17-Church-Going: its Dangers and Benefits. 249

XVII. CHURCH-GOING: ITS DANGERS AND BENEFITS Luk 18:10. “Two men went up into the temple to pray, the one a Pharisee, the other a publican.”

I AM to speak to you to-night, dear brethren, both to those who are Church-goers and to those who are not, about going to Church.

It must seem to you very natural that I should wish every one to come to Church. It is to be expected that I should feel inclined to remonstrate urgently with those who stay away, to tell them of what they lose by their absence, to warn them of the danger into which they run by neglecting what God has ordained for their good. Generally, it is only in conversation or through print that there is a chance of addressing such remonstrances to those who are not in the habit of going to Church. Tonight there may be some here, who have not been in Church for a long time before this Mission week, and who have come now out of kindly feeling because they have been specially invited and perhaps entreated to come; so that I have an opportunity for once of saying something in Church to those who have hitherto neglected Church-going. But two considerations constantly occur to me when I think of urging people to come to Church, which always have the effect of putting a bridle on the energy with which I might otherwise appeal to them.

I. Is it so certain, I cannot help asking, that every one is the better for coming to Church? I assure you that I do not wait to have that question put to me by some one who does not care about Church-going. We clergymen who have so much to do with services are reminded oftener than other people of the possibility of attending Divine Service Sunday after Sunday, and yet of remaining hard and worldly and frivolous. We cannot shut our eyes to this possibility. We feel the danger of it in our own hearts; we are saddened by the proofs of it that we see in the mass of the Church-going population. When we look into our Bibles, we see the most vehement rebukes addressed not to the carelessly irreligious, but to the formally religious. The prophets of the Lord thundered against those who came with their sacrifices and prayers, but brought at the same time covetous, cruel, and deceitful hearts into the sanctuary. They declared that the worship of such men was hateful in God’s sight, so that the more there was of it, the more was God displeased. And when the Son of man was upon the earth, who were they that moved him to indignant invective? Not the irreligious, but the religious. The Pharisees, who prayed and fasted and offered sacrifices and paid tithe of mint and anise and cummin, accused Jesus of irreligion, and were accused by him in turn of neglecting the weightier matters of the law, justice, mercy, and faith. You cannot imagine the Lord Jesus exhorting the careless multitudes to do as the Pharisees did and become as like them as they could.

It often seems to me, therefore, that if we are to follow in the steps of the prophets and of our blessed Lord and of his apostles, our duty with regard to Church-going is much more to point out to regular worshippers the danger of being hollow and formal, than to prescribe attendance at Church as a specific for spiritual maladies, and to urge all sinners to use it 2. The other consideration to which I referred was this, that Church-going is so much a matter of course for those who have any genuine Christian convictions, that one would fancy it might be left to take care of itself. I do not mean to pass any judgment upon exceptional cases; but I think every one here would admit that if you suppose a man earnest in Christian belief and sentiment, he will not want urging to come to Church. He will not necessarily come to one of our Churches, but he will do something corresponding to Churchgoing; he will not go on living in careless neglect of public worship. Is not that so? But then, if it is, the thing needed appears to be, not that people should be induced to come to Church whatever they are, but that they should be filled with the desires and instincts which would naturally bring them to Church.

I do not wish that these two considerations should have less weight with me or any one else to-night than they have had hitherto. With regard to the former, nothing ought to deter or dissuade us from declaring that the outside worship offered by godless hearts is hateful in the sight of God, and that all worshippers are in so great danger of a dead formalism that they need to be most carefully on their guard against it The other, that if people are Christians in heart they will want no pressing to go to Church, is a thought to which I will ask you to give some further attention.

Mark the importance of such an admission.

Those who are earnestly Christian, we say, are sure to come to Church. In the first place, they know that as Christians they ought to do so. When the Christian Church was brought into existence by the power of the Holy Ghost on the Day of Pentecost, the life led by the first believers is described as follows: “All that believed were together, and had all things common; and sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need. And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God, and having favour with all the people.” You see what a completely social life, and what a life of worship, it was! And these two features have always remained characteristic of Christian life. Members of Christ have never felt it right to be shut up in themselves. Nor have they felt it possible to live without worship, as if they belonged to this world only. When faith and love began to grow cold, the believers were exhorted not to fall into the habit of forsaking the assembling of themselves together. The modes of assembling, and of offering worship, have varied considerably amongst Christians. It is quite possible that good Christians may not altogether like the ways of worship which they find offered to them. Some like more music, some less; some like a longer, some a shorter service; some prefer one kind of preaching, others another kind. But sincere Christians do not easily allow themselves to be so repelled by things which they do not like in a service as to give up Churchgoing altogether. They do, as a matter of fact, find comfort, support, and encouragement, in their ordinances of worship. Their minds are solemnized by the ancient and venerable forms of Divine service; their spirits ascend upwards in the common praise and prayer; they listen with advantage to the assurances of pardon, to the warnings, and to the instructions, which they hear given with authority from the Word of God. Those who are Church-goers in this congregation, I know that I might confidently appeal to them, would bear witness to those who are not, that they would shrink from the abandonment of public worship as from a spiritual loss and danger; that it would seem to them like renouncing their Christian profession and rejecting Divine grace itself together with its appointed means.

I say this, without at all forgetting the possibility of a dead and hypocritical worship which would be an offence to God. I say it notwithstanding all that I know of the imperfections for which the clergy are responsible, and of the coldness which may partly be laid to the account of the people. It is because worship is in itself so good, that when it is spoilt and counterfeited it becomes so bad. The perfection of Christian life comprehends common employments and worship in one.

There ought to be no separation, but the closest union, between what we do in the world and our joint communion in the Spirit with the Saviour and the Father. We have our lots appointed us, our tasks set us, our trials prepared for us, by the same Father to whom in Church we pray and give thanks. Without his grace we fail in our common duties, and bring misery upon ourselves and others through our sin. Our worship ought to be the living bond between the visible world in which we are v and the invisible world to which we belong, connecting what we do with what we believe, and arming us with Divine strength for our work and our temptations.

I shall not speak expressly to-night of the Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ, because I can speak of that on any Sunday; but I desire that it should be borne in mind that this is the great Christian act of worship. In the first days, all Christians joined in it, and not a minority only; and it is from this act of fellowship with Christ and with one another, from this act of thanksgiving for the redemption given to sinners, that we learn the truest idea of Christian worship and of that Divine grace of which God would make us partakers. Being so sure, then, that our common worship is a necessary part of Christian life, and that it has in it inexhaustible promises of Divine blessing for struggling sinners, how can we help longing that those multitudes of our people whom we miss in the houses of God should claim their rights of presence and fellowship there? It seems so strange, it is almost enough to make us suspicious of the genuine quality of our Christianity, that those who especially want the tenderness of comfort and the guidance of instruction, those who can least make up on week-days for what they deny to themselves on Sundays, should be indifferent to the ordinances which we find blessed and helpful.

It certainly is not that they are raised, in spirit or in circumstances, above the need of the means of grace which their Church-going fellow-countrymen value. They are not peculiarly strong against temptation, peculiarly free from sin, peculiarly happy and at their ease, peculiarly spiritual in mind. Nor do they themselves deliberately believe that they have chosen a better way. They never seem to think of saying to us who come to Church, “ If you wish to be better and happier than you are, do as we do, give up going to Church.”

We, on the contrary, do not doubt that it would be a great blessing to the whole land if those negligent multitudes of the common people were to come crowding once more into our Churches, with no preparation but that of humble and teachable hearts.

If I could speak to those absent multitudes, and I may be speaking to a few representatives of them present here, I would say, We want you, not for your own sake only, but also for ours. Do you know that, in leaving the comparatively well-todo to worship by themselves, you are injuring our Christianity? Depend upon it that it is so. Why, the New Testament is a volume which could not possibly have been written as it is, which must have been something essentially different, had not Christ lived amongst the suffering multitudes, and had not the Apostles drawn poor and despised men into the equality of the Christian fold. No Christianity can be living and heavenly in its operation, which is that of upper classes exclusively. The motto of our churches ought to be, “The rich and the poor meet together, the Lord is the maker of all.” It is a spiritual advantage to the rich man that his poorest neighbours should stand by his side claiming equality with him before God. Just as the Jewish belief in Christ could not have the largeness and depth and knowledge which it was intended to have, until the Gentiles claimed to be in the Church with as good right as the Jews, so we shall not inherit such a national or personal Christianity as God reserves for us, until we are constrained to think more reverently of the humanity which we share with every man, than of the distinctions which place some above others. It would come like a steady tide of inspiration to the clergy, in particular, stirring their hearts and opening their lips, if the common people were to demand their proportion of places in our Churches places which God gives them, and which, thank God, the country and the Church guarantee to them. Then they would exert their natural influence. They could practically insist that the service and the teaching should be in part accommodated to their needs. But I rejoice to believe that the influence of the lower classes, when it has really made itself felt in our religious habits, will not stop there. It will go on to deal with social life, and will tend in many ways to accomplish the blessed work of lifting up all those that are down. But I would add with confidence, It will be directly good for you also. Yes, brethren, we are sure it will. You are in little danger, probably, of unrighteous formalism, at all events for some time to come. What will you hear, in what will you be expected to join, when you come to Church? It will be taken for granted that you are sinners, sinners like the best of us And does this fact never force itself upon you and trouble you? Does conscience never make you ashamed? You are not so blind as to deceive yourselves with the notion that you are blameless. Well then, being invited to confess yourselves the sinners that you are, you hear in the Church of God’s wonderful forgiveness of sins, of the reconciliation he wrought through his Son who gave himself up on the Cross, of his constant readiness to receive as forgiven every sinner who repents. It is the property of God, so the Church testifies, it is his essential nature, always to have mercy and to forgive. And this is the substance of all our communion with God in worship, that he meets us as our reconciling Father, and we come to him as his offending but penitent children. But, as he has taught and continually inspires us to do, we offer him praises and thanksgivings and prayers, casting all our care upon him> committing the keeping of our souls to him as to a faithful Creator. And further, if you come to Church, you will hear chosen passages of Holy Scripture, now the thrilling words of an ancient prophet, now the story of some beneficent work of the Lord Jesus Christ, now the profound exhortation of an Apostle* Could you be the worse for this? And if the preacher is not all that you might wish and could imagine him to be> if he does not always speak so that his words go home with force to heart and mind and conscience alike, yet if you listen sympathizingly, you will hear him say something, at least, upon which your minds may dwell with profit, something in which the voice of God himself, encouraging, warning, or consoling, may be recognized.

Then you will go home again, to take up once more the daily burden of cares and duties, to be husbands and wives, parents, sons and daughters, workpeople, and so on. Now will you tell me that any other way of spending the time, say two hours and a half on Sunday, would have done more to strengthen and animate you for the bearing of that burden, to lift your souls into a pure atmosphere, to give you gentleness and courage, to brace your energies together, to turn your affections from what is foul or mean? Hardly anyone now wishes to make the Sunday a day of gloom, or to put a ban upon the enjoyment of the open air or of society on that day. But there are many hours in a day, and a portion given to the united worship of God will make the rest of the day and of the week the happier. I never like to assume that Sunday is the only day of common worship; it would be pleasant to imagine a daily consecration of our daily toil. But our modern customs present a very strong resistance to daily worship. And I have those now in my mind, who have to begin with regular Church-going on Sundays.

I hope I may venture to appeal to your experience of these Mission Services, of this service to-night. Will you not say, with the Apostles who saw the glory on the mount, “ It is good for us to be here”? Have not some precious recollections been awakened, have not some secret places of emotion been unlocked in your hearts, as the touching words of the hymns have gone up in sweet music to heaven? My brethren, I will believe that by God’s grace it has been so. There has been much in the response given to the Mission call, to justify us in entertaining good hopes.

Don’t let the heavenly impulse, the sincere purpose, be swept away from your hearts by unworthy causes. I know of several reasons commonly given for not coming to Church which ought to be as gossamer in the way of a strong spiritual conviction. If God enables you to think steadily of himself, and of heaven> and of the future, and of your duties to your families, and of the grand traditions of the Church, and of the well-being of the country, then all excuses will be silenced.

You can come to Church, if you are convinced that you ought. I am unwilling to think of want of courage as preventing any one from saying in simplicity, “ I am going to Church to-day.” But there is no harm in mutual support. Rather it is a good thing that neighbour should encourage neighbour. I remember once desiring to do an act which it was natural to shrink a little from doing; and after some talk with a friend who also desired to do the same thing, I bound myself to him, and he bound himself to me, that we would break the ice at the same time. In that way the stronger may help the weaker, and the weak may help one another. Why should not many agree together to say, “We know it would be a good thing to go to Church; let us promise each other that we will not fail without reasonable cause to be at Christ Church, or at St Barnabas, once at least on a Sunday.” But there is one reason for not coming to Church which deserves the most considerate respect. Not a few feel, “ It would be inconsistent in me to go to Church, it would be no better than humbug, if I were to go on doing just as I do now, taking a little too much to drink sometimes, or using bad language which has become a habit to me, or buying or selling on Sundays. I will at least not be a hypocrite, as some poor wretches are.” How am I to answer that? I will say, Remember the publican, who went up into the Temple to pray. He had many things on his conscience, more than one bad habit to break; but God’s grace took hold of him, and he went up into the Temple to pray. Not as a hypocrite. No, that character belonged more truly to the respectable Pharisee who thanked God he was not as that publican. No: he went, in simplicity and sincerity, and what he said was, “ God be merciful to me a sinner.” He asked for pardon for the past, for help for the future. And because he thus threw himself on the mercy of God, he went down to his house justified rather than the Pharisee. Brethren, what God judges is the heart. If our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things. You may be sure, I venture to say it, that God’s eye sees many things in the hearts of the completely respectable, which offend him more than the outward irregularities which catch the world’s eye. Only, let it be true to us all alike, that we come to Church, not to cover our sins, but to get rid of them. If we come with even a faint desire of pleasing God, he will help us to do whatever is right for us to do. Remember, you do not make an evil thing good by abstaining from a religious profession. If a habit is evil, it is hurting you, hurting your children, hurting your neighbours. You who are doing what you yourself think wrong, if you make no pretence of religion, will be beaten with fewer stripes than if you were a hypocritical professor. But you will be beaten. Safety, duty, credit, happiness, all lie in the path of confession and amendment. You should welcome therefore anything that engages that excellent principle, your hatred of hypocrisy, on the side of a change which is for your good.

If I have been speaking to but few of those who have yet to be drawn into the communion of our worship, I trust that the same thoughts are not without their lesson to us whose habit it already is to come to Church. These thoughts constrain us at all events to say within ourselves, If we are persuaded that others might derive so much benefit from Church-going, are we taking care that by teachableness and devotion and sincerity we are making the most of what we would commend to them?