Read Ebook: Faith and Duty: Sermons on Free Texts with Reference to the Church-Year by Buchheimer L B Louis Balthaser

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Villon.

Cr?tin.

Coquillart.

Early sermon-writers.

Comines.

The Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles.

Antoine de la Salle.

Influence of the Renaissance.

Marot.

Ronsard.

The Pl?iade.

The Ronsardists.

Du Bartas.

D'Aubign?.

Regnier.

The nephew of Desportes, Mathurin Regnier , marks the end, and at the same time perhaps the climax, of the poetry of the century. A descendant at once of the older Gallic spirit of Villon and Marot, in virtue of his consummate acuteness, terseness and wit, of the school of Ronsard by his erudition, his command of language, and his scholarship, Regnier is perhaps the best representative of French poetry at the critical time when it had got together all its materials, had lost none of its native vigour and force, and had not yet submitted to the cramping and numbing rules and restrictions which the next century introduced. The satirical poems of Regnier, and especially the admirable epistle to Rapin, in which he denounces and rebuts the critical dogmas of Malherbe, are models of nervous strength, while some of the elegies and odes contain expression not easily to be surpassed of the softer feelings of affection and regret. No poet has had more influence on the revival of French poetry in the last century than Regnier, and he had imitators in his own time, the chief of whom was Courval-Sonnet , author of satires of some value for the history of manners.

Regular tragedy and comedy.

Garnier.

Larivey.

Rabelais.

Des Periers.

The Heptam?ron.

Amadis of Gaul.

Brant?me.

The branches of literature of which we have just given an account may be fairly connected, from the historical point of view, with work of the same kind that went before as well as with work of the same kind that followed them. It was not so with the literature of theology, law, politics and erudition, which the 16th century also produced, and with which it for the first time enlarged the range of composition in the vulgar tongue. Not only had Latin been invariably adopted as the language of composition on such subjects, but the style of the treatises dealing with such matters had been traditional rather than original. In speculative philosophy or metaphysics proper even this century did not witness a great development; perhaps, indeed, such a development was not to be expected until the minds of men had in some degree settled down from their agitation on more practical matters. It is not without significance that Calvin is the great figure in serious French prose in the first half of the century, Montaigne the corresponding figure in the second half. After Calvin and Montaigne we expect Descartes.

Calvin.

Montaigne.

The revolutionary and innovating instinct which showed itself in the 16th century with reference to church government and doctrine spread naturally enough to political matters. The intolerable disorder of the religious wars naturally set the thinkers of the age speculating on the doctrines of government in general. The favourite and general study of antiquity helped this tendency, and the great accession of royal power in all the monarchies of Europe invited a speculative if not a practical reaction. The persecutions of the Protestants naturally provoked a republican spirit among them, and the violent antipathy of the League to the houses of Valois and Bourbon made its partisans adopt almost openly the principles of democracy and tyrannicide.

Bodin.

Satire M?nipp?e.

Amyot.

Malherbe.

All the writers we have mentioned belong more or less to the first half of the century, and so do Valentin Conrart , Antoine Fureti?re , Chapelle l'Huillier , and others not worth special mention. The latter half of the century is far less productive, and the poetical quality of its production is even lower than the quantity. In it Boileau is the chief poetical figure. Next to him can only be mentioned Madame Deshouli?res , Guillaume de Br?beuf , the translator of Lucan, Philippe Quinault , the composer of opera libretti. Boileau's satire, where it has much merit, is usually borrowed direct from Horace. He had a certain faculty as a critic of the slashing order, and might have profitably used it if he had written in prose. But of his poetry it must be said, not so much that it is bad, as that it is not, in strictness, poetry at all, and the same is generally true of all those who followed him.

Hardy.

Rotrou.

Corneille.

Moli?re.

Racine.

The Academy.

Contrary winds! Dashing billows! Rolling, tossing sea! And imagine not that by believing the Gospel, your being a Christian, will make you exempt from these storms. We are sometimes told: Do what is right, and you will not suffer. It sounds very plausible, but it is not true,--very unfrequently otherwise. Why was Joseph cast into prison? He did that which was right. Why were the martyrs put to death? These disciples in the path of duty when the storm came upon them were doing what had been commanded by the Lord. You may not infrequently be exposed to fierce blasts by being a Christian consistent, consecrated in life and duties. It matters not what your profession or portion in life may be, whether you are a Christian or not, godly or ungodly, rich or poor, famous or obscure, the storms of life will certainly, with more or less violence, overtake you. There is no exemption, no escape from them. Now, what shall we think, what say, to sustain ourselves amid experiences like that?

It may be well enough to note the experience of those disciples yonder on the Sea of Galilee. "And when the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, It is a spirit; and they cried out for fear." What could it be, that moving form? A man? No, impossible! How could a man tread upon the waters? Then it must be a ghost, an apparition, a grim visitor from the other worlds. And as this idea forced itself upon them, they could not refrain from crying out with terror. Thus, my dear hearers, God's people are sometimes perplexed, when scenes of distress appear, and bereavement, humiliation, and sorrow appear upon life's sea. They are sometimes disposed to cry out with terror, "What can it mean?"--these dark and threatening forms. Surely, a loving and beneficent God would not alarm His children, and add still greater anxiety and anguish to their already fierce battling with the waves and the elements. My beloved, that is just what God does, and wisdom on our part, our sustaining strength, and the comfort consists in this, that we recognize that form, nor, mistaking it, cry out in terror.

That storm on the Galilean Sea was not an accident, it did not come by chance, it was sent by and with the permission of the Governor of the winds and the waves; and when the billows were rolling fiercest and fastest, His hand was there guiding and controlling. None less so with the streams of life. These are not accidental, but intentional. They do not come by chance, but are sent by, and with the permission of, the Governor of the universe, and when the billows are rolling fast, His hand is guiding and controlling our afflictions. Perplexing as they may be, they are part of God's grand and sovereign system of dealing with us. It is He, His Providence, His divine appointment and arrangement, not some strange, unmerciful power, which people call Fate, Chance, Nature, but the divine form of our blessed Savior. That is the first thing we must bear in mind amid life's storms.

"But straightway Jesus spoke unto them, saying, Be of good cheer; it is I; be not afraid." Human lips cannot describe the effect which these words uttered by that familiar voice must have had upon them. In a moment the whole truth flashed upon their minds,--the apparition so much dreaded was no other than He whom, above all others, they longed to see. There is a common expression in English, which speaks of "blessings in disguise." Such are all of life's untoward happenings to a Christian--"blessings in disguise."

That Galilean experience in the night and storm gave to these disciples enlarged ideas of the Master and His power, it developed their faith and trust in Him. Not for all the toil and terrors would they have foregone it. They never forgot it. Beloved, the time will come when you will look back upon that experience that wrenched your soul, that household cross that proved so heavy, that disheartening reverse that caused a big black mark to be drawn through your life's prospects and plans, those hours of dread and darkness, as the very occasions of your highest blessings, the making of yourselves. The "evils of life"--speak not thus--are blessings in disguise. "Nearer, my God, to Thee, nearer to Thee, e'en though it be a cross that raiseth me." Have you ever seen anything but a cross raise men? The smiles of prosperity, the sunshiny sky, the even waves of the sea of life are not the means calculated to raise a soul nearer to God; that takes the buffetings, the storms, and the rising billows , sent by a wise God in loving purpose.

And one more. When the disciples recognized and realized that it was their Master, their fear vanished. Let the winds blow, the ship toss, and the waves run high, they felt secure,--He was with them. It is a simple thought, yet it constitutes the whole of religion, the essence of faith, our comfort in life, our hope in death, our all in all, this one thought: He is with us, Jesus, the Master.

FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY.

A number of our Lord's discourses were addressed to those who were engaged in agriculture. To such were uttered the parables of the sower, of the wicked husbandmen, of the mustard seed, and to-day's Gospel of the wheat and tares. Others of these discourses were spoken more immediately to His own disciples, the most of whom had been fishermen on the Lake of Galilee, and to them mightily appealed an illustration like that which we are about to consider. They had often experienced what our Lord so simply describes. They had gone forth in their boats to fish, and after they had drawn their nets to shore, they had made an examination of what they contained, and out of the meshes they had gathered the good into vessels, for sale or for use, and that which was worthless they had thrown away. A very simple figure setting forth a very affecting and awakening truth. May the Holy Ghost solemnize our minds and write some abiding impressions on all our hearts!

The Kingdom of Heaven, that is, the Church, is likened by our Lord to a net cast into the sea. The net spoken of is not the ordinary casting-net, but a seine, or hauling-net, which was sometimes half a mile in length, leaded below that it might drag the bottom of the sea, and kept above the water with large corks. A net of such dimensions will naturally enclose fish of all sizes and kinds, some bad and others good, some valuable and others worthless, some in the best condition, others out of season, dead, or putrid, and unfit for human food. And so it is with the net of the Gospel. It is a large, capacious draw-net; it is not merely let down into one stream or river, but it sweeps the ocean, the wide and open sea of the world, and its threads are so strong, so well knitted together that scarcely a single fish can escape. In other words, we have here a picture of the all-embracing Church of Christ, the preaching of the Gospel to every nation. But as the divine fishermen, the ministers of Christ, cast their net into this universal sea and enclose an abundance of human fishes, not all are of the same quality; it's a mixed and motley multitude. "In the visible Church there is a deal of trash and rubbish, refuse, and vermin, as well as fish," says an old commentator.

These, my beloved, are some of the various classes of the mixed and motley multitude that are now being gathered into the net, the outward church, and yet it is sheer impossibility to distinguish between them. They are so closely mixed together; people may live in the same houses, walk together the same street, sit side by side in the same pew, listen to the same preacher, kneel at the same sacramental altar, and at last lie down, amid sacred ceremony, in the same burial plot, and yet may be inwardly utterly dissimilar, the one from the other, the one genuine, the other spurious; the one be finally saved, the other ultimately lost.--This is something which we cannot determine, which our natural, material eye cannot discern. But that is the teaching of our text,--there will come a time when this will be made manifest. As in the drag-net, first of every sort are gathered together in the same enclosure only for a little while, till the nets are drawn in to the shore, so in the spiritual net, the outward Church of Christ on earth, the opposite descriptions of mankind are equally enclosed, but only for a season, a brief season; they will presently be divided. Says our parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like unto a net that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind; which, when it was full, they drew to the shore, and sat down, and gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away." When the net shall be full, when the last saved of the number of God's elect shall be gathered in, the examination will be made, and the separation will take place. There is a time set in God's everlasting purposes,--we know not when, indeed, that time will be according to the measurement of our years, but we know that it will be when the Gospel shall have fulfilled that which it has been sent for; for, according to the Master-Fisher, it must not return void and empty, but full. And so the net is now filling, faster at some times than at others, all along continuing to be filled until it will be drawn to shore, the shore of eternity; and then will the dividing process take place.

From this parable, and from the corresponding one of the wheat and the tares, we see what a mistake we make if we expect to find anywhere a perfect Church upon earth. To expect the Church to be a community of perfect saints is to expect more than its divine Founder ever expected, according to the words of His own parables. There was a Balaam among the prophets of God, and Achan in the camp of Israel, a Judas numbered with the twelve apostles, an Ananias and Sapphira connected with the first little flock in Jerusalem. In the Corinthian, Galatian, and Ephesian Churches, planted and superintended by St. Paul, there arose bad ministers and disreputable private Christians. No wonder, then, that in our church and charges there should be found reprehensible and undesirable material, and no preaching, however powerful and faithful, no discipline, however strict and prudent, no watchfulness, however careful and ready, can ever make it otherwise. Even to the end of the world the goats will mingle with the sheep, the tares grow up with the wheat, whilst the nets are being filled, the bad fish will be gathered with the good. Perfection is not to be found this side of heaven.

But it is not this quality of fish that our parable speaks about. In fact, such, to make it plainer, are no fish at all; they are vermin, lizards, or whatever species of reptile you wish to name them. A man that is outspoken in unbelief and profligate in his morals is not within the Gospel net. Christ in this parable is speaking of such people as wished to be recognized as Christians, confess themselves as spiritual and converted children of the Kingdom, and as long as they do that, we may have our serious doubts as to their sincerity; we may, as we see their faults and obliqueness of conduct, consider their Christianity of a rather dubious specimen or type--hypocritical is the common term. But it's not for us to read them out of the membership of the saints, much less dare the Church deny them access to the house of God, or resort to external force, police or military measures to enforce her teachings and persecute those who differ from her. Has that ever been done, you question? My dear hearers, the robes of the professing Church are red with the blood of saints, because it has failed to heed the parables of our consideration to-day. We think of a John Huss, a forerunner of the Reformation, taken to the stake at Constance, burned as an arch-heretic; of the Albigenses and Waldenses, persecuted, slaughtered by the so-called holy Christian Church, banished for no other cause but adherence to their Bibles. We call to our remembrance the scenes of the Inquisition, the horrible treatments and tortures, when Rome undertook to separate the bad from the good, and destroyed thousands of Christians better than herself, 18,000 in the Netherlands, 60,000 in France. We can still hear the bells tolling on that fatal day, August 24, 1572, called St. Bartholomew's Day, when the signal for a massacre was given that cost 30,000 Huguenots their lives in the streets of Paris. Time fails us to speak of England and Germany with their gruesome thirty years of religious war, of the countries where fanaticism, armed with the sword, wished to root out what it thought was tares, and cast away the bad fish; and let us mark that the Pope resides not only in Rome, but there are a multitude of little popes everywhere, judging and pronouncing on one another, with all the stringency and self-confidence of their colossal type in Rome, their anathemas, and who would, if they could, quickly and radically empty the net. But, says the Savior, let them be gathered together until the day of separation.

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