; the power to make all circumstances, which have no virtue of their own, and which, whether sad or happy, may be my plagues, really blessed; the power to bring order out of the chaos within me; the power to change selfish remorse into gracious repentance; the power to quicken the bodies of thy saints, to restore the age, to renew the earth, to subdue even all things to thyself.’
III. For lastly, Thine is the glory. To what is this Kingdom tending? What is to be accomplished by this power? ‘Though we admit,’ it is often said, ‘that there is some Being who formed individuals and human society, and who is continually directing both, still, if we hold Him to be a gracious and benevolent Being, we cannot conceive Him to have any object but the happiness or well-doing of His creatures; we must not dream that self-glory is ever His aim. But if not, then surely the blessedness and glory of humanity may be our ultimate aim, we need not, cannot look higher.’ This statement you must all have heard frequently, in one form of words or another, and we shall hear more of it yet. We ought not to overlook the important truth which is contained in it, or to be unthankful for the confutation it contains of a deadly doctrine which divines have been too ready to propagate. If the glory be His, whom we have called our Father, whose Name we have desired to hallow, whose Kingdom we have prayed might come, whose Will is to be done on earth and in Heaven, who is the Giver and the Forgiver, who guides us through temptation, and brings us out of evil; we dare not believe for an instant that it is a Self-glory of which we are speaking. It must be that which is the eternal opposite and contradiction of Self-glory; the glory of a Being whose name and nature is Love. That such a Being must seek the good of the creatures He has formed, we are all agreed. What we say is, that He would not be seeking the good of His voluntary creatures, if He did not raise them above themselves; if He did not give them a perfect absolute object to behold, and to dwell in. Those of our age who speak so much about the glory of humanity, affirm that man wants no such object, or cannot attain it if he does. Either it is really the satisfaction of all his wants, or else the only one he can hope for, to be a Narcissus, ever beholding his own beauty and becoming more and more enamoured of it. I am aware that many who use this kind of language, would protest strongly against the notion that a man becomes necessarily a self-worshipper, a seeker of his own glory, because he seeks the glory of his race or kind. I admit the distinction; it is a very important one. What I desire earnestly is, that they would ask themselves how it may be practically realized. Humanity cannot be contemplated merely as an abstraction; it must be seen in some one. For a time we may choose a favourite hero, and think that he embodies all we covet to behold. Imperfections appear in him, or he does not meet the new cravings of our mind; he is discarded, another is raised up, who has a shorter reign. We discover that we must not exalt one against another; each one carries in him the nature of all; each man has that nature very near to him. A great and wonderful conviction! but if existing alone, sure to turn into that state of mind which I just now spoke of. Around, beneath, above, the man finds no object so worthy of his delight, admiration, adoration, as himself.
It is very possible, that those who put forth a theory which justifies, as it seems to us, this mournful result, are not practically nearer to it than we are, who denounce it. God forbid that I should exaggerate their danger, or our safety! I believe that we are one and all haunted by this tendency to self-glorification every day and hour of our lives; that no religious systems, no religious practices, are a protection against it, nay, will, if we trust in them, infallibly lead us into it. It signifies not under what pretext, philosophical, political, theological, we build altars to ourselves; the worship is in all cases equally accursed. To throw down these altars, to destroy the high places in which men are burning incense to divinities that will prove at last to be fouler than Belial or Moloch; this must be our work. But if we have commenced this process, where it always should commence, in our own hearts, we shall know that we can only drive out the false by turning to the true. It is only God who can break the yoke of the tyrants under whom we have fallen from forgetfulness of Him.
Therefore I have desired that we should meditate upon the prayer of our childhood, in which lies, I believe, the charm against all that has assaulted us in our manhood. Within the few weeks that we have been considering it, as many events have been passing before us as might fill many centuries; it has seemed to meet them all; to be the best and fullest language in which we can express our fears, hopes, longings, for ourselves, our nation, the world. We have not found that the wants and sorrows of Humanity were forgotten in it, because it begins from a higher ground, because it starts from a Father, because it acknowledges all the highest and lowest blessings as proceeding from Him. If we believe that this Father beholds Humanity created, redeemed, glorified, in His beloved Son; if we believe that in that Son we may behold it and behold Him; that being members of His body we may see Christ in each and Christ in all; we cannot think less nobly of our kind than those do who shut their eyes to the facts of its corruption and misery, or who will not acknowledge that this corruption comes from our refusal to retain God in our knowledge. If we believe that the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the Father and Son, is given to us that we may be united to each other, that we may be fitted for all knowledge and all love, we cannot have less noble anticipations of that for which man is destined than those who speak most loudly of his emancipation from all thraldom, and of his infinite capacities. But what we desire for ourselves and for our race—the greatest redemption we can dream of,—is gathered up in the words, ‘Thine is the glory.’ Self-willing, self-seeking, self-glorying, here is the curse: no shackles remain when these are gone; nothing can be wanting when the spirit sees itself, loses itself, in Him who is Light, and in whom is no darkness at all. In these words therefore we see the ground and consummation of our prayer; they shew how prayer begins and ends in Sacrifice and Adoration. They teach us how Prayer, which we might fancy was derived from the wants of an imperfect, suffering creature, belongs equally to the redeemed and perfected. In these the craving for independence has ceased; they are content to ask and to receive. But their desire of knowledge and love never ceases. They have awaked up after His likeness, and are satisfied with it; but the thought, ‘Thine is the glory,’ opens to them a vision which must become wider and brighter for ever and ever. Amen.