THE CHURCH, SAFEGUARD AGAINST MODERN SELFISHNESS. WE are being continually called upon now-adays to exercise the most blessed privilege and highest happiness, which falls to us as sons of God and heirs of heaven,-self-denial for Christ's sake. We are continually having put before us the cause of the growing population of this but half-Christian country, the generation who are now rising up about us, and who are to hand forward the Memory of Christ, and witness to His Gospel, and pass on His Cross to others in new Churches and upon new Altars, when we have been drawn into the inner world by the quiet hand of death. Now, I am anxious you should not be taken by surprise when such occasions come, that you should, while at your leisure, have taken some account of the claims at such times brought before you, the claims of those vast English multitudes, among whom the Church is still to be set up, multitudes too often lawless and disturbed, because not enough beneath the Church's hand, but who are our brethren and our countrymen, with like cares and sorrows, like need of Sacraments, and Priests, and Churches, like souls to save. By being prepared with great and anxious thought on this subject, the suddenness or frequency of the claim will be less likely to stand in the way of the largeness of your self-denial. I propose, therefore, in these few pages, to lay before you in the general the claims of church building and church extension schemes, when brought before you by authority and in a church way, how urgent they are, why you should be called upon in the matter, and how blessed a thing it is for you to be able to put trust in God, and make sacrifices for Christ's sake. For this purpose it may be well to consider, how we are placed in this world, how we are connected with our neighbours, how the Church brings us close to Christ, as being our spiritual mother, and what Christ expects us to do for His Church in return for all the great things she has done for us, and how that Church is now to one and all of us, a refuge from modern selfishness. Different persons, different stations in life, different circumstances, tempers, and affections, are all liable to different sins. A rich man, for example, is tempted to be proud and careless about his soul: a poor man, to be discontented, and envious of those who are above him. So prosperity, which ought to make a man thankful, and to put him in mind of God at every turn, often makes him forget God altogether; and affliction, which ought to soften the heart, seeing it is the pressure of the Cross, sometimes hardens it; and hard beyond all hope is that heart whose fountains have been stopped by affliction and adversity. But there is one sin which besets all people, rich and poor, prosperous and afflicted, learned and ignorant; one which clings to all persons, cold-hearted men, or men of quick feelings; though of course not in like manner, nor in an equal degree. A sin it is which begins in their childhood, makes them disliked and unhappy, grows with their growth, stands in the way of every good feeling, and makes many fall short of heaven. This is selfishness: a habit of looking at ourselves, thinking of ourselves, acting for ourselves in every thing, rather than for others, even our friends and neighbours: a dislike to put ourselves out of the way to do them good, to sacrifice our own pleasure and comfort for their sake. But more than this, strange as it may seem, considering what we are, we are selfish towards God. Though all we have, health and life, and the strength of youth and cheerful spirits, food and clothing, the blue heaven and the green earth, and the year with its seasons and its harvests, are from Him and are His, yet we grudge to give Him back the slightest portion of that which He has given us. Though our three thousand sheep' and a thousand goats were safe and none missing all the while they were in the open fields, though God's Providence hath been, like David's men, a wall unto our fortunes both by night and day, and though the Church come unto us in a good day for the portion of God and of the poor, yet, like 1 1 Sam. xxv. |