Second part of Sermon LVII. for the Tenth Sunday after Trinity.
If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the
things
which belong unto thy peace!—ST. LUKE
xix. 42.
(for the first part, on the Epistle.)
The occasion of the narrative in the Gospel was this: our Lord was now
approaching Jerusalem for the last time of His sojourn there, just before
His death. It was on Palm Sunday, as He meekly rode from Bethany with rejoicing
multitudes, and at the turn of the hill on the Mount of Olives came suddenly
in sight of Jerusalem, when St. Luke’s account thus proceeds :—
And when He was come near, He beheld the city, and wept over it,
saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things
which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes. Yet
to judge from sight all in that city was peaceful—nay, more, full of holy
festivity and rejoicing. But as with the soul that hath departed from God,
it was a false peace, and not to last. In the words of Baruch, “Thou hast
forsaken the fountain of wisdom. For if thou hadst walked in the way of
God, thou shouldest have dwelled in peace for ever.” [Bar. iii. 12.]
Whereas, now to them the day of peace was for ever over and gone: and the
sign of this was already approaching, for a war and destruction, the most
terrible which the world has ever witnessed, was in forty years entirely
to overwhelm them.
“He wept,” not for His own approaching sufferings, which He so distinctly
foresaw, but for them who should inflict on Him those sufferings. “He wept”
not merely on account of their eternal loss, which was ever present to
the “Man of sorrows,” but as the sight of any distress, of hunger, or loss,
moved His compassions, so the prospect of these temporal sufferings affected
His pitying spirit, as He beheld that beautiful city, so soon to be the
seat of such calamities.
For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast
a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every
side, and shall lay thee even with. the ground, and thy children within
thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another.
What an awful figure of that inevitable ruin which may overtake the soul,
when its short peace and rejoicing in worldly things is over, as a gulf
entrenching it around, deep and large, spiritual enemies hedging it in
on every side, as a net from which there is no escape. “Thy children within
thee,—no stone remaining!” All thine earthly hopes gone, no vestige left!
Because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation. These
are remarkable words, “the time of thy visitation,” and “because thou knewest
it not.” There is a day in which God visits every Church and people,
and every individual soul; it was this for which the warning voice had
been sent, saying, “Now is the axe laid unto the root of the trees,” and
“repent ye, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.” This was the day of
their visitation. And moreover, there is an imminent danger lest
it be not known; that it should come and go, and not be felt or understood,
because our eyes are closed by sin while it is with us; and that it should
have gone by, like the harvest and the summer ended, but never again to
return. “But now they are hid from thine eyes.” It is this want of knowledge
which is twice spoken of in this our Lord’s pathetic appeal, “if thou hadst
known in thy day the things of thy peace ;“ and again, “because thou knewest
not the time of thy visitation.”
And a circumstance which the Evangelist mentions immediately after,
affords us a strong and lively evidence how it was that they knew not the
things of their peace, and the day of their visitation; it was because
the love of the world and the business of the world occupied and profaned
that temple where God would dwell alone. So it is with the soul which knows
not the things of its peace. On beholding the city He wept; And, on
entering Jerusalem, He went into the temple, and began to east out them
that sold therein, and them that bought, saying unto them, It is written,
My house is the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.
Now we are taught by this what great reverence is due to that holy place
wherein God has placed His Name; that the evil world is not to enter there;
there is to be there no buying and selling; nothing that partakes of the
spirit of this world; no thoughts of covetousness, or business; but all
is to be holy, full of veneration, and awe, and peace; that God may be
worshipped in spirit and in truth. Secondly, that not only the materiel
building, but what Scripture calls “the Church of the living God,” that
spiritual temple spread abroad, the pillar and ground of the truth, the
Kingdom of Heaven, as it is described in the Gospels, into which we are
received at Baptism; that in this there should be no traffic or merchandise,
no consideration of worldly politics should have any place therein; but
that it should be “called an house of prayer for all people,” [Isa. lvi.
7.] that there should be “in every place incense and a pure offering,”
[Mal. i. 11.] “an offering in righteousness ;“ the continual sacrifice
of prayer and praise. And thirdly, that as the Christian is so often in
Scripture said to be the temple of God, being such he should keep himself
holy, as the house of prayer; that nothing should be admitted within him
which should impair or take the place of his constant communion with God;
that as he is called upon to love God with all his heart and soul and strength,
so nothing of this world should find an entrance into his heart, that sanctuary
wherein God would dwell. That in carrying on the necessary business of
this world, he should never allow anything of this kind to take the place
of God in his soul; but should be as one who in possessing possessed not.
That he should keep such things without his secret spirit, wherein God
alone must be; that his joys and sorrows, his hopes and fears,—those things
which dwell in his inner heart, the hidden man,—should be of another kind,
and not like those of the men of this world. Now this is to know the things
which belong unto our peace this is to know the time of our visitation;
that Christ may not be weeping over us while we are rejoicing, and we know
it not. Further, one word more of this indwelling of God, “the vision of
peace.” When Christ had driven out the buyers and sellers it is added,
And He taught daily in the temple. So it is with us; if we cast out from
the heart whatever is common or unclean, every worldly thought and desire,
reverencing ourselves as the house of prayer, in constant intercourse with
God, then He will “daily teach us.” He will open our eyes within to the
wonderful things of His law. He will give us to know the things which belong
unto our peace. He Himself in our heart will sit as a teacher, instructing
us daily, so that day unto day and night unto night shall utter knowledge.
Let us then be careful not to lose this our day, the day of spiritual
gifts, and when Christ sits in His temple. Surely we have much to labour
after in order that we may obtain “the mind which was in Christ,” and “the
mind of the Spirit.” The shadows of evening are stretched out, and this
our day of grace wanes away apace. There is a night that overtakes man
darker than that of the grave.
Our Church on this Sunday lifts up as it were again what had been her
Advent [see the First Sunday in Advent, vol. i. p.2.] note of warning,
lest the things which belong unto our peace be for ever hidden from our
eyes; yet in this warning is there also great encouragement; for are they
not the things of our “peace"? is not the very expression full of the most
sweet attraction? for, oh! what else in the world is worthy of one moment’s
thought and care compared with this peace, the peace of God? Is it in our
power to obtain this peace? yes, it is still in our power, for it is our
“day ;“ Christ is watching over us, but not, we may trust, weeping over
us as lost; for these things are not yet hidden from us; we desire them
still, we long and labour for them, we tremble lest we lose them; they
are not then yet hidden from us.
And again, that other expression, “the day of visitation,” this too
is a word of fear and alarm, but also of love and power; for it is the
day when God visits us, and therefore called “the day of salvation.” For
how does He visit us? it is with thoughts of repentance, with desires to
pray, and to serve Him better than we have yet done. And when He gives
us these thoughts and desires, He gives us likewise, if we neglect them
not, the power to fulfil them.
