life of goodness, which is the righteousness of Christ,
and the glory of Christ, and which will be our righteousness
and our glory also for ever: but only if we
live it; only if we be useful as Christ was, generous
as Christ was, just as Christ was, gentle as Christ
was, pure as Christ was, loving as Christ was, and
so put on Christ, not in name and in word, but in
spirit and in truth, that having worn Christ’s
likeness in this world, we may share his victory over
all evil in the life to come.
(Twelfth Sunday after Trinity.)
II Cor. iii. 6.
God, who hath made us able ministers of the New Testament;
not of the letter, but of the Spirit: for the
letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life.
When we look at the Collect, Epistle, and Gospel for
to-day one after the other, we do not see, perhaps,
what they have to do with each other. But they
have to do with each other. They agree with each
other. They explain each other. They all
three tell us what God is like, and what we are to
believe about God, and why we are to have faith in
God.
The Collect tells of a God who is more ready to hear
than we are to pray; and is ’wont to give’—that
is, usually, and as a matter of course, every day
and all day long, gives us—’more than
either we desire or deserve,’ of a God who gives
and forgives, abundant in mercy. It bids us,
when we pray to God, remember that we are praying
to a perfectly bountiful, perfectly generous God.
Some people worship quite a different God to that.
They fancy that God is hard; that he sits judging
each man by the letter of the law; watching and marking
down every little fault which they commit; extreme
to mark what is done amiss; and that in the very face
of Scripture, which says that God is not extreme
to mark what is done amiss; for if he were, who could
abide it?
Their notion of God is, that he is very like themselves;
proud, grudging, hard to be entreated, expecting everything
from men, but not willing to give without a great
deal of continued asking and begging, and outward
reverence, and scrupulous fear lest he should be offended
unexpectedly at the least mistake; and they fancy,
like the heathen, that they shall be heard for their
much speaking. They forget altogether that God
is their Father, and knows what they need before they
ask, and their ignorance in asking, and has (as any
father fit to be called a father would have) compassion
on their infirmities.
There is a great deal of this lip-service, and superstitious
devoutness, creeping in now-a-days; a spirit of bondage
unto fear. St. Paul warns us against it, and
calls it will-worship, and voluntary humility.
And I tell you of it, that it is not Christian at
all, but heathen; and I say to you, as St. Paul bids
me say, God, who made the world, and all therein,
seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth
not in temples made with hands; neither is worshipped
with men’s hands, as though he needed anything,
seeing that he giveth to all life and breath, and
all things. For in him we live and move, and
have our being, and are the offspring—the
children—of God.
