Sermons for the Times. Charles Kingsley

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СКАЧАТЬ of goodness itself; even to God, the Father of lights.  It is so careful of God’s honour, so careful that the child should learn from the first to look up to God with love and trust, that it dare not tell the child that God can destroy and punish, before it has told him that God is a Father and a Maker; the Father of spirits, who has made him and all the world.  It dare not tell him that mankind is fallen, before it has told him that all the world is redeemed.  It dare not talk to him of unholiness, before it has taught him that the Holy Spirit of God is with him, to make him holy.  It tells him of a world, a flesh, and a devil: but he has renounced them.  He has neither part nor lot in them; and he is not to think of them yet.  He is to think of that in which he has part and lot, of which he is an inheritor.  He is to know where he is and ought to be, before he knows where he is not and ought not to be: he is to think of the name of God, by which he can trample world, flesh, and devil under foot, if they dare hereafter meddle with his soul.  In its God-inspired tenderness and prudence, it dare not darken the heart of one little child, or tempt him to hard thoughts of God, or to cry, ‘Why hast thou made me thus?’ lest it put a stumbling-block in the way of Christ’s little ones, and dishonour the name and glory of God.  It tells him of the love, before it tells him of the wrath; of the order, before it tells him of the disorder; of the right, before the wrong; of the health, before the disease; of the freedom, before the bondage; of the truth, before the lies; of the light, before the darkness; in one word, it tells him first of the eternal and good God, who was, and is, and shall be to all eternity, before and above the evil devil.  It tells him of the name of God; and tells him that God is with him, and he with God, and bids him believe that, and be saved, from his birth-hour, to endless ages.  It does not tell him to pray that he may become God’s child; but to pray, because he is God’s child already.  It does not tell him to love God, in order that he may make God love him; but to love God because God loves him already, and has loved him from all eternity.  It does not tell him to obey Jesus Christ, in order that Christ may save him; but to obey Christ because Christ has saved him, and bought him with his own blood.  It does not tell him to do good works, in order that God’s Spirit may be pleased with him, and come to him, and make him one of the elect; neither does it tell him, that some day or other, if he is converted, and feels certain religious experiences, he will have a right to consider himself one of God’s elect: but it tells him to look man and devil in the face, he, the poor little ignorant village child, and say boldly in the name of God, ‘I am one of God’s elect.  The Holy Spirit of God is sanctifying me, and making me holy.  God has saved me; and I heartily thank my Heavenly Father, who has called me to this state of salvation.’  It tells him to believe that he is safe—safe in the ark of Christ’s Church, as Noah was safe in the ark at the deluge; and that the one way to keep himself within that ark is to obey Him to whom it belongs, who judges it and will guide it for ever, Jesus Christ, the likeness of God; and that as long as he does that, neither world, flesh, nor devil, can harm him; even as Noah was safe in the ark, and nothing could drown him but his own wilful casting himself out of the ark, and trying to free the flood of waters by his own strength and cunning.

      It tells him, I say, that he is safe, and saved, even as David, and Isaiah, and all holy men who ever lived have been, as long as he trusts in God, and clings to God, and obeys God; and that only when he forsakes God, and follows his own selfishness and pride, can anything or being in earth or hell harm him.

      And do not fancy, my friends, that this is a mere unimportant question of words and doctrines, because a baptized and educated child may be lost after all, and fall from his state of salvation into a state of damnation.  Still more, do not fancy that if a child is taught that he is already a child of God, regenerated in baptism, and elect by God’s Spirit, that therefore he will neglect either vital faith or good works—heaven forbid!

      Is it likely to make a child careless, and inclined to neglect vital truth, to tell him that God is his Father and loves him utterly, and has given His only begotten Son to die for him?  Is it not the very way, the only way, to stir up in him faith, and real hearty trust and affection towards God?  How can you teach him to trust God, but by telling him that God has shown himself boundlessly and perfectly worthy to be trusted by every soul of man; or to love God, but by showing him that God loves him already?  Is it likely to make a child careless of good works, to tell him that God has elected and chosen him, and all his brothers and schoolfellows, to be conformed into the likeness of Jesus Christ, and that every good, and honourable, and gentle thought or feeling which ever crosses his little heart, does not come from himself, is not part of his own nature or character, but is nothing less than the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, nothing less than the voice of Almighty God Himself, speaking to the child’s heart, that he may answer with Samuel—‘Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth?’  Is it likely to make a child careless about losing eternal life, to tell him that God has already given to him eternal life, and that that life is in His Son Jesus Christ, to whom the child belongs, body, soul, and spirit?

      Judge for yourselves, my friends.  Think what awe, what reverence, purity, dread of sin, would grow up in a child who was really taught all this, and yet what faith and love to God, what freedom, and joyfulness, and good courage about his own duty and calling in life.

      And then look at the fruits which in general follow a religious education, as it is miscalled; and take warning.  For if you really train up your children in the way in which they should go, be sure that when they are old they will not depart from it—a promise which is not fulfilled to most religious education which we see around us now-a-days; from which sad fact, if Scripture be inspired and infallible, we can only judge that such is not the way in which the children should go; and that because it is a wrong way, therefore God will not, and man cannot, keep them in it.

      SERMON IV.  NAMES

      Matthew i. 21.  And thou shall call his name Jesus.

      Did it ever seem to you a curious thing that the Catechism begins by asking the child its name?  ‘What is your name?’  ‘Who gave you this name?’  I think that if you were not all of you accustomed to the Church Catechism from your childhood, that would seem a strange way of beginning to teach a child about religion.

      But the more I consider, the more sure I am that it is the right way to begin teaching a child what the Catechism wishes to teach.

      Do not fancy that it begins by asking the child’s name just because it must begin somehow, and then go on to religion afterwards.  Do not fancy that it merely supposes that the clergyman does not know the child’s name, and must ask it; for this Catechism is intended to be taught by parents to their children, and masters to their apprentices and servants; by people, therefore, who know the child’s name perfectly well already, and yet they are to begin by asking the child his name.

      Now, why is this?  What has a child’s name to do with his Faith and duty as a Christian?

      You may answer, Because his Christian name is given him when he is baptized.

      But why is his Christian name given him when he is baptized?  Why then rather than at any other time?

      Because it is the old custom of the Church.  No doubt it is: and a most wise and blessed custom it is; and one which shows us how much more about God and man the churchmen in old times knew, than most of our religious teachers now-a-days.  But how did that old custom arise?  What put into the minds of church people, for the last sixteen hundred years at least, that being baptized and being named had anything to do with each other?  Men had names of their own long before the Lord Jesus came, long before His Baptism was heard of on earth;—the heathens of old had their names—the heathens have names still;—why, then, did church people feel it right to mix a new thing like baptism with a world-old thing like giving a name?

      My friends, I feel and say honestly, that there is more in this matter than I understand; and what little I do understand, I could not explain fully in one sermon, or in many either.  But let this be enough for to-day.  God grant that I may be able to make you understand me.

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