GLORY TO GOD IN THE HIGHEST

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GLORY TO GOD IN THE HIGHEST

BY R. HEBER [Preached at Calcutta, Christmas Day, 1825.]

St. Luke ii. 14. Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good-will towards men. This is the hymn with which the angels celebrated the incarnation of our Blessed Saviour, and to us, whom the authority of our national Church, the precedent of early antiquity, and the example of the gi'eat majority of behevers in every age and country invite, as at this time, to give thanks for the same illustrious display of Divine mercy, no fitter subject of devout meditation can be found than the words in which the spirits of Heaven announced that mercy to mankind. And of the topics of reflection which the words in question offer to the mind, the following are among the most striking. In the first place, the fact itself of that sympathizing joy which the angels are represented as feehng in the event which they annomiced with so much celestial pomp and splen-

256 SERMON XV. dour, must needs excite in us a powerful apprehension of the greatness and iUustrious natui'e of the benefit thus extended to our race, and may convince us both that those evils are very grievous from which the coming of the Son of God was to free mankind, and those blessings are even greater than our familiarity with them leaves us always able to estimate, which could move beings, so much superior to ourselves, to express such a lively and unusual interest in them. And the inference, I think, will follow both that, in the birth of the Messiah, the spirits of Heaven recognised something far more remarkable than the birth of a mere earthly prophet, and that something far more valuable than a new and more perfect revelation of God's will was anticipated by them in their song of peace and good will to the sons of Adam. Of earthly prophets and earthly heroes the birth had been announced, and announced by angels, in former and well-known instances. Isaac and Ishmael had each had his Heavenly harbinger, and the

mother of Sampson was comforted in her lonely prayers by the promise of a distinguished offspring ^ But in none of these instances was there the like promise displayed, in none of them was the like ardour of exultation and congratulation manifested which now brake the slumbers of the shepherds on the hill of Bethlehem ; and which chaunted, this one time, in mortal ears, that harmony which swells ' Gen. xvii. 16. xvi. 11. Judges xiii. 5.

CHRISTMAS DAY. 257 the choirs of Paradise. A celestial visitant, in form as a man, and suspected only to be more than man from the unmoved and terrible beauty of his countenance, a messenger indeed to mortal clay, but a messenger of too high a rank and too far removed from mortal pursuits or passions to mingle sympathies with that which was but the child of a day, or to occupy himself more or longer than his errand required with the fallen inhabitants of our planet, such was the form whose touch consumed to ashes the offering of Manoah and his wife ; such he who came to Agar in the wilderness, to Zacharias in the temple ; and such the three (though with respect to one of these a yet fruther mystery belongs) who reproved the incredulity of Sarah, and received the homage and hospitality of Abraham beneath the oak of Mamre\ The time had been when God Himself came down to speak, in the form of God, with man, in might and majesty beyond a doubt, but with no tokens of gratulation, no songs of jubilee. On Sinai was a thick and lonely darkness, a mountain smoking hke a furnace, which neither man nor beast could approach, save Moses only, and which Moses himself drew near in exceeding fear and trembling. No angel shapes broke through the gloom, no angel melodies were heard in the pauses of the thunder; but the trumpet alone waxing louder and louder, and the voice of God, of which they who heard it said, " Let not God speak with us lest we • Judges xiii. 20. Gen. xvi. 7. Luke i. 11. Gen. xviii. 1. S

258 SERMON XV. die * !" How different were these sights and sounds from the glory of the Lord, from the herald angel, accompanied by a multitude of the Heavenly host, and the hymn which, while it ascribed fresh glory to the Most High, spake of peace restored between Heaven and earth, and renewed good will

from the Creator to His creatures. If, however, we look back to what the angel had announced to the shepherds, " unto you is born this day, in the city of David, a Saviour ;" if we recollect that this birth was the first thing executed on earth towards reconciling mankind to God; that it was the first step towards the overturn of that evil spirit, who is the enemy and accuser of angels as well as of men ; that it was the noblest instance of mercy and condescension which even Omnipotence could show, and the more noble in proportion to the wretchedness and manifold demerits of those in whose favour it was exerted, we shall not wonder that the happy and benevolent inhabitants of Heaven felt joy in the extension to other worlds of those blessings in which they themselves partook without measure ; that the far-seeing cherubims beheld with delight and wonder a display of wisdom, of power, and of holiness which surpassed their most elevated contemplations, and that the seraphs loved, with augmented ardour, that good and gracious Lord who had pity on the least worthy of His creatures. ' Exod.xx. 19. » St. Luke ii. 11.

CHRISTMAS DAY. 259 The reason, then, assigned for the exultation of the Heavenly host, is that Christ was born " a Saviour." And if we desire to ascertain in what peculiar sense the Lord Jesus was a Saviour beyond all the prophets who went before Him, we shall find, or I am much mistaken, a very considerable difficulty (on every hypothesis of His nature and functions but that which we call the orthodox one) in finding an adequate reason for the eminence and pecuHarity of the title thus appropriated to Him ; for the exultation expressed by the angels while thus appropriating it ; and for the vast and lavish display of wonder, of prophecy, of vision, and of miracle, by which the birth, and life, and death, and resurrection, and ascension, and destined return of the Messiah, both have been and will be illustrated. Were these honours paid to Christ as to a mortal man, but taught of God and endued with an unexampled degree of God's spiritual assistance, the chosen instrument of bringing to light a more perfect and holy law of life and morals, confirmed with stronger sanctions than the law of Moses, and with that strongest sanction of all which arises from the resurrection of the dead and a future life without end ? God forbid that I should underrate the benefits which, even according to this imperfect view of the Christian faith, will ap-

pear to have been conferred on man through Jesus of Nazareth. I admit that, though we were to consider Him as a human prophet only, " He spake s2

260 SERMON XV. as never man spake ^;" I admit that a fuller stream of grace and wisdom has been poured on Him than on the most favoured sons of Adam, who had gone before or were to succeed Him ; I admit that no dictates of human wisdom, no previous lesson taught by God's prophets to mankind, can equal the simple ^and sober majesty of the sermon on the mount, the touching softness of the parable of the lost sheep, and the returning prodigal, or the thrilling union of awe and tenderness which is inspired by His picture of the last judgement ; I admit that neither Socrates, nor Moses, nor David, nor Isaiah, have left us any thing which can equal in purity and pathos His conversation during His last supper, and when bidding adieu to His disciples ; I admit that the doctrine of a Mfe after death, though intimated in many passages of the Mosaic law, and more largely dwelt on by the prophets ; though deducible, in a great degi'ee, from the dictates of natural reason, and actually deduced from those dictates by more than one distinguished heathen philosopher ; though forming a part of the popular tradition of almost every nation of mankind, and though received, above all, by the great majority of the Jewish nation in its fullest extent, and with almost all the circumstances of awe and majesty with which even Christians are accustomed to clothe it ; I admit that this life after death, and a ' St. John vii. 46.

CHRISTMAS DAY. 261 future state of reward and punishment were never so authoritatively declared, or so forcibly represented, or so experimentally proved, as they have been to us who beheve in the doctrine and resurrection of Jesus. But I maintain that all these points of difference between Christ and the preceding prophets are not enough to account for that difference which I have remarked in the honours paid to Him, and the display of Divine power and angelic praise by which His birth and person were, above all other prophets, distinguished ; and I maintain, above all, that in none of these respects, nor in all of them taken together, is His claim made good to that title which, of all prophets, is given to Him

alone, and which constituted the specific gi'ound of those congi'atulations which the angels bore to their fellow-creatures of mankind, the illustrious title of " Saviour." Is it fi'omthe fear of death that the world is delivered by our Lord? And is this end accomplished by the spectacle of His owii glorious triumph over the grave, and over them that had the power of it ? Alas, are we ignorant that to the sinner (and who is there among men that sinneth not ?) his fears are but the more increased by the clearness of this discovery ! The same great Moralist who hath taught us by His words, and proved to us by His own example, that the grave is but the gate to a new and eternal state of existence, hath taught us also that there is an everlasting fire prepared for the workers of iniquity.

262 SERMON XV. and we must escape from the burden of our manifold offences before the resurrection of Christ can be to us any other than a savour of death everlasting ! Can, then, a pure and holy law of life be sufficient to save mankind from their sins ? Verily, if a law could have been given which was competent to produce this effect, salvation would have been by the law of Moses ! But it is evident that so long as we are ourselves carnal and sold unto sin, the more spiritual and pure any rule of life may be, the less likely we shall be to comply with it ; and it is no less evident that where Moses and the prophets had failed to produce repentance, not all the terrours and hopes of an invisible world, no nor, if Christ is to be believed, the very spectacle of one returning from the dead would be sufficient, without some further help, to alarm the sinner from the errom' of his ways, or to confirm the wavering soul when tossed on the storms of temptation. But be this as it may, and even supposing us in time to come to avoid the crimes of our previous life, yet without some deliverance from the consequences of our former sins, this late repentance, though it might prevent our increasing their number, could not of itself rid us of apprehension. Repentance cannot make the past not to be ; that we have not continued to act foolishly is of itself no reason for freeing us from those burdens which our folly has already incurred ; and we must find out some atonement for sins past, as well as some pre-

CHRISTMAS DAY. 263 servative against sins future, before the people of God can lay claim to the blessed hope of being saved from those sins whose guilt defiles, and whose consequences terrify them. Nor is more needful to show the entire conformity of the Messiah's character and office, as understood by the great majority of His disciples, with the name by which He is best known among men, and by which the angels of the Most High proclaimed Him, who was clothed with our nature that He might reconcile us to God, who Hved for our instruction, who died for our sins, who rose again for our justification, and who, from His Father's right hand, both intercedes for our infirmities, and sends forth His Spirit of holiness to prompt, and help, and sanctify our sincere, though imperfect services. What then remains but that, thus mightily delivered, we should show forth in all our words and works a constant and becoming thankfulness ; that, thus mightily aided, we should labour more abundantly in promoting our Master's praise ; and that, united with the Godhead, as our nature is through Christ, we should the more aspire to emulate in diffusive goodness that God who maketh His sun to shine on the just and the unjust, and is kind to the unthankful and the evil. The present season is one in which, by a natural and laudable association of ideas and feelings, the great majority of the Christian world have been accustomed to express their thankfulness for the

264 SERMON XV. blessings bestowed on them, by imparting in a fuller measure than at other times the marks of affection and tenderness towards their fellow-creatures, by calling in, either literally or figuratively, their neighbours and brethren to rejoice with them, and by providing that, while they themselves exult in the bounty of the Almighty, the widow's heart should by their means be also made to sing for joy, and the blessings of him who was ready to perish, should mount up on their behalf an acceptable offering to their Maker. And here in Calcutta, in a city which, God be praised, may be honourably distinguished among the cities of the world for the extent and splendour of its public and private charities, the custom has long prevailed, in pursuance of which I yet further crave your attention, while

recommending to your bounty the most ancient, and (I may be allowed to say), the most useful and necessary of all our humane institutions, that which alone administers to the pressing wants, alone alleviates the distress, the hunger, the nakedness, and the ignorance of the unhappy Europeans, and descendants of Europeans, who abound in the crowded dwellings and obscurer streets of this great and luxurious city. The necessity of such an institution is too obvious to require enforcement; but that necessity may be, perhaps, less known or less adverted to by those who are only occasional residents here, or who, immersed in public duties, or elevated above the access of petitioners, are but partially aware of the amount to which relief is

CHRISTMAS DAY. 265 given, and the still greater degree in which it is needed. Of the great body of Europeans of every nation and class of life who come out annually to seek their fortune in the flattering land of India, it is obvious that a small number only can hope to succeed in attaining even a livelihood ; and that there are very many who are labouring at this moment under severe distress, and who are only kept here by the same poverty and want of friends which at once prevent their thriving, and prohibit their return. Nor is misfortune confined to these alone ; in a country where speculation is so tempting, and where without speculation so little can be accomplished even by industry, not only are many humble but promising fortunes shipvn-ecked by undertakings which, if not strictly prudent, are under the circumstances of this country rendered almost necessary ; but, where a prouder fabric of fortune and enterprise is shipwrecked, there are always many humbler barks whose fate depends on it, and whose industry and talent can rarely find another field till the assaults of famine, and the advances of disease, and the agony of ruined hopes and utter brokenheartedness have made them, even if another situation could be found, too often unfit to discharge its duties. Nor are they misfortune and disappointment alone which multiply the claimants on the vestry fund, nor are these the most necessitous or the most interesting claimants on our bounty. As in

266 SERMON XV.

no land under Heaven is death so sudden and so frequent, so in no land that I have ever heard of is the death of a parent, or a husband, attended with such utter and immediate ruin to those who depend on him, as with the description of persons of whom I speak, it ordinarily is in Calcutta. And when to these we add the multitude of orphans, or worse than orphans, whose existence and distress are alike the evidence and aggravation of their father's crimes ; when we consider that not Calcutta alone, but the poor and populous colonies of Serampoor and Chinsura are included within the natural limit of our care ; and that whatever be the amount of distress in all these districts, it is to Europeans alone, under ordinary circumstances, the sufferer can look for relief or sympathy ; it cannot excite surprise that, large as the funds are which have passed through the hands of those who manage this good work, they are altogether insufficient to the number of claimants who besiege them. Yet if those funds should fail, to what quarter must the poor apply ? Shall private and individual charity suffice to feed so great a multitude ? Let those answer who are already wearied with a daily swarm of petitions, and who may be assured that those petitions would, without this institution, be augmented a hundred fold, and their doors be blocked up by suffering Christians in every hideous shape of hunger, disease, and nakedness, till their time and means were engrossed by giving to those whose cases they could not investigate, or their hearts

CHRISTMAS DAY. 267 hardened against all by the apparent impossibihty of reheving many. Nor can further arguments be required to prove the advantage of a common fund mider the management of a few benevolent individuals, who are content to give up no small portion of their time to enquire into the cases submitted to them ; and who, from their long familiarity with this work of mercy, are really enabled, at a smaller expense of time than would, under any other circumstances, be necessary, to ascertain with tolerable accuracy the character and condition of each individual claimant. Of the labours of the vestry, and of the effects of those labours, though not myself a member, I have frequent occasion to hear something ; and when I mention that I have known instances of females respectably born and educated, soliciting for the monthly allowance of paupers ; that I have known strangers who must have perished in the street for lack of friends and shelter, had not the bounty of the institution intervened ; and that the free school

of Calcutta, which owes its chief support to this fiind, has been, under God, the only means of rescuing from an early death, or a life which was worse than death, many thousand children of Christian parents who had either abandoned or could not educate or maintain them ; when I state that in the vestry alms, no Christian in distress, of whatever nation or sect, is suffered to go unrelieved ; and that in the free-school, though we naturally prefer the rehgious instructions of our own Church, yet 2

268 SERMON XV. those instructions are forced on no child whose parents are of a different persuasion ; that Armenians, and Greeks, and Romanists, and even Hindoos, may be seen in our classes, their prejudices respected, and their progress and comforts no less attended to than the children of our own people, I shall have said enough, I trust, to establish the claim of the institution, for which I now am pleading, to the support of every man who wishes well to his fellow-creatures, and who, without neglecting the prior claims of " the household of faith," is desirous, according to his power, " to do good to all men." They were these claims, and claims like these, appreciated by a heart and head, than which few in the history of British India have been so warm and so cool, so ardent in the relief of distress and so calmly judicious in the choice of measures for alleviating it, which procured for this institution a more than common share of the attention and liberahty of that great man whose life was cherished still, though his presence and counsels had been withdrawn from these colonies, not by his private friends alone, but by every well wisher to India ; by every one who had learnt to honour private worth or public integrity and firmness ; by the guests who had drawn delight and improvement from his conversation while they partook in his hospitality ; and by the poor against whom his doors, his attention, his indulgence, and his purse had never been for an instant closed. His loss, the in-

CHRISTMAS DAY. 269 stitution which I am now recommending, laments in common with almost every other religious or humane institution in the city ; but it may be well to state, in order to intimate the extent of our misfortune in losing him, and to incite those who hear me to the

exercise of a similar liberality, that accessible as Mr. Adam always was to the petitions and personal applications, of the frequency of which I have spoken, there was no charity whose claims he felt so strongly as this the eldest of all ; that, ample as the donations were which the world saw affixed to his name, those donations fell considerably short of the sums which he contributed anonymously ; and that even when he had left India without an idea of seeing it more, he had determined that, while life was spared him, his charities should linger here still. In him, in that other benevolent and virtuous statesman, whom, at a yet more recent date, the will of Providence has called to his reward ; in others of less exalted rank, but of zeal not inferior for God's good cause, and the relief of their suffering fellowcreatures, whom since I last addressed you, a year of unusual mortality has swept from our social circles, the cause of charity has lost much ; but to replace the void is not beyond the scope of our own increased exertions and the exertions of those fresh labourers who have, during that time, been added to the vineyard. Only let it be our endeavour to bestow alms as of the abihty which God giveth, and that God may bless our bounty to its objects and to ourselves, let us devote it in humble prayer 1

270 SERMON XV. at His Altar from whom we have received all things, and from whose grace only it cometh that we can render Him any true or laudable service. To Him the Father of the fatherless, the Defender of the cause of the widow, to Him who heareth the cry of the destitute, and whose Son is not ashamed to call the poor His brethren, to Him, with that blessed Son, and the Spirit of bounty and love, be accounted all honour, praise, and glory !

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