SERMON XLI.
THE THREEFOLD CORD.

TRINITY SUNDAY.

ECCLES. iv. 12.

"A Threefold cord is not quickly broken."

THIS must be an old proverb, taken from something very familiar, and applied by the wise king, or rather by the Holy Spirit guiding him, to a very deep and high meaning. How deep and high, we shall better understand, if we go back, as the Church does this day, to the very beginning of our Bibles. He made man in His own Image, and having made him, He left him not long by himself, but made woman also, to be an help meet for him. These two works were works of so great importance, that the Almighty Lord is spoken of as even taking counsel about them: considering beforehand how He should order them. God said, "Let us make man in Our Image, after Our likeness:" and again God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone: I will make him an help meet for him." As persons who are very much in earnest, very full of any matter, often, in setting about it, talk to themselves, without knowing that they do so: so our great Creator here takes counsel with Himself, to shew us what a weighty business He is taking in hand. The first thing on which He thus counsels with Himself, is the making man after His own Image, the second is the not leaving him alone. Now we know that this saying, "It is not good for man to be alone," relates in the first place to Holy Matrimony, but no doubt it relates also to the need which men have of one another, and each one of far better help than his own, in all the concerns, both of this life and of the next. See how this is set out at length by the wise man. "Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labour. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth, for he hath not another to help him up. Again, if two lie together, then they have heat: but how can one be warm alone? and if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him." Now all this we all understand at once as far as relates to the concerns of this life, how impossible it is for us to do without one another: and the dullest of us can at once discern, what a lesson it all teaches of love and good-fellowship, and the duty of all caring for one another, since God has made us so, that we cannot go on at all without one another. All this we understand by the instances given of two being better than one. But what is this which comes after? "A threefold cord"--"Why "threefold?" Not merely because, union being strength, the more there are in union, the greater the strength: not merely that as two are better than one, so three are better than two, although that might often be true in earthly matters; and cordage, we know especially is always threefold at least, else it will be quickly broken; but, as I said, there is a deeper meaning in this, as there is, I believe, always in the Scripture, when the number three is mentioned at all particularly. It always takes us back, if we consider it well, to the number of the Divine Persons, the Holy, Blessed, and Glorious Trinity. Thus in the text, it is as if Solomon should say, "It is not good for man to be alone: two are better than one: but a threefold cord--that is best and strongest of all, for this is the very nature of man, according as he was at first created." He was made in the Image of God; and God, though He is One, is not alone. He is not single nor solitary, but Three in One, and so hath been and will be, for ever and ever. And man, being made at the first in God's Image, after His likeness, was not altogether single and solitary. Man, at the beginning, was in a certain sense three in one, and in that, as in some other respects, was made after his Creator's likeness. You may ask, how was Adam, when first created, an Image of the eternal Three in One? Different answers might be given to this, all more or less true; but I will mention only one answer, and that I will take out of S. Paul. S. Paul prays God for the Thessalonians, that their "whole spirit and soul and body may be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." Their spirit and soul and body: see here three parts, three separate principles, forming together one man: not one man of any sort, but one spiritual Christian man. For S. Paul, had he been writing to the heathen, would not, I imagine, have said anything about spirit, because the heathen had not the Spirit. Thus stands the doctrine, as I understand it: As God is Three Persons in one Substance, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, so Adam when first created had three principles (so to call them) in one person, the same three which the Apostle here mentions; the body, formed out of the dust of the earth; the soul or breath of temporal life, breathed into his nostrils by the Lord God after He had formed him, whereby, as we read, "the first man Adam was made a living soul;" and the Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life, given to the same Adam to join him in unspeakable communion with his Creator, making him in some way partaker of heavenly life, as his having a soul made him partaker of this earthly life. Thus man was made in the Image of God, in that being one he was three, made up of body, soul and spirit, and so he continued during his time of innocence. Too soon, alas! he sinned, grievously sinned, and what was the consequence? He lost the Image of God, in which he was at first so happily created; he lost it, as in other respects, so in this particularly, that the Holy, Life-giving Spirit departed from him, and so he consisted no longer of body, soul and spirit, but of body and soul only: the threefold-cord was not broken, but in a manner untwined: one of the lines, the principal one was removed, two only remained, and they were soon to be untwined also: he was no more an image of the Trinity.

In this sad condition we are every one of us born, without any portion or part in that blessed Spirit, Who is the only Lord and Giver of eternal life. This was our ruin by nature, what then is our restoration by grace? What but our being new-created in the Image of God which we have lost? what but our receiving anew the Blessed Spirit Whom we drove away from us? This might not be, until a Sacrifice had been offered for us, able indeed to take away sin: and such Sacrifice none might offer in heaven or in earth but He Who was made one of us that He might offer it, God the Son, the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world. He, by His meritorious Cross and Passion, purchased for us remission of our sins, and the gift of His good Spirit which we had lost and forfeited, to unite us to the Divine Nature, to create us anew after the Divine Image, by giving us His own gracious Self, causing us to become spirit soul and body, a likeness of the Holy Trinity again. This blessing He purchased for us all on the Cross, but He gives it to each one of us at Holy Baptism, when He sends His Spirit into our hearts to make us members of Himself. At our Baptism, unless we hinder it by our sins, the original Image of God, in which Adam was created, is restored and renewed in us, and, as I said, we are once more made body and soul and spirit, instead of being only soul and body, as we had been ever since Adam's sin. And this is the threefold cord, which cannot be broken; though by wilful sin and unbelief on our part, it may be again untwined, and too often is so. We are sure it cannot be broken, we are sure the good work wrought for us in Baptism cannot be undone except by our own sin, because it is the work of the Blessed Trinity, it depends on the inseparable union of the Three Divine Persons with each other, and on that other inseparable union of the Nature of God with the Nature of Man in the Person of Jesus Christ. If the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost can cease to be of one Substance, Majesty and Glory; if Jesus Christ our Saviour can cease to be for ever both God and Man; then may the Holy Spirit depart from the souls and bodies of Christ's redeemed and regenerated, without wilful sin of theirs. But not else: the threefold cord, I say it again, may be untwined but cannot be broken.

All our holy services and Sacraments are divinely ordered to assure us of this. Our Faith, uttered in the Creed of the Church, whether it be the Apostles' Creed or the Nicene Creed or, as to-day the Creed of S. Athanasius, begins with the Trinity and ends with life everlasting; and the one is as sure as the other; the threefold cord binds us to the Throne for ever. Our Baptism, what is that but the seal of the Trinity, Almighty God the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, giving us Himself, to come unto us and make His abode with us, giving us His Name, the name of Christian, to be unto us a strong tower, into which we may run and be safe? The benedictions or blessings of Holy Church are all uttered in the Name of the Trinity: when she dismisses us after Holy Communion, it is with the blessing of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, that we may not lose the good thing we have received: when she absolves us after confession of sin, it is still in the same Name, to make sure of the untying of our bonds: when she would place a guard on our marriages, that no unclean or morose spirit may enter in and spoil them, her word is, "God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost, bless, preserve and keep you:" and not only in Church services, but in all very serious matters it has ever been usual among Christians to provide, as well as they might, for their good success, by putting them under the care of the Divine Trinity, beginning or ending them in the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Again, that our Psalms and hymns and solemn thanksgivings may be indeed to God's praise and glory, we bind them also to His Throne by that other threefold cord of the Gloria Patri: professing thereby, before men and Angels, that all our worship and devotion is dedicated to Him Who is Three in One, and to Him alone, for ever and ever. The Faith, the Name, the worship of the Most Holy Trinity, meet us every where in the Prayer-book, and will not let us turn with dependence towards any body or anything else. O my brethren, let us hold fast by it, for there is no other cord to lay hold of: if we let this go, we shall assuredly make shipwreck of our souls. And how may we hold fast by it? The seal of the Trinity will be in a manner worn out of our foreheads, the Name of the Trinity will be no protection to us, if we do not keep entire the Faith of the Trinity. Many false prophets are abroad, saying this or that against it: let us at once refuse to listen to them; let us put their books in the fire; if they attempt to discourse with us, let us say, "I cannot talk with you;" and above all things let us pray: for only the sacred Trinity Itself can teach and secure our faith in the Trinity. Let us pray, as we do this day, that as He hath "given us grace by the confession of the one true Faith, to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity, and in the power of the Divine Majesty to worship the Unity, so He may evermore keep us stedfast in that good Faith." "We shall do well to consider that holy collect as a safeguard, an antidote against all poison of profane unbelief, to last us through all the long months until the holy seasons begin again. And He Who knows how frail we are, how our nature shrinks from trials and troubles, He permits us to hold by the same threefold cord for protection against them also: He permits us to say to Him, not only "keep us stedfast in this Faith," but also, "defend us evermore from all adversities." What is this but putting the seal of the Trinity upon our friends and families, our bodies and estates and all our earthly interests, as well as upon our souls? Thus we put our very life and limbs and all the comforts and conveniences of our life, and more especially we put all who are near and dear to us, under the protection of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost, till the holy seasons begin afresh. And what can we do more or better for them?

Now all this which I have put you in mind of, out of Holy Scripture and out of the Prayer-book, of holding fast this threefold cord, which may be let go, but never can be broken: all this our profession of relying on the Blessed Trinity is clearly one of two things: it is either the most blessed of realities or the most fearful of all pretences and mockeries. There is no middle way: it must be one or the other: to every one of us the faith we profess in the Trinity is either salvation or increased damnation. It is far too aweful to be treated lightly, to be dealt with as a matter of course. It is the threefold cord which alone sustains us and keeps us from dropping into the great deep of a miserable eternity: as it often happens at sea, that persons clinging to a single rope (which rope is always at least threefold) are preserved from drowning by that and nothing else. If they let it go, they are lost. Do you not see what madness it would be for one in such a case to begin playing with the rope, and trying whether he might not possibly let it go for a moment and seize it again, or with how few fingers he might hold it, or to indulge any other childish fancy about it? And if there chanced to be a spiteful enemy at hand, who kept throwing within one's reach things which he knew one would be tempted to lay hold of, would it not be common sense to make a strict rule with one's self, that, come what would, one would not take hold of any of them, seeing that in order to do so, one must either in whole or in part let go the rope which alone kept one from drowning? Just such an enemy is the devil: just such common sense is Christian, evangelical self-denial, the rules which serious men, taught by our Saviour, impose upon themselves, that they may not be tempted to let go the Threefold cord, faith, living faith in the Blessed Trinity, for the sake of laying hold of any thing, pleasant, wise, strong, rich or glorious, which that Wicked one may cast in their way. Do not then listen to any one, who would persuade you not to be strict and particular. Be sure there is something very wrong, when you hear or read, or your own heart whispers to you, "Such great exactness, such continual watching, cannot surely be altogether necessary. If I keep from grievous notorious sin, and have real good feelings at times, and look to Christ only as my Saviour, I need not fear but it will come right at last." Do not, I say, get into this way of thinking: for only imagine how it would sound to one hanging by a rope over a precipice, were some one from below to call out to him, "You need not hold so very hard, nor keep such continual hold: you may let go for a moment and rest yourself, or pick that beautiful flower from the rock: see it is just within your reach." Would he be a friend or an enemy who should so counsel?

Be sure then, dear brethren, that he will be your best friend, who shall, by God's help, most effectually prevail upon you, not, of course to be dismal and melancholy, but to be always in earnest, always careful, always religious, in your cheerfulness as well as in your graver thoughts, in your business as well as in your devotion, in your pleasure as well as in your business: to keep up through the rest of the year, any good thoughts and purposes which His grace may have put into your hearts during the holy Seasons which end with this day. For this is in fact nothing else but keeping hold of the Threefold cord which your Saviour put into your hands, when He baptized you into the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. It is watching over the precious seal, the Threefold stamp, which He then and there fixed on our foreheads. Very soon He will be here, to see if we are holding by that cord, if we are watching to preserve that mark. As He then finds us, so will He judge us. How will it then be, when He shall ask, "Why have you let go My Threefold cord, why have you suffered My Threefold seal to wear out?" and you shall have nothing to say, but, "It was too much trouble to mind them?"

Thanks be to God.

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