Part 1 (1/2)

Sermons for the Times.

by Charles Kingsley.

SERMON I. 'FATHERS AND CHILDREN'

Malachi iv. 5, 6. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.

These words are especially solemn words. They stand in an especially solemn and important part of the Bible. They are the last words of the Old Testament. I cannot but think that it was G.o.d's will that they should stand where they are, and nowhere else.

Malachi, the prophet who wrote them, did not know perhaps that he was the last of the Old Testament prophets. He did not know that no prophet would arise among the Jews for 400 years, till the time when John the Baptist came preaching repentance. But G.o.d knew. And by G.o.d's ordinance these words stand at the end of the Old Testament, to make us understand the beginning of the New Testament. For the Old Testament ends by saying that G.o.d would send to the Jews Elijah the prophet. And the New Testament begins by telling us of John the Baptist's coming as a prophet, in the spirit and power of Elias; and how the Lord Jesus himself declared plainly that John the Baptist was Elijah who was to come; that is, the Elijah of whom Malachi prophesies in my text.

Therefore, we may be certain that this text tells us what John the Baptist's work was; that John the Baptist came to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to the fathers; lest the Lord should come and smite the land with a curse.

Some may be ready to answer to this, 'Of course John the Baptist came to warn parents of behaving wrongly to their children, if they were careless or cruel; and children to their parents, if they were disobedient or ungrateful. Of course he would tell bad parents and children to repent, just as he came to tell all other kinds of sinners to repent. But that was only a part of John the Baptist's work. He came to be the forerunner of the Messiah, the Saviour, the Redeemer.'

Be it so, my friends. I only hope that you really do believe that John the Baptist did come to proclaim that a Saviour was born into the world--provided only that you remember all the while who that Saviour was. John the Baptist tells you who He was. If you will only remember that, and get the thought of it into your hearts, you will not be inclined to put any words of your own in place of the prophet Malachi's, or to fancy that you can describe better than Malachi what John the Baptist's work was to be; and that turning the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to the fathers, was only a small part of John the Baptist's work, instead of being, as Malachi says it was, his princ.i.p.al work, his very work, the work which must be done, lest the Lord, instead of saving the land, should come and smite it with a curse.

Yes--you must remember who it was that John the Baptist came to bear record of, and to manifest or show to the Jews. The Angels on the first Christmas Eve told us--they said it was _The Lord_, 'Unto you,' they said, 'is born a Saviour, who is Christ, _The Lord_.'

John the Baptist told you and all mankind who it was--that it was The Lord. 'The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of _the Lord_!'

_The Lord_. What Lord--Which Lord? John the Baptist knew. Simeon, Anna, Nathaniel, all righteous and faithful hearts who waited for the salvation of the Lord, knew. The Pharisees and Sadducees did not know. The men who wrote our Creeds, our Prayer Book, our Church Catechism, knew. The Pharisees and the Sadducees in our day, who fancy themselves wiser than the Creeds, and the Prayer Book, and the Church Catechism, do not know. May G.o.d grant that we may all know, not only with our lips, but with our hearts, our faith, our love, our lives, who The Lord is.

Jesus Christ, the babe of Bethlehem, is The Lord. But who is He?

The Bible tells us; when we have heard what the Bible tells us we shall be able better to understand the text. The Lord is He of whom it is written, 'And G.o.d said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.' And who is G.o.d's image and G.o.d's likeness? The New Testament tells us--Jesus Christ. In Him man was made. He is the Son of Man, who is in heaven--the true perfect pattern of man: but He is also the image and likeness of G.o.d, the brightness of His Father's glory, and the express image of His person. He is The Lord. He is the Lord who inst.i.tuted marriage, and said, 'It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help-meet for him.' He is the Lord who said to man, 'Be fruitful and multiply: fill the earth and subdue it.' He is the Lord who said to the first murderer, 'Thy brother's blood crieth against thee from the ground.'

He is the Lord who talked with Abraham face to face as a man talks with his friend; who blest him by giving him a son in his old age, that he might be the father of many nations. He is the Lord who, on Mount Sinai, gave those Ten Commandments, the foundation of all law and right order between man and G.o.d, between man and man:--'Thou shalt honour thy father and thy mother. Thou shalt do no murder.

Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not bear false witness in courts of law or elsewhere. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's property.'

This is The Lord. Not a G.o.d far away from men; who does not feel for them, nor feel with them; not a G.o.d who despises men, or has an ill-will to men, and must be won over to change his mind, and have mercy on them, by many supplications and tears, and fear and trembling, and superst.i.tious ceremonies. But this is The Lord, this is the babe of Bethlehem, this is He whose way John the Baptist came to prepare--even He of whom it is written, that He possessed wisdom, the simple, practical human wisdom, useful for this everyday earthly life of ours, which Solomon sets forth in his Proverbs, in the beginning before His works of old; and that when He appointed the foundations of the earth, that Wisdom was by Him, as one brought up with Him, and she was daily His delight; rejoicing alway before Him; rejoicing in the _habitable_ parts of the earth; and her delights were _with the sons of men_.

In one word, He is the Lord, in whose likeness man is made. Man's justice is a pattern of His; man's love is a pattern of His; man's industry a pattern of His; man's Sabbath-rest, in some unspeakable and eternal way, a pattern of His. Man's family ties are patterns of His. G.o.d the Father is He, said St. Paul, from whom every fathers.h.i.+p in heaven and earth is named, that we may be such fathers to our children as G.o.d is to us. G.o.d The Son is He who is not ashamed to call us brethren, and to declare to us the glorious news, that in Him we, too, are the sons of G.o.d, that we may be such sons to our heavenly Father--ay, and to our earthly fathers also, as the Lord Jesus was to His Father.

Yes--and even more wonderful still, and more blessed still, the Lord is not ashamed to call himself a husband. Our human wedlock and married love is a pattern of some divine mystery. 'Husbands love your wives, as Christ also loved the Church, and gave Himself for it, that He might present it to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle, but that it should be holy and without blemish.' Blessed words, which we cannot pretend to explain or understand, but can only believe and adore, and find, as we shall find, in proportion as we are loving and faithful in wedlock, that G.o.d's Spirit bears witness with our spirit, that they are reasonable, blessed, true; true for ever.

This, then, was the Lord who was coming to judge these Jews; not merely a G.o.d, but _The_ G.o.d. The Lord, in whose likeness man was made; who had appointed men to be fathers, sons, husbands, citizens of a nation, owners of property, subject to laws, and yet _makers_ of laws; because all these things, in some wonderful way, are parts of His likeness. He was coming to this nation of the Jews first, and then to all the nations of the earth, to judge them, Malachi said, with a great and terrible day. To lay the axe to the root of the tree; to cut down from the very root the evil principles which were working in society. His fan was in His hand; and He would thoroughly purge His floor; and gather His wheat into the garner, for the use of future generations: but the chaff, all that was empty, light, and useless, He would burn up and destroy utterly out of the way, with unquenchable fire. He would inquire of every man, How have you kept my image; my likeness, in which I made you? What sort of husbands, fathers, sons, neighbours, subjects, and governors, have you been? And above all, Malachi says, the root question of all would be, what sort of fathers have you been to your children? What sort of children to your fathers? Does that seem to you a small question, my friends? Would you have rather expected to hear John the Baptist ask, what sort of saints they had been? What sort of doctrines they were professing?

A small question? Look at these two little words, Father and Son.

Father and Son! Are they not the most deep and awful, as well as the most blessed and hopeful words on earth? Do they not tell us the very mystery of G.o.d's being? Are they not the very name of G.o.d, G.o.d The Father and G.o.d The Son, knit together by one Holy Spirit of Love to each other and to all, who proceeds alike from The Father and from The Son? And then, will you think it a light matter to ask fallen creatures made in the likeness of that perfect Father and that perfect Son, what sort of fathers and sons they have been? G.o.d help us all, and give us grace to ask ourselves that question morning and night, before the great and terrible day of the Lord come, lest He come and smite this land with a curse.

I have been led to think deeply and to speak openly upon this solemn matter, my friends, by seeing, as who can help seeing, the great division and estrangement between the old and the young which is growing up in our days. I do not, alas! I cannot, deny the complaints which old people commonly make. Old people complain that young people are grown too independent, disobedient, saucy, and what not. It is too true, frightfully, miserably true, that there is not the same reverence for parents as there was a generation back;--that the children break loose from their parents, spend their parents'

money, choose their own road in life, their own politics, their own religion, alas! too often, for themselves;--that young people now presume to do and say a hundred things which they would not have dreamed in old times. And they are ready enough to cry out that all this is a sign of the last days, of which, they say, St. Paul speaks in 2 Tim. iii. 4--when men 'shall be disobedient to parents, unthankful, boasters, heady, high-minded, despisers of those who are good, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of G.o.d.' My friends, my friends, it is far better for us who have children, instead of prying into the times and seasons which G.o.d has kept in His own hand, to read our Bibles faithfully, and when we quote a text, quote the whole of it, and not just those bits of it which help us to throw blame on other people. What St. Paul really says, is that 'in the last days evil times will come;' just as they had come, he shows, when he wrote; and what he means I will try and show you presently. And, moreover, remember that Malachi says, that the hearts of the parents in Judea needed turning to their children, as well as the hearts of the children to their parents. Take care lest it be not so in England now. Remember that St. Paul, in that same solemn pa.s.sage, gives other marks of 'last days,' which have to do with parents as well as with children, and some which can only have to do with parents--for they are the sins of grown-up and elderly people, and not of young ones. He says, that in those days men shall also be 'covetous, proud, without natural affection, breakers of their word, blasphemers; having a form of G.o.dliness, but denying the power thereof.' Will none of these hard words. .h.i.t some grown people in our day? Will not they fill some of us with dread, lest the parents now-a-days should be as much in fault as the children of whom they complain; lest the parents' sins should be but too often the cause of the children's sins? Read through St. Paul's sad list of sins, and see how every young man's sin in it has some old man's sin corresponding to it. St. Paul does not part his list, and I dare not, and cannot. St. Paul mixes the parents' and the children's sins together in his words, and I fear that we do the same in our actions.

Oh! beware, beware, you who complain of the behaviour of children now-a-days, lest your children have as much cause to complain of you. Are your children selfish, lovers of themselves?--See that you have not set them the example by your own covetousness or laziness.

Are they boastful?--See that your pride has not taught them.

Incontinent and profligate?--See that your own fierceness has not taught them. If they see you unable to master your own temper, they will not care to try to master their appet.i.tes. Are they disobedient and unthankful?--See, well, then that your want of natural affection to them, your neglect, and harshness, and want of feeling and tenderness, has not made the balance of unkindness fearfully even between you. Are your children disobedient to you?-- See that you have not taught them to be so, by breaking your word to them, by letting them see you deceitful to others, till they have lost all trust in you, all reverence for you. Above all, are your children lovers of pleasure more than lovers of G.o.d?--Oh! beware, beware, lest you have made them so,--lest you have been blasphemers against G.o.d, even when you have been fancying that you talked religion. Beware lest you have been teaching them dark, cruel, superst.i.tious thoughts about G.o.d,--making them look up to Him not as their heavenly Father, but as a stern taskmaster whom they must obey, not from grat.i.tude, but from fear of h.e.l.l, and so have made G.o.d look so unlovely in their eyes that 'there is no beauty in Him that they should desire Him.' Can you wonder at their loving pleasure rather than loving G.o.d, when you show them nothing in G.o.d's character to love, but everything to dread and shrink from? And last of all, are your children despisers of those who are good, inclined to laugh at religion, to suspect and sneer at pious people, and call them hypocrites? Oh! beware, beware, lest your lip- religion, your dead faith, your inconsistent practice, has not been the cause of it. If you, as St. Paul says, have a form of G.o.dliness, and yet in your life and actions deny the power of it, by living without G.o.d in the world, and following the lowest maxims of the world in everything but what you call the salvation of your souls, what wonder if your children grow up despisers of those who are good? If they see you preaching one thing, and practising another, they will learn to fancy that all G.o.dly people do the same.

If they see your religion a sham, they will learn to fancy all religion false also. Oh! woe, woe, most terrible, to those who thus harden their own children's hearts, and destroy in them, as too many do, all faith in G.o.d and man, all hope, all charity! Woe to them!