"O God, be merciful to me, a sinner." Luke xviii. 13.
{15} THESE words set before us what may be called the characteristic
mark of the Christian Religion, as contrasted with the various forms of
worship and schools of belief, which in early or in later times have spread
over the earth. They are a confession of sin and a prayer for mercy. Not
indeed that the notion of transgression and of forgiveness was introduced
by Christianity, and is unknown beyond its pale; on the contrary, most
observable it is, the symbols of guilt and pollution, and rites of deprecation
and expiation, are more or less common to them all; but what is peculiar
to our divine faith, as to Judaism before it, is this, that confession
of sin enters into the idea of its highest saintliness, and that its pattern
worshippers and the very heroes of its {16} history are only, and can only
be, and cherish in their hearts the everlasting memory that they are, and
carry with them into heaven the rapturous avowal of their being, redeemed,
restored transgressors. Such an avowal is not simply wrung from the lips
of the neophyte, or of the lapsed; it is not the cry of the common run
of men alone, who are buffeting with the surge of temptation in the wide
world; it is the hymn of saints, it is the triumphant ode sounding from
the heavenly harps of the Blessed before the Throne, who sing to their
Divine Redeemer, "Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God in Thy blood,
out of every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation."
And what is to the Saints above a theme of never-ending thankfulness,
is, while they are yet on earth, the matter of their perpetual humiliation.
Whatever be their advance in the spiritual life, they never rise from their
knees, they never cease to beat their breasts, as if sin could possibly
be strange to them while they were in the flesh. Even our Lord Himself,
the very Son of God in human nature, and infinitely separate from sin,—even
His Immaculate Mother, encompassed by His grace from the first beginnings
of her existence, and without any part of the original stain,—even they,
as descended from Adam, were subjected at least to death, the direct, emphatic
punishment of sin. And much more, even the most favoured of that glorious
company, whom He has washed clean in His Blood; they never forget what
they were by birth; they confess, one and all, that they are children of
Adam, and of the same nature as their brethren, and compassed with infirmities
{17} while in the flesh, whatever may be the grace given them and their
own improvement of it. Others may look up to them, but they ever look up
to God; others may speak of their merits, but they only speak of their
defects. The young and unspotted, the aged and most mature, he who has
sinned least, he who has repented most, the fresh innocent brow, and the
hoary head, they unite in this one litany, "O God, be merciful to me, a
sinner." So it was with St. Aloysius; so, on the other hand, was it with
St. Ignatius; so was it with St. Rose, the youngest of the saints, who,
as a child, submitted her tender frame to the most amazing penances; so
was it with St. Philip Neri, one of the most aged, who, when some one praised
him, cried out, "Begone! I am a devil, and not a saint;" and when going
to communicate, would protest before his Lord, that he "was good for nothing,
but to do evil." Such utter self-prostration, I say, is the very badge
and token of the servant of Christ;—and this indeed is conveyed in His
own words, when He says, "I am not come to call the just, but sinners;"
and it is solemnly recognized and inculcated by Him, in the words which
follow the text, "Every one that exalteth himself, shall be humbled, and
he that humbleth himself, shall be exalted."
This, you see, my Brethren, is very different from that merely general
acknowledgment of human guilt, and of the need of expiation, contained
in those old and popular religions, which have before now occupied, or
still occupy, the world. In them, guilt is an attribute of individuals,
or of particular places, or of particular acts of nations, of bodies politic
or their rulers, for whom, {18} in consequence, purification is necessary.
Or it is the purification of the worshipper, not so much personal as ritual,
before he makes his offering, and an act of introduction to his religious
service. All such practices indeed are remnants of true religion, and tokens
and witnesses of it, useful both in themselves and in their import; but
they do not rise to the explicitness and the fulness of the Christian doctrine.
"There is not any man just." "All have sinned, and do need the glory of
God." "Not by the works of justice, which we have done, but according to
His mercy." The disciples of other worships and other philosophies thought
and think, that the many indeed are bad, but the few are good. As their
thoughts passed on from the ignorant and erring multitude to the select
specimens of mankind, they left the notion of guilt behind, and they pictured
for themselves an idea of truth and wisdom, perfect, indefectible, and
self-sufficient. It was a sort of virtue without imperfection, which took
pleasure in contemplating itself, which needed nothing, and which was,
from its own internal excellence, sure of a reward. Their descriptions,
their stories of good and religious men, are often beautiful, and admit
of an instructive interpretation; but in themselves they have this great
blot, that they make no mention of sin, and that they speak as if shame
and humiliation were no properties of the virtuous. I will remind you,
my Brethren, of a very beautiful story, which you have read in a writer
of antiquity; and the more beautiful it is, the more it is fitted for my
present purpose, for the defect in it will come out the more strongly by
the very contrast, viz., {19} the defect that, though in some sense it
teaches piety, humility it does not teach. I say, when the Psalmist would
describe the happy man, he says, "Blessed are they whose iniquities are
forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man to whom the Lord
hath not imputed sin." Such is the blessedness of the Gospel; but what
is the blessedness of the religions of the world? A celebrated Greek sage
once paid a visit to a prosperous king of Lydia, who, after showing him
all his greatness and his glory, asked him whom he considered to have the
happiest lot, of all men whom he had known. On this, the philosopher, passing
by the monarch himself, named a countryman of his own, as fulfilling his
typical idea of human perfection. The most blessed of men, he said, was
Tellus of Athens, for he lived in a flourishing city, and was prospered
in his children, and in their families; and then at length when war ensued
with a border state, he took his place in the battle, repelled the enemy,
and died gloriously, being buried at the public expense where he fell,
and receiving public honours. When the king asked who came next to him
in Solon's judgment, the sage went on to name two brothers, conquerors
at the games, who, when the oxen were not forthcoming, drew their mother,
who was priestess, to the temple, to the great admiration of the assembled
multitude; and who, on her praying for them the best of possible rewards,
after sacrificing and feasting, lay down to sleep in the temple, and never
rose again. No one can deny the beauty of these pictures; but it is for
that reason I select them; they are the pictures of men who were not supposed
to have any grave account to settle {20} with heaven, who had easy duties,
as they thought, and who fulfilled them.
Now perhaps you will ask me, my Brethren, whether this heathen idea
of religion be not really higher than that which I have called pre-eminently
Christian; for surely to obey in simple tranquillity and unsolicitous confidence,
is the noblest conceivable state of the creature, and the most acceptable
worship he can pay to the Creator. Doubtless it is the noblest and most
acceptable worship; such has ever been the worship of the angels; such
is the worship now of the spirits of the just made perfect; such will be
the worship of the whole company of the glorified after the general resurrection.
But we are engaged in considering the actual state of man, as found in
this world; and I say, considering what he is, any standard of duty, which
does not convict him of real and multiplied sins, and of incapacity to
please God of his own strength, is untrue; and any rule of life, which
leaves him contented with himself, without fear, without anxiety, without
humiliation, is deceptive; it is the blind leading the blind: yet such,
in one shape or other, is the religion of the whole earth, beyond the pale
of the Church.
The natural conscience of man, if cultivated from within, if enlightened
by those external aids which in varying degrees are given him in every
place and time, would teach him much of his duty to God and man, and would
lead him on, by the guidance both of Providence and grace, into the fulness
of religious knowledge; but, generally speaking, he is contented that it
should tell him very little, and he makes no efforts to gain any {21} juster
views than he has at first, of his relations to the world around him and
to his Creator. Thus he apprehends part, and part only, of the moral law;
has scarcely any idea at all of sanctity; and, instead of tracing actions
to their source, which is the motive, and judging them thereby, he measures
them for the most part by their effects and their outward aspect. Such
is the way with the multitude of men everywhere and at all times; they
do not see the Image of Almighty God before them, and ask themselves what
He wishes: if once they did this, they would begin to see how much He requires,
and they would earnestly come to Him, both to be pardoned for what they
do wrong, and for the power to do better. And, for the same reason that
they do not please Him, they succeed in pleasing themselves. For that contracted,
defective range of duties, which falls so short of God's law, is just what
they can fulfil; or rather they choose it, and keep to it, because they
can fulfil it. Hence, they become both self-satisfied and self-sufficient;—they
think they know just what they ought to do, and that they do it all; and
in consequence they are very well content with themselves, and rate their
merit very high, and have no fear at all of any future scrutiny into their
conduct, which may befall them, though their religion mainly lies in certain
outward observances, and not a great number even of them.
So it was with the Pharisee in this day's gospel. He looked upon himself
with great complacency, for the very reason that the standard was so low,
and the range so narrow, which he assigned to his duties towards God and
man. He used, or misused, the traditions in which he {22} had been brought
up, to the purpose of persuading himself that perfection lay in merely
answering the demands of society. He professed, indeed, to pay thanks to
God, but he hardly apprehended the existence of any direct duties on his
part towards his Maker. He thought he did all that God required, if he
satisfied public opinion. To be religious, in the Pharisee's sense, was
to keep the peace towards others, to take his share in the burdens of the
poor, to abstain from gross vice, and to set a good example. His alms and
fastings were not done in penance, but because the world asked for them;
penance would have implied the consciousness of sin; whereas it was only
Publicans, and such as they, who had anything to be forgiven. And these
indeed were the outcasts of society, and despicable; but no account lay
against men of well-regulated minds such as his: men who were well-behaved,
decorous, consistent, and respectable. He thanked God he was a Pharisee,
and not a penitent.
Such was the Jew in our Lord's day; and such the heathen was, and had
been. Alas! I do not mean to affirm that it was common for the poor heathen
to observe even any religious rule at all; but I am speaking of the few
and of the better sort: and these, I say, commonly took up with a religion
like the Pharisee's, more beautiful perhaps and more poetical, but not
at all deeper or truer than his. They did not indeed fast, or give alms,
or observe the ordinances of Judaism; they threw over their meagre observances
a philosophical garb, and embellished them with the refinements of a cultivated
intellect; still their notion of moral and religious {23} duty was as shallow
as that of the Pharisee, and the sense of sin, the habit of self-abasement,
and the desire of contrition, just as absent from their minds as from his.
They framed a code of morals which they could without trouble obey; and
then they were content with it and with themselves. Virtue, according to
Xenophon, one of the best principled and most religious of their writers,
and one who had seen a great deal of the world, and had the opportunity
of bringing together in one the highest thoughts of many schools and countries,—virtue,
according to him, consists mainly in command of the appetites and passions,
and in serving others in order that they may serve us. He says, in the
well known Fable, called the choice of Hercules, that Vice has no real
enjoyment even of those pleasures which it aims at; that it eats before
it is hungry, and drinks before it is thirsty, and slumbers before it is
wearied. It never hears, he says, that sweetest of voices, its own praise;
it never sees that greatest luxury among sights, its own good deeds. It
enfeebles the bodily frame of the young, and the intellect of the old.
Virtue, on the other hand, rewards young men with the praise of their elders,
and it rewards the aged with the reverence of youth; it supplies them pleasant
memories and present peace; it secures the favour of heaven, the love of
friends, a country's thanks, and, when death comes, an everlasting renown.
In all such descriptions, virtue is something external; it is not concerned
with motives or intentions; it is occupied in deeds which bear upon society,
and which gain the praise of men; it has little to do with conscience and
the Lord of conscience; and {24} knows nothing of shame, humiliation, and
penance. It is in substance the Pharisee's religion, though it be more
graceful and more interesting.
Now this age is as removed in distance, as in character, from that of
the Greek philosopher; yet who will say that the religion which it acts
upon is very different from the religion of the heathen? Of course I understand
well, that it might know, and that it will say, a great many things foreign
and contrary to heathenism. I am well aware that the theology of this age
is very different from what it was two thousand years ago. I know men profess
a great deal, and boast that they are Christians, and speak of Christianity
as being a religion of the heart; but, when we put aside words and professions,
and try to discover what their religion is, we shall find, I fear, that
the great mass of men in fact get rid of all religion that is inward; that
they lay no stress on acts of faith, hope, and charity, on simplicity of
intention, purity of motive, or mortification of the thoughts; that they
confine themselves to two or three virtues, superficially practised; that
they know not the words contrition, penance, and pardon; and that they
think and argue that, after all, if a man does his duty in the world, according
to his vocation, he cannot fail to go to heaven, however little he may
do besides, nay, however much, in other matters, he may do that is undeniably
unlawful. Thus a soldier's duty is loyalty, obedience, and valour, and
he may let other matters take their chance; a trader's duty is honesty;
an artisan's duty is industry and contentment; of a gentleman are required
veracity, courteousness, {25} and self-respect; of a public man, high-principled
ambition; of a woman, the domestic virtues; of a minister of religion,
decorum, benevolence, and some activity. Now, all these are instances of
mere Pharisaical excellence; because there is no apprehension of Almighty
God, no insight into His claims on us, no sense of the creature's shortcomings,
no self-condemnation, confession, and deprecation, nothing of those deep
and sacred feelings which ever characterize the religion of a Christian,
and more and more, not less and less, as he mounts up from mere ordinary
obedience to the perfection of a saint.
And such, I say, is the religion of the natural man in every age and
place;—often very beautiful on the surface, but worthless in God's sight;
good, as far as it goes, but worthless and hopeless, because it does not
go further, because it is based on self-sufficiency, and results in self-satisfaction.
I grant, it may be beautiful to look at, as in the instance of the young
ruler whom our Lord looked at and loved, yet sent away sad; it may have
all the delicacy, the amiableness, the tenderness, the religious sentiment,
the kindness, which is actually seen in many a father of a family, many
a mother, many a daughter, in the length and breadth of these kingdoms,
in a refined and polished age like this; but still it is rejected by the
heart-searching God, because all such persons walk by their own light,
not by the True Light of men, because self is their supreme teacher, and
because they pace round and round in the small circle of their own thoughts
and of their own judgments, careless to know what God says to them, and
fearless of being condemned by Him, {26} if only they stand approved in
their own sight. And thus they incur the force of those terrible words,
spoken not to a Jewish Ruler, nor to a heathen philosopher, but to a fallen
Christian community, to the Christian Pharisees of Laodicea,—"Because thou
sayest I am rich, and made wealthy, and have need of nothing; and knowest
not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked;
I counsel thee to buy of Me gold fire-tried, that thou mayest be made rich,
and be clothed in white garments, that thy shame may not appear, and anoint
thine eyes with eye-salve, that thou mayest see. Such as I love, I rebuke
and chastise; be zealous, therefore, and do penance."
Yes, my Brethren, it is the ignorance of our understanding, it is our
spiritual blindness, it is our banishment from the presence of Him who
is the source and the standard of all Truth, which is the cause of this
meagre, heartless religion of which men are commonly so proud. Had we any
proper insight into things as they are, had we any real apprehension of
God as He is, of ourselves as we are, we should never dare to serve Him
without fear, or to rejoice unto Him without trembling. And it is the removal
of this veil which is spread between our eyes and heaven, it is the pouring
in upon the soul of the illuminating grace of the New Covenant, which makes
the religion of the Christian so different from that of the various human
rites and philosophies, which are spread over the earth. The Catholic saints
alone confess sin, because the Catholic saints alone see God. That awful
Creator Spirit, of whom the Epistle of this day speaks so much, He it is
who brings into {27} religion the true devotion, the true worship, and
changes the self-satisfied Pharisee into the broken-hearted, self-abased
Publican. It is the sight of God, revealed to the eye of faith, that makes
us hideous to ourselves, from the contrast which we find ourselves to present
to that great God at whom we look. It is the vision of Him in His infinite
gloriousness, the All-holy, the All-beautiful, the All-perfect, which makes
us sink into the earth with self-contempt and self-abhorrence. We are contented
with ourselves till we contemplate Him. Why is it, I say, that the moral
code of the world is so precise and well-defined? Why is the worship of
reason so calm? Why was the religion of classic heathenism so joyous? Why
is the framework of civilized society all so graceful and so correct? Why,
on the other hand, is there so much of emotion, so much of conflicting
and alternating feeling, so much that is high, so much that is abased,
in the devotion of Christianity? It is because the Christian, and the Christian
alone, has a revelation of God; it is because he has upon his mind, in
his heart, on his conscience, the idea of one who is Self-dependent, who
is from Everlasting, who is Incommunicable. He knows that One alone is
holy, and that His own creatures are so frail in comparison of Him, that
they would dwindle and melt away in His presence, did He not uphold them
by His power. He knows that there is One whose greatness and whose blessedness
are not affected, the centre of whose stability is not moved, by the presence
or the absence of the whole creation with its innumerable beings and portions;
whom nothing can touch, nothing can increase or diminish; who was as mighty
before He {28} made the worlds as since, and as serene and blissful since
He made them as before. He knows that there is just One Being, in whose
hand lies his own happiness, his own sanctity, his own life, and hope,
and salvation. He knows that there is One to whom he owes every thing,
and against whom he can have no plea or remedy. All things are nothing
before Him; the highest beings do but worship Him the more; the holiest
beings are such, only because they have a greater portion of Him.
Ah! what has he to pride in now, when he looks back upon himself? Where
has fled all that comeliness which heretofore he thought embellished him?
What is he but some vile reptile, which ought to shrink aside out of the
light of day? This was the feeling of St. Peter, when he first gained a
glimpse of the greatness of his Master, and cried out, almost beside himself,
"Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!" It was the feeling of
holy Job, though he had served God for so many years, and had been so perfected
in virtue, when the Almighty answered him from the whirlwind: "With the
hearing of the ear I have heard Thee," he said; "but now my eye seeth Thee;
therefore I reprove myself, and do penance in dust and ashes." So was it
with Isaias, when he saw the vision of the Seraphim, and said, "Woe is
me ... I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people
that hath unclean lips, and I have seen with my eyes the King, the Lord
of Hosts." So was it with Daniel, when, even at the sight of an Angel,
sent from God, "there remained no strength in him, but the appearance of
his countenance was changed in him, and {29} he fainted away, and retained
no strength." This then, my Brethren, is the reason why every son of man,
whatever be his degree of holiness, whether a returning prodigal or a matured
saint, says with the Publican, "O God, be merciful to me;" it is because
created natures, high and low, are all on a level in the sight and in comparison
of the Creator, and so all of them have one speech, and one only, whether
it be the thief on the cross, Magdalen at the feast, or St. Paul before
his martyrdom:—not that one of them may not have, what another has not,
but that one and all have nothing but what comes from Him, and are as nothing
before Him, who is all in all.
For us, my dear Brethren, whose duties lie in this seat of learning
and science, may we never be carried away by any undue fondness for any
human branch of study, so as to be forgetful that our true wisdom, and
nobility, and strength, consist in the knowledge of Almighty God. Nature
and man are our studies, but God is higher than all. It is easy to lose
Him in His works. It is easy to become over-attached to our own pursuit,
to substitute it for religion, and to make it the fuel of pride. Our secular
attainments will avail us nothing, if they be not subordinate to religion.
The knowledge of the sun, moon, and stars, of the earth and its three kingdoms,
of the classics, or of history, will never bring us to heaven. We may "thank
God," that we are not as the illiterate and the dull; and those whom we
despise, if they do but know how to ask mercy of Him, know what is very
much more to the purpose of getting {30} to heaven, than all our letters
and all our science. Let this be the spirit in which we end our session.
Let us thank Him for all that He has done for us, for what He is doing
by us; but let nothing that we know or that we can do, keep us from a personal,
individual adoption of the great Apostle's words, "Christ Jesus came into
this world to save sinners, of whom I am the chief."
Copyright © 2000 by Bob Elder. All rights reserved.
Used with permission. See the Newman website:
http://www.newmanreader.org/index.html
