Plain and Parochial Sermons: Volume 3, Sermon 8 Contracted Views in Religion

“Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment; and yet thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends.”—Luke xv. 29

• There is a “general correspondence” between the parable of the prodigal son and that of that in Matthew in which the Father ask two sons to work in the vineyard.
• The obedient son in that parable says, yes father, I’ll go, but doesn’t.
• The elder son in the prodigal son parable complained about his father’s kindness to the prodigal son
• This is similar to the parable of the laborers in the vineyard when the master pays them all the same thing even though many join in much later.
• However, in this case, the elder son’s complaints are not out of selfishness but out of perplexity
• “Now let us try to understand the feelings of the elder brother, and apply the picture to the circumstances in which we find ourselves at present.”
• “First, then, in the conduct of the father, there seemed, at first sight, an evident departure from the rules of fairness and justice.”
• The reprobate son was received into his favor at the first sign of repentance
• So what was the use of the elder son being faithful if “there were no difference in the end between the righteous and the wicked?”
• We encounter this in life constantly
• In the case of religion, “At first sight, the reception of the penitent sinner seems to interfere with the reward of the faithful servant of God.”
• We see the promise of pardon abused when sinners abuse God’s abundant grace or even when it is “misapprehended by the good, so as to disquiet them.”
• The truth and justice of God is our one mainstay in this world
• The wicked prosper and the righteous suffer, this is a great temptation to embrace unbelief
• The scripture is full of declarations in which God promises to reward the faithful and punish the sinner
• These promises are there to as a fulcrum for our hope in this changing and unstable world
• Thus when we encounter the inequities of this world, we are confident that they will be put right in another
• However, “the restoration of sinners seems to interfere with this confidence;” it seems to put bad and good on the same level
• The feelings of the elder son are then triggered in us that we’ve served faithfully all these years and yet have never been treated to such festivities
• However the father’s response is most instructive, telling us that in the end it is not the same thing
• “Son, thou are ever with me, and all that I have is thine:”
• Thus, the faithful is asked, “Why the sudden fear and distrust?”
• It is not a zero-sum game, in which the faithful lose at the gain of the repentant
• It is a consolation for the faithful believer not to doubt God and a warning for the disobedient not to suppose that repentance makes all even
• “But let us now notice the unworthy feeling which appears in the conduct of the elder brother. ‘He was angry and would not go’ into the house. How may this be fulfilled in our own case?”
• “There exists a great deal of infirmity and foolishness even in the better sort of men. This is not to be wondered at, considering the original corrupt state of their nature, however it is to be deplored, repented of, and corrected. Good men are, like Elijah, ‘jealous for the Lord God of hosts,’ and rightly solicitous to see His tokens around them, the pledges of His unchangeable just government; but then they mix with such great feeling undue notions of self-importance, of which they are not aware. This seemingly was the state of mind which dictated the complaint of the elder brother.”
• “This will especially happen in the case of those who are in the most favoured situations in the Church.”
• Some faithful Christians enjoy the blessing of peace and quietness
• Every situation has its peculiar temptations
• The elder son had lived at home and gotten used to things being a certain way, he could not imagine things being another way
• He thought he understood his father’s ways and principles more than he actually did
• When his brother returned there was no precedent for the situation and he was disconcerted
• “And so in religion, we have need to watch against that narrowness of mind, to which we are tempted by the uniformity and tranquility of God’s providence towards us. We should be on our guard lest we suppose ourselves to have such a clear knowledge of God’s ways, as to rely implicitly on our own notions and feelings.”
• Many times we are surprised about the blessing of God on modes of acting that we are unaccustomed to.
• The Jews thought that the destruction of the temple would be the end of religion, but the religion flourished and spread abroad
• The Catholic Church is our guide which protects us from narrow interpretations of scripture and from local prejudices
• “But I have not described the extreme state of the infirmity into which the blessing of peace leads unwary Christians.”
• “They become not only over-confident of their knowledge of God’s ways, but positive in their over-confidence.”
• They do not like to have their opinions contradicted
• They forget that all men are learners of God’s truth and that they should remain of an ever-learning temperament
• Authentic faith never rests but is on the look out “for tokens of God’s will”
• For these, they have been in God’s “favor without cloud or storm” so that they feel so secure and no longer feel the great gift
• “They are apt to presume and so to become irreverent. Irreverence is the very opposite temper to faith.”
• When we have little we are thankful, but when we have much we soon forget that it is much and get offended at other’s receiving bounties of grace
• These then forget the gift of grace and suppose that their fitness acquired for them their current blessing
• These people are least fitted to deal with difficulty and change
• We thus have to take everything as God’s gift and we have to maintain our reverence
• Let us guard against discontent
• We should pray for our enemies and be forgiving
• We are ever with Christ, like the elder son and the father, nothing should shake us or alarm us

What motivates us? Fear or trust? When we are motivated by fear, then we become restrictive not wanting to share that which we have been blessed with. But when we are motivated by trust in Christ, we don't hesitate to share and rejoice that others receive the blessing of Christ. Fear leads to self-importance and pride, trust comes from reverence and humility.

Regardless of how confident we feel and how secure we esteem ourselves in the presence of God, we must take pains to remember that all we have is a gift and not acquired by our privilege.

Plain and Parochial Sermons: Volume 3, Sermon 6 Faith and Obedience

“If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.”—Matt. xix.17.

• “Let a plain man read the Gospels with a serious and humble mind, and as in God’s presence, and I suppose he would be in no perplexity at all about the meaning of these words.”
• There are those who through pride refuse to accept the plain meaning of this verse and many other scriptures
• The reason some have difficulty with this verse is Paul’s claim that we are accepted and saved by faith and not works
• The Holy Spirit in the Gospels and in the Apostolic Epistles has highlighted the need of both faith and works and both ideas can be reconciled
• “How are we sinners to be accept by Almighty God?”
• No question, by the sacrifice of Christ on the cross which is the “meritorious cause of our justification.”
• The Church is Christ’s ordained instrument of conveying that grace to us
• “But our present question relates to another subject, to our own part in appropriating it;”
• Sometimes in regard to our part, scripture says “believe and you shall be saved,” other times it says “keep the commandments and you shall be saved.”
• Can these two modes be reconciled? Yes
• “What is meant by faith?”
• “It is to feel in good earnest that we are creatures of God; it is a practical perception of the unseen world; it is to understand that this world is not enough for our happiness, to look beyond it on towards God, to realize His presence, to wait upon Him, to endeavour to learn and to do His will, and to seek our good from Him. It is not a mere temporary strong act or impetuous feeling of the mind, an impression of a view coming upon it, but it is a habit, a state of mind, lasting and consistent. To have faith in God is to surrender one’s self to God, humbly to put one’s interest, or to wish to be allowed to put them into His hands who is the Sovereign Giver of all good.”
• What is obedience?
• “[I]t is the obvious mode, suggest by nature, of a creature’s conducting himself in God’s sight, who fears Him as his Maker, and knows that, as a sinner, he has especial cause for fearing Him.”
• Under these circumstances “he will do what he can” to please God
• He will find that there is no better evidence to display his earnestness that to obey God’s holy law
• Thus, both states of minds, that of obedience and that of faith, are the same
• “It is quite indifferent whether we say a man seeks God in faith, or say he seeks Him by obedience;”
• God will receive and bless those who seek Him. It is indifferent to say that he accepts those who believe, or those who obey
• “To believe is to look beyond this world to God, and to obey is to look beyond this world to God; to believe is of the heart, and to obey is of the heart; to believe is not a solitary act, but a consistent habit of trust; and to obey is not a solitary act, but a consistent habit of doing our duty in all things.”
• Faith and obedience are the same thing viewed differently, they differ only in idea and not substance
• Obedience is of the heart, so even if there is a non-religious person who does right not for the sake of God, he still can’t be called obedient in this sense because these our outwards actions and by themselves do not fall under obedience
• Obedience is not to the world, but refers to obedience to God
• “[T]o habitually obey God, is to be constant in looking on to God—and to look on to Almighty God, is to have faith;”
• “[V]eiwed as sitting at Jesus’ feet, it is called faith; viewed as running to do His will, it is called obedience.”
• Some may say, what about those who are obedient and yet proud of it?
• Pride is to rest on one’s self as opposed to obedience which is to look beyond self for help
• “[I]n proportion as a man obeys, is he driven to faith, in order to learn the remedy of the imperfections of his obedience.”
• Scripture uses the words and ideas of obedience and faith interchangeably: sometimes we are saved by faith, other times, we are saved by doing our duty, the scriptures tell us
• Our Lord clearly shows faith to be very important, yet he also exalts obedience to His will
• Obedience is inherent in the nature of faith
• “In proportion as a man believes, so he obeys;”
• The temper of mind that has been acceptable to God in all ages is that of faith and obedience

Our Christian walk begins with a state or temper of mind. It is not enough to recite dogmatic statements nor is it sufficient to go through certain motions, for our lives, our acts of belief and our actions to be acceptable to God, they must stem from a mental state of submission.

Plain and Parochial Sermons: Volume 2 Sermon 19, The Indwelling Spirit  (The Feast of Pentecost)

• “God the Son has
  graciously vouchsafed to reveal the Father to His creatures from without; God
  the Holy Ghost, by inward communications.”


• The Son of God is called
  the Word because he declares the glory of the Father throughout creation and
  impresses the evidence of God everywhere


• He is one with God but
  took on our nature which he had originally created after His own image


• The Holy Spirit “has
  ever been the secret Presence of God within the Creation.”


• He brings form and is
  the voice of Truth in all rational beings


• “He is the Soul of
  universal nature”


• The Father is the source
  of all perfection and through his Co-equal Son and Spirit he has displayed his
  love for us


• “On this Festival I
  propose, as it is suitable, to describe as scripturally as I can, the merciful
  office of God the Holy Ghost, towards us Christians; and I trust I may do so,
  with the sobriety and reverence which the subject demands.”


• “The Holy Spirit has
  from the beginning pleaded with man.”


• The Holy Spirit speaks
  to our heart and tells us what is right and wrong


• The Holy Spirit is shown
  to be the source of gifts and talents


• However, as great the
  mercies of the Holy Spirit in the Jewish covenant, it is not to be compared
  with the gift of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit within us


• When Christ came among
  us, he acted as a mere man needing grace and received the consecration of the
  Holy Spirit for our sakes. “He became the Christ, or Anointed, that the Spirit
  might be seen to come from God, and to pass from Him to us.” Thus the heavenly
  gift is not just called the Holy Spirit but the Spirit of Christ


• The Comforter who is
  with us in Christ’s stead has come to us in the same sense in which Christ
  came


• He is not here to simply
  distribute gifts, but he comes as Christ came, “by a real and personal
  visitation.”


• When Christ left, the
  Holy Spirit continued the very personal presence of Christ in the soul and in
  the Church. This is the indwelling of the Spirit which is different from the
  operations of the gifts of the Spirit


• “Here let us observe,
  before proceeding, what indirect evidence is afforded us in these texts of the
  Divinity of the Holy Spirit.”


• “Who can be personally
  present at once with every Christian, but God Himself?”


• The Holy Spirit’s
  presence is the same of Christ’s bodily presence to each one of us


• His indwelling is more
  perfect than basic “possession” as we see in demonic possession.


• He is able to penetrate
  into the deepest parts of our hearts and thus pervades us


• Thus with the Holy
  Spirit’s indwelling, we become new creatures because his indwelling brings us
  to a different state altogether


• This indwelling makes us
  partakers of God’s divine nature


• “This wonderful change
  from darkness to light, though the entrance of the Spirit into soul, is called
  Regeneration, or the New Birth.”


• This regeneration was
  not available prior to Christ’s promise of the Holy Spirit


• The Holy Spirit
  impresses God’s divine image on us


• “Next, I must speak
  briefly concerning the manner in which the Gift of grace manifests itself in
  the regenerate soul”


• 1.”The heavenly gift of
  the Spirit fixes the eyes of the mind upon the Divine Author of our
  salvation.”


• We are by nature blind
  and carnal and the Spirit helps us recognize God and adore Him as our Father


• He impresses on us our
  Heavenly Father’s image which we lost when Adam fell and disposes us to seek
  God’s presence “by the very instinct of our new nature.”


• “He gives us back a
  portion of that freedom in willing and doing, of that uprightness and
  innocence, in which Adam was created.”


• Through Him we can
  continually cry Abba Father!


• Christ left us His
  sacred prayer to be the voice of the Holy Spirit


• Through the Holy Spirit
  we can say “our Father” to God as His children


• Through the Holy Spirit
  we develop the temper of mind that helps us look on at God and contemplate Him
  and even when we do look at ourselves, it is for the purpose of distributing
  and sharing the graces that we have received


• 2. “The indwelling of
  the Holy Ghost raises the soul, not only to the thought of God, but of Christ
  also.”


• The Holy Spirit has
  comes especially to glorify Christ


• He came for the purpose
  to unfold that which was hidden, i.e., the glory of the Son of God present in
  human form


• He inspired the
  Evangelists to record the life and words of Jesus


• He continued his work of
  displaying Christ in the formation of the Church


• He also conveys the body
  of Christian truth to the heart of each individual Christian in whom he dwells


• “By His wonder-working
  grace all things tend to perfection. Every faculty of the mind, every design,
  pursuit, subject of thought, is hallowed in its degree by the abiding vision
  of Christ, as Lord, Saviour and Judge.”


• He searches out souls
  for all that is noble within us and offers it up to Christ for us.


• The Holy Spirit teaches
  us that we should not exult ourselves due to our sin and yet at the same time,
  we are taught not to hide because of sin but to run to God who is able to save
  us from our sin


• 3. St John writes that
  he has written his epistle so that our joy may be full


• “What is fullness of joy
  but peace?”


• “It is peace, springing
  from trust and innocence, and then overflowing in love towards all around
  him.”


• This is the state of the
  soul that rejoices in and fears God


• The Holy Spirit is the
  font of charity in the heart of the Christian


• This charity flows from
  the “affectionateness” of innocence and peace in us by the presence of the
  Holy Spirit


• This all is what we
  ought to have due to the Holy Spirit’s indwelling, though it may not always be
  the case


• We need to see ourselves
  in terms of what we ought to be and let that be our ideal


• Our failures keep  us
  from judging each other and from pride


• We must have true
  contrition and a desire to be free from sin so that we can grow into the
  person that the Holy Spirit desires of us

We may wonder from time to time how we would have reacted to Christ if we lived in his time and were among his audience? Further still, knowing what we know now about who he is, how would we react or treat him? Would we absorb the blissfulness of knowing that we are in the presence of the Son of God? Would we touch him, listen to his every word, respond to his every request? Most of us would answer in the affirmative. Yes.

Newman tells us that in the Holy Spirit, we have the very same presence of Christ. Christ is still with us by the agency of the Holy Spirit. So whatever we feel we would have done in the presence of Christ, we must do now in the presence of the Holy Spirit.

Plain and Parochial Sermons: Sermon 18 Mysteries in
Religion (The Feast of the Ascension of Our Lord)

“It is Christ that died,
yea rather, that is risen again, Who is even at the right hand of God, Who also
maketh intercession for us.”—Rom viii. 34.

• The Ascension of our
  Lord is an event to be commemorated with joy and thanksgiving


• St Paul tell us that
  Christ ascended to make intercession for us at the right hand of the Father


• Christ has entered into
  the holy tabernacle through the sacrifice of himself on the cross


• “Wonder and awe must
  always mingle with the thankfulness which the revealed dispensation of mercy
  raises in our minds.”


• If God had simply told
  us that we had been pardon that would have been cause enough for abundant
  thanksgiving


• However, our cause for
  thanksgiving is multiplied by God telling us how he accomplished that


• “He has enlarged our
  gratitude, yet sobered it with fear.”


• “We are allowed with the
  Angles to obtain a glimpse of the mysteries of Heaven, ‘to rejoice with
  trembling.’”


• “Therefore, so far from
  considering the Truths of the Gospel as a burden, because they are beyond our
  understanding, we shall rather welcome them and exult in them, nay, and feel
  an antecedent stirring of heart towards them, for the very reason that they
  are above us.”


• “Under these feelings, I
  will attempt to suggest to you on the present Festival some of the incentives
  to wonder and awe, humility, implicit faith, and adoration supplied by the
  Ascension of Christ.”


• 1. “First, Christ’s
  Ascension to the right hand of God is marvelous, because it is a sure token
  that heaven is a certain fixed place, and not a mere state.”


• The bodily presence of
  Christ is now in heaven which confounds the ideas of speculative philosophers,
  to whom such a notion is unacceptable


• The inspired word of God
  and the voice of God in science both speak truths of God’s creation


• However, when they
  appear discordant, we must submit to the fact that we are unable to view the
  whole truth of things as they really are


• Both faith and reason
  should be left to operate in their respective spheres of competence


• Nonetheless, we must
  rebuff the scientists and philosophers when they try to exult science beyond
  its competence. It is but a mere proselyte in the temple of God, unable to
  move into the holiest place


• 2. There is a doctrine
  that accompanies the fact of the Ascension, i.e., that Christ is at the same
  time, High Priest, sacrifice and present intercessor for us


• “The Intercessor directs
  or stays the hand of the Unchangeable and Sovereign Governor of the Word;
  being at once the meritorious  cause and the earnest of the intercessory power
  of His brethren. ‘Christ rose again for our justification,’ ‘the effectual
  fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much,’ are both infinite mercies,
  and deep mysteries.”


• 3. Christ in many
  scriptures noted that he had to go to the Father so that the Holy Spirit may
  come down. There are also scriptures that suggest a need to go before the
  Father


• Some would arrogantly
  question why Christ could not remain here as well as pray to the Father for us


• “But faith, without
  asking for one ray of light more than is given, muses over the wonderful
  system of Providence, as is seen in this world, which is ever connecting
  events, between which no man sees no necessary bond.”


• “The whole system of
  what is called cause and effect, is one of mystery; this instance, if it may
  be called one, supplies abundant matter of praise and adoration to the pious
  mind.”


• All this shows us that
  our knowledge of God barely scratches the surface


• Instead of questioning
  that which is mysterious, we should rather let it be a cause of praise


• The instance of God
  removing one blessing, i.e., his own Son, to give us another equal blessing,
  i.e., His Holy Spirit can be a source of comfort to us. Sometimes in life we
  lose something or a loved one, but this example from God shows us that often
  the removal of one good thing can lead to the reception of a blessing


• In conclusion


• “What has been now said
  about the Ascension of our Lord comes to this; that we are in a world of
  mystery, with one bright Light before us, sufficient for our proceeding
  forward through all difficulties. Take away this Light, and we are utterly
  wretched,—we know not where we are, how we are sustained, what will become of
  us, and of all that is dear to us, what we are to believe, and why we are in
  being. But with it we have all and abound.”

In the face of mystery, when we encounter acts of God that our imperfect nature is unable to process, how do we react? Do we rise in pride and proclaim that there is no mystery to deep, or do we submit humbly and acknowledge that the ultimate truth is simply more than we can fathon?

The presence of mystery does not halt our curiosity or quest for knowledge, but it gives it context and reverence. When we acknowledge mystery and our imperfections, we kill the arrogance of Adam and Eve whose decision and will to attain divinity precluded the Almighty. God does want us to be gods, but in his own time and at his own pace.