PURIFYING HOPE

Eversley, 1869.  Windsor Castle, 1869.

1 John iii. 2.  “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.  And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.”

Let us consider this noble text, and see something, at least, of what it has to tell us.  It is, like all God’s messages, all God’s laws, ay, like God’s world in which we live and breathe, at once beautiful and awful; full of life-giving hope; but full, too, of chastening fear.  Hope for the glorious future which it opens to poor human beings like us; fear, lest so great a promise being left us, we should fall short of it by our own fault.  Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed on us, that we should be called the sons of God.

There is the root and beginning of all Christianity,—of all true religion.  We are the sons of God, and the infinite, absolute, eternal Being who made this world, and all worlds, is our Father.  We are the children of God.  It is not for us to say who are not God’s children.  That is God’s concern, not ours.  All that we have to do with, is the awful and blessed fact that we are.  We were baptised into God’s kingdom, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.  Let us believe the Gospel and good news which baptism brings us, and say each of us;—Not for our own goodness and deserving; not for our own faith or assurance; not for anything which we have thought, felt, or done, but simply out of the free grace and love of God, seeking out us unconscious infants, we are children of God.  “Beloved now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be.”  It doth not yet appear what the next life will be like, or what we shall be like in it.  That there will be a next life,—that death does not end all for us, the New Testament tells us.  Yea, our own hearts and reasons tell us.  That sentiment of immortality, that instinct that the death of our body will not, cannot destroy our souls, or ourselves—all men have had that, except a few; and it is a question whether they had it not once, and have only lost it by giving way to their brute animal nature.  But be that as it may, it concerns us, I think, very little.  For we at least believe that we shall live again.  That we shall live again in some state or other, is as certain to our minds as it was to the minds of our forefathers, even while they were heathens; as certain to us as it is that we are alive now.  But in that future state, what we shall be like, we know not.  St. John says that he did not know; and we certainly have no more means of knowing than St. John.

Therefore let us not feed our fancies with pictures of what the next world will be like,—pictures, I say, which are but waking dreams of men, intruding into those things which they have not seen, vainly puffed up in their fleshly minds—that is in their animal and mortal brain.  Let us be content with what St. John tells us, which is a matter not for our brains, but for our hearts; not for our imaginations, but for our conscience, which is indeed our highest reason.  Whatever we do not know about the next world, this, he says, we do know,—that when God in Christ shall appear, we shall be like Him.  Like God.  No more: No: but no less.  To be like God, it appears, is the very end and aim of our being.  That we might be like God, God our Father sent us forth from His eternal bosom, which is the ground of all life, in heaven and in earth.  That we might be like God, He clothed us in mortal flesh, and sent us into this world of sense.  That we might be like God, He called us, from our infancy, into His Church.  That we might be like God, He gave us the divine sense of right and wrong; and more, by the inspiration of His holy spirit, that inward witness, that Light of God, which lightens every man that cometh into the world, He taught us to love the right and hate the wrong.  That we might be like God, God is educating us from our cradle to our grave, by every event, even the smallest, which happens to us.  That we might be like God, it is in God that we live, and move, and have our being; that as the raindrop which falls from heaven, rises again surely, soon or late, to heaven again; so each soul of man, coming forth from God at first, should return again to God, as many of them as have eternal life, having become like to God from whom it came at first.  And how shall we become like God? or rather like Christ who is both God and man?  To become like God the Father,—that is impossible for finite and created beings as we are.  But to become somewhat, at least, like God the Son, like Jesus Christ our Lord, who is the brightness of His Father’s glory, and the express image of His person, that is not impossible.  For He has revealed Himself as a man, in the soul and body of a man, that our sinful souls might be made like His pure soul; our sinful bodies like His glorious body; and that so He might be the first born among many brethren.  And how?  “We know that when He appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.”

For we shall see Him as He is.  Herein is a great mystery, and one which I do not pretend to fathom.  Only this I can try to do—to shew how it may seem possible and reasonable, from what is called analogy, that is by judging of an unknown thing from a known thing, which is, at least, something like it.  Now do we not all know how apt we are to become like those whom we see, with whom we spend our hours—and, above all, like those whom we admire and honour?  For good and for evil, alas!  For evil—for those who associate with evil or frivolous persons are too apt to catch not only their low tone, but their very manner, their very expression of face, speaking, and thinking, and acting.  Not only do they become scornful, if they live with scorners; false, if they live with liars; mean, if they live with covetous men; but they will actually catch the very look of their faces.  The companions of affected, frivolous people, men or women, grow to look affected frivolous.  Indulging in the same passions, they mould their own countenances and their very walk, also the very tones of their voice, as well as their dress, into the likeness of those with whom they associate, nay, of those whose fashions (as they are called) they know merely by books and pictures.  But thank God, who has put into the hearts of Christian people the tendency towards God—just in the same way does good company tend to make men good; high-minded company to make them high-minded; kindly company to make them kindly; modest company to make them modest; honourable company to make them honourable; and pure company to make them pure.  If the young man or woman live with such, look up to such as their ideal, that is, the pattern which they ought to emulate—then, as a fact, the Spirit of God working in them does mould them into something of the likeness of those whom they admire and love.  I have lived long enough to see more than one man of real genius stamp his own character, thought, even his very manner of speaking, for good or for evil, on a whole school or party of his disciples.  It has been said, and truly, I believe, that children cannot be brought up among beautiful pictures,—I believe, even among any beautiful sights and sounds,—without the very expression of their faces becoming more beautiful, purer, gentler, nobler; so that in them are fulfilled the words of the great and holy Poet concerning the maiden brought up according to God, and the laws of God—

   “And she shall bend her ear
   In many a secret place,
Where rivulets dance their wayward round,
And beauty, born of murmuring sound,
   Shall pass into her face.”