SERMON XXIX
ONE SPIRIT, MANY GIFTS.

WHIT-MONDAY.

1 Cor. xii. 11.

"But all these worketh that one and the self-same Spirit, dividing to every man severally as He will."

ON the first Whit-Sunday, that is, above one thousand eight hundred years ago, that great wonder of God's mercy began to take place, of which the Apostle in these words, as every where else in his writings, declares the continuance. The twelve Apostles, with the holy and blessed Virgin Mother, and with the other devout women from Galilee, in short, all the followers of our Lord, being "with one accord in one place," in the Upper-room, no doubt, where they had ever since His Ascension continued to meet in prayer and supplication, "suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting." It seemed to be on all sides of them at once: "and there appeared unto them cloven tongues, like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them, and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost."

One and the same Spirit filled them all, and all began to speak with other languages; not all alike, but as the Spirit gave them power to speak. Thus was fulfilled for the first time, to the very eye and ear, that, of which the Apostle in the text speaks, as a law of God's kingdom to be continued for ever. There were "diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit." It was one fire, but separated into many tongues: one sound, as of a rushing mighty wind, but different in tone, when they spake, according to each man's voice. One man spake one language, another another, but it was the same Holy Ghost that put words in the mouths of all. And all spake the same thing, "the wonderful works of God;" His marvellous mercies by Jesus Christ, His Son, made Man, crucified, risen, and glorified, for the salvation of the world.

As it was thus in the beginning of the Church, so it continued to be afterwards. The Holy Comforter came down, as Christ had promised, upon one Christian after another, uniting every one to Jesus Christ, and giving every one such gifts as He knew to be best for him: as it is said in a verse a little before the text, "The manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal."

But now these best gifts of God, as well as all His other gifts, are in danger of being profaned by men. And it seems that the Corinthians did profane them. They employed the power of speaking new languages, as well as other spiritual gifts, to their own glory, and not to God's glory alone. Those who had the higher and more abundant gifts, were tempted to think lightly of those who had less; and these again to be discontented and slothful, and think they had no occasion to try their best for God's sake. Just as rich men are in danger of permitting themselves to look down upon the poor, and poor men to envy the rich. To correct this, S. Paul would have all Christians remember these two things: first, that all Christians are one in Christ; secondly, that each one has his own work, his own place, his own character. Much in the same way "as the body" of a man "is one, and hath many members:" it "is not one member, but many;" "and all those members, being many, are but one body: so also," he saith, "is Christ." His mystical Body, the Church, is like His natural Body, or any of our bodies, in respect that, although it is made up of many members, each having its own office, yet it is truly, strictly, mysteriously One.

What makes it one, and binds it together, is the Holy Spirit of God dwelling in each person's soul and body, to unite him truly to Jesus Christ: just as what unites the hands, feet, and other limbs, into one living and moving body, is the life which was breathed into them by Almighty God. "By one Spirit," the Apostle tells us, "we are all baptized into one Body, whether we be Jew or Gentile, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit."

Thus are Christians put in mind of the one Church, to which all alike belong; and they are also put in mind of the diversity of gifts, whereby each member is made different from another. As in the epistle to the Ephesians, "There is one Body and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling;" "but to every one of us is given grace according

the measure of the Gift of Christ." The eye, the ear, the hand, the foot, have their several offices in the body; so have different Christians in the Church. Each is to be pleased and content with his own, yet without looking down upon any other. Each is to do his own work, without either despising or coveting the other's work. This is what S. Paul goes on to teach at large.

First, to the weaker and less honourable members he says, "You are not to be cast down nor discontented, as if no one cared for you, because others have higher places than you. 'If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body, is it therefore not of the body? And if the ear shall say, Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body, is it therefore not of the body?'" The meaning of which is, Suppose you are a poor person, of little understanding or instruction, and altogether in a low place among Christians; you will be apt sometimes to say to yourself, "What signifies what the like of me says or does? Who minds me? If I were a scholar, and had abundance of leisure to acquaint myself with it all; if I were a rich person, and had many others depending upon me; then it would be of more consequence how I went on: but what difference can it make now?" In this way, or something like it, I imagine, people are not seldom tempted to make themselves easy, neglecting divine worship, the Church and the Scriptures, the thought of God and another world, because they are poor and needy, and much taken up with some hard work. This is just what S. Paul describes. For the poor or the ignorant person to give himself up, as though it were useless for him to try to serve God, is as if the foot should say, "Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body;" or as if the ear should say, "Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body."

"Nay," it might be said, "you surely have in you the same life, the same blood, that any other limbs of the body have. The pulse which beats in you comes from the heart, the power and will which guides you, from the head; you are as much a member of the man, as any of the limbs which are most precious. If you hear instead of speaking, if you move instead of ruling, if you act instead of ordering, you are not therefore the less parts of the body."

So, should any weaker Christian, giving way to discontent, become careless about his duty, because he has but a low place in the Church, and imagines himself to be thought little of, the Scripture seems to say to such an one, "Know yourself better; think more worthily of God's great mercies towards you. Remember the very first lesson you learned in your catechism, that you were made in your christening a member of Christ, a partaker, by His Spirit, of the heavenly life; do not for a moment believe that He can despise or neglect any of His members." We feel it all over, if any the smallest portion of our bodies is, but for a little while, in sharp pain: and can it be that He Who came down from heaven to find and save us when we were lost, He Who has joined us to His very heart; has become bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh; can it be that He should not feel what happens to any one of His members? "Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet cannot I forget thee." These are the promises with which Christians should console themselves, when they feel low and desolate; when in their affliction it almost seems to them as if both God and man had forsaken them.

And much more should we quiet with the same gracious words all discontented and envious thoughts. Are you not a member of Christ, a child of God, an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven? and what is it, in comparison of so great mercies, if another man is more learned, more respected, richer, or healthier than you are? God hath set us with other members in the body, every one as it pleased Him. Enough for our happiness, and infinitely more than we deserve, that we are, any of us, there at all.

The weak then are not to envy the strong, and the strong on the other hand are not to despise the weak. "The eye is not to say to the hand, I have no need of thee; neither again the head to the feet, I have no need of you." Those who are above others, either in learning or in dignity, are of course in some danger of becoming proud and contemptuous. Therefore the Gospel so distinctly says to us all, "blessed are they that mourn: blessed are the poor: blessed are ye when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and cast out your name as evil." Christ says that the Gospel was especially preached to the poor; and that not the wisest and most honoured, but the humblest, shall be great in the kingdom of heaven. And again, since all Christians make one body, which is Christ, and the members of the same body feel of course one for another, it never will do for any Christian to deal scornfully with any other Christian. We know that in the natural body, "if one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; and if one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it." Violent pain in any one limb hinders the whole body from being at ease: if the foot or the hand be throbbing with anguish, the eye cannot take rest; and, on the other hand, if the aching eye, or any other member, be relieved, it will give soothing and relief to the whole body in every part. Thus does Almighty God instruct us by our own constant feelings, how near every Christian is to every other Christian: how we should sympathize all in one another's welfare, should rejoice and sorrow with our neighbour, how far soever he may seem beneath us in any respect. Be he who he may, Christ died for him, and as a Christian he is partaker of Christ's Spirit. We cannot say, we have no need of him: we need his prayers as much as he ours. Our Lord and Saviour had need of him, for He came down from heaven to save him, and gave him His Spirit to make him a child of God; and if we think we can do without our brother, if we permit ourselves to scorn him, how have we the mind of Christ?

Let this then, Christian brethren, be the lesson settled in our hearts at this great and holy time; to believe that we are Christian brethren indeed, and to cherish in our hearts true brotherly feeling one towards another. The coming of God the Holy Ghost from heaven, to dwell in our hearts and bodies, and unite us to Jesus Christ, is so great, so vast an event, that it may well overwhelm and confound our minds, if we try to think of it all at once, and to feel all we might and ought from it: it is well that we should select some one point of what it teaches, and meditate on it with all our hearts: and let this our subject to-day be, the One Holy Spirit, with His differing gifts, abiding alike in every member of Christ.

Consider, what a fearful notion this gives us of our condition. To know that we are in God's sight, that He looks on our heart, is exceedingly aweful: to know that He looks on us as persons whom He has called to be His own, whom He bought with His own Blood, and for whom, therefore, He cares with especial care, this makes our case still more serious: but to be aware that the Most High and Holy Spirit, by the covenant of our Baptism, is really abiding within us: that we are, as S. Paul said, "the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in us:" this, indeed, is aweful beyond all awefulness. How can we be idle, thoughtless, negligent of our souls; how can we deal lightly with any duty; above all, how can we pollute our souls and bodies with any kind of wilful sin? we, to whom Christ has said, "I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, and He shall abide with you for ever."

Now, then, with this deep faith in Christ's Holy Spirit, as having really been given to dwell in our hearts, let us think on any other person, whomsoever we will, as being also partaker of the same Spirit. Consider; if he were partaker of the same blood with us, if it were our brother or sister after the flesh, should we not be full of love for him? Should we not look on all he did with indulgence, judge him as favourably as we could, pray for a blessing on him heartily, and seek his good always? How much more, when the very same Spirit, which is our life, is his life also; binding us to him by the same kind of unity, by which the Son of God is One with the Father: for so He Himself prayed: "that they," that is all Christians, "may be one, even as We are one."

Again, because this Spirit deals not with all exactly alike, but divides "to every man severally as He will," how should the remembrance of Him fail to make us content in our places, orderly and diligent in our duties? Since wherever we are in God's work, He assigned us our place: whatever we have to do, He set us our task; if we seem to have to do nothing, but only to suffer, still it was He Who laid the burthen upon us.

Are you then a rich and prosperous person? Do not trust in your own riches; beware of thinking that you can do without the poor, that you need them not. You cannot do without them: you have the greatest need of them: you need their prayers and blessings in return for your alms, to guard you against the deadly snare of setting your heart upon this world, or any thing in it. If your alms obtain you the prayers of the poor, this will, very likely, by God's mercy through Christ, be a means of delivering your soul from death.

Are you on the contrary, a poor man? Then beware how you allow yourself to think sadly on the rich, as being better off than you are. Such thoughts are too likely to end in repining and envy: and therefore we should never use ourselves to meditate much on men's being above us, on their having more grace, for example, on their being enabled to do greater things for God, without deeply meditating also on the mysterious ever-present Spirit by Whom such differences were made. When it comes into your mind, "How far such an one is from the wants and doubts and troubles which annoy me," do not stop there, lest you begin to grudge him his tranquillity; but go on saying to yourself, "God, Who knows and loves us all better than we do ourselves, He saw fit to make this difference between my brother and myself, in just judgement perhaps, for my sins; it is His doing: I dare not dispute or complain of it."

Again, are you in comparison learned? are you able to read the Scriptures? yet do not trust in your reading: do not think that you can make out your duty, and save yourself well enough: you still need the prayers of Christ's afflicted and poor, you still need communion with His saints, both living and dead. Seek that blessing in all charity.

Are you, on the other hand, an ignorant person, and does it mortify you to see and feel that you know much less than most others? Care not for it, but turn your thoughts to the infinite and wonderful truth, which, as we all know, belongs to us and to the very wisest alike: turn your thoughts to the Holy Ghost abiding in you: it will be a wonder if you still go on envying and repining.

Are you so far blameless, as to have kept, by God's mercy, your soul and body from wilful deadly sin? You know it is altogether the work of God's Spirit: believe and think of this; it will keep you from pride and self-righteousness.

And last, and most mournful of all, are you a guilty person, your conscience laden with grievous sins, perhaps many sins, after Baptism? Then, indeed, the thought of the Presence of God's Spirit must be precious in your heart, for it tells you of your only hope; but that, please God, a sure and certain hope; namely, that He, unseen within you, has still the power and will to enable you to repent: and if you truly repent, He is faithful and just to forgive you, for His dear Son's sake.

God keep us ever one, by His Holy Spirit in our hearts; and dispose us to be contented where we fall short, and humble with what He gives us!

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