SERMON XXXI.
THE UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE. I.

MONDAY IN WHITSUN-WEEK.

ZEPH. iii. 9.

"For then will I turn to the people a pure language, that they may call upon the Name of the Lord, to serve Him with one consent."

IT is very clear from the book of Genesis, that language was the especial gift of Almighty God to our first parents. God brought all things to Adam, "to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof." And it should seem that notwithstanding the confusion and violence which brought on the flood, yet this original gift continued until many generations after Noah. When the whole earth had filled with inhabitants again, it continued, as the first lesson to-day declares, "of one language and of one speech." This unity of language was a token that it came from God, Who is One; as all the other perfections in which man was at first created, reason, understanding, memory, foresight, dominion over the creatures, immortality, were so many shadows and images of His perfections.

But when man had lost holiness, that perfection which was in a manner the grace and life of all the rest, then these gifts all became dangerous, too often fatal and deadly: they were but as weapons in the hand of a strong bad man, to do the more mischief with to himself and others: and it was therefore of God's mercy that He took them away or lessened them.

Life He first made subject to death, and then very much shortened its duration, partly in punishment, partly also, as it may seem, that the evil-disposed may have less time to fall away wholly and irreconcileably from God. The understanding He made dim, the body feeble and subject to disease; the earth was accursed, to bring forth no fruit without labour; the animals, the wilder part of them, seemed to be withdrawn from man's dominion.

And even to our apprehension there appears but too good reason for all this, in the sad abuse which men, left to themselves, continually make of these precious gifts. Their understanding they abuse, to find excuses for sin and unbelief; their bodies, to corrupt themselves and others; the gifts of the earth, to luxury and indolence; their command over the animals, to pride and cruelty. God was even forced, by our ill use of His gifts, to withdraw from us more or less of them: and so it was with the gift of language too, that gift, which is especially brought before our consideration by the history of this time of Pentecost.

The whole earth being of one language was a great advantage to any one who could manage men and get them all to act together in anything that they set about. Now it seems, that in a certain number of generations after the flood, they had again so far revolted from the only true God, as to set about building a city and a tower, in defiance of His Majesty: as if to prevent His ever again destroying the earth with a flood. "They said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth."

This was their foolishness: it was a proud earthly dream, like the projects of great kings and conquerors among men: and the Almighty confounded them, as He ever will confound all profane projects and endeavours, that set out without His blessing. As He had made us mortal, shortened our lives, clouded our understanding, enfeebled our bodily strength; so now He took away the unity of our language. "The Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel," (i. e. confusion;) "because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad, upon the face of all the earth."

Thus we see, that as the other good gifts of the Most High, so this great gift of one and the same language to all, being greatly abused, was in process of time taken away. And now, as you know, every country has its own peculiar language: strangers cannot understand us, nor we them; and it takes a very long time for one, nurtured and brought up in one language, to be able to understand, much more to speak, another.

But the kingdom of heaven, when in due time it should be set up by the Incarnation, Death, Resurrection and Ascension of the Eternal Son of God, and the coming of the Holy Ghost: this kingdom was to bring with it a cure for the confusion of tongues, as for all the other evil consequences of sin. So the prophet tells us in the text: "Then" (i. e. in the times of the Gospel) "I will turn unto the people a pure language, that they may all call upon the Name of the Lord, to serve Him with one consent." And the prophecy of Isaiah concerning Egypt points to the same thing: "In that day shall five cities in the land of Egypt speak the language of Canaan." And in another prophet: "In that day there shall be One Lord, and His Name One:" as all shall worship one and the same God, so all shall call Him by one and the same Name. There shall be unity, both of inward faith and of outward worship.

Such being the great and merciful purpose of Almighty God concerning His Church: when that Church was really set up in the world, a great sign was presently given of the doing away with the difference of languages, and joining all nations in the one service of God. The very first consequence of the coming down of the Holy Ghost was their all beginning to speak with divers languages, which they had never learned: and also, as it seems, their mutually understanding each other: that as sin had separated men, so on their turning to God in Christ, they might again be perfectly joined together. This outward sign or gift of tongues seems to have lasted but for one generation: but no doubt it was a sign of that union of heart and tongue, inward and outward, which ought to be among all the members of Jesus Christ. For what if we still speak different languages, and so, without particular instruction, know not the meaning of one another's voices, and are so far foreigners, or as S. Paul says, Barbarians, to one another: still if we all knew that we served the same Lord, with the same prayers and Sacraments, repeating the same Creeds, and reading the same Scriptures; if we prayed heartily for one another, and gave and received the outward signs of communion, as often as we had opportunity; the difference of language would make no difference to us as Churchmen: God's Name would still be One over all the earth in reality, though it sounded differently in one country from what it did in another. And this was the case for many generations and ages, from the first publication of the Gospel at Jerusalem. There was unity of doctrine all over the world; it was one Lord and one Faith: the Lord Whom we honour and the Faith which we profess in the Creeds of the Holy Church. All who professed and called themselves Christians were then of one mind and one mouth in these great things: or if any one presumptuously differed, he was presently cast out of the Body. There was also unity of Sacraments: it was one Baptism, as well as one Lord and one Faith. And the soul of Christian religion being thus exactly the same in every part of the Christian world, no wonder that the body and outward form of it was also in a great measure one: not superstitiously and exactly, to every jot and tittle, but in substance and in all great matters. For example, the solemn prayers and method of offering and consecrating the Holy Communion were undoubtedly for many ages the same every where in all material points. They remembered each other in their public prayers; not generally only, but particularly and by name, when great need was, though, at ever so great a distance. And if a Christian had occasion to travel in foreign parts, he had but to bring letters from his Bishop and Pastor, to certify that he was a communicant at home, and he was presently admitted, all the world over, to all the privileges of Christian brotherhood.

Thus did the coming of the Holy Ghost in a great measure undo the curse which fell on the world at Babel: and though men still spake on worldly matters with different languages, yet in the Faith and Worship of God they might be truly said to speak the same language, and to understand one another, all the world over. And thus the Almighty, for six hundred years, restored unto His people what they had lost in Paradise: "a pure language," pure from profaneness and falsehood, "that they might all call upon the Name of the Lord, to serve Him with one consent."

How this great blessing has been in a great measure lost among us, and what our duty is, whom God has called to be His servants in times so unlike those first, we may well consider another time: one thing however is very plain, that we cannot be too earnest in prayer to the One Lord that He would again make His Name One throughout all parts of the Church: nor too strict in watching our hearts and lives, that we lose not the blessing held out to such charitable prayers.

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