Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 705
Delivered on Sunday Morning, August 12, 1866
“Can two walk together, except they are agreed? Will a lion roar in the forest, when he has no prey? Will a young lion cry out of his den, if he has caught nothing? Will a bird fall in a snare on the earth, where there is no trap for it? Will a snare spring up from the earth, if it has caught nothing at all? If a trumpet is blown in a city, will not the people be afraid? If there is evil in a city, will not the Lord have done it.” Amos 3:3-6.
WE have all felt grieved when reading our bills of mortality to observe the mysterious spread of cholera in our great city. It is high time that it should be made the subject of special prayer, and that the nation should seek unto the Lord for its removal. While as yet there has been but comparatively little of the evil, we should be humbled under it, that we may be spared a greater outbreak. There are different ways of looking at this disease. Men viewing it from one point of view have frequently despised those who have regarded it under another aspect.
Occasionally Christian men indignantly express themselves concerning those who speak of cholera as the product of ascertained and governable causes to be checked and even prevented by due attention to the laws of health. I have never shared in that indignation. It seems to me that this disease is, to a great extent, in our own hands and that if all men would take scrupulous care as to cleanliness, and if better dwellings were provided for the poor, and if overcrowding were effectually prevented, and if the water supply could be larger, and other sanitary improvements could be carried out, the disease, most probably, would not occur. Or, if it did visit us occasionally, as the result of filth in other countries, it would be in a very mitigated form.
I am thankful that there are many men of intelligence and scientific information who can speak well upon this point, and I hope they will never cease to speak until all men learn that the laws of cleanliness and health are as binding upon us as those of morality. So far from a Christian man being angry with those who instruct the people in useful secular knowledge, he ought rather to be thankful for them and hope that their teaching may be powerful with the masses. The Gospel has no quarrel with ventilation, and the Doctrines of Grace have no dispute with chloride of lime! We preach repentance and faith, but we do not denounce whitewash—and as much as we advocate holiness, we always have a good word for cleanliness and sobriety.
We would promote with all our hearts that which may honor God, but we cannot neglect that which may bless our neighbors whom we desire to love even as ourselves. On the other hand, it is even more common for those who look to natural causes alone to sneer at Believers who view the disease as a mysterious scourge from the hand of God. It is admitted that it would be most foolish to neglect the appointed means of averting sickness—but sneer who may, we believe it to be equally an act of folly to forget that the hand of the Lord is in all this. The singular manner in which this disease seizes frequently upon unlikely persons and turns aside from its expected path should show us that there is an unseen hand which directs its gloomy circuit.
Let the wise man work below, but fix his hope above. Let him cleanse and purge away the hotbeds of death, but let him look up to the Lord and Giver of Life for success in all his doings. It is not my business this morning to describe the sanitary aspect of the subject. This is not the day nor the place, but I shall claim a full liberty to enter into the theological view of it, and if that should happen to excite the contempt of the practical man, we shall be more grieved for his narrowness of mind than for his contempt of us! We do not despise him, but wish him God speed in his reforms, and he should not despise us, but recognize in us his true allies.
We believe that God sends all pestilences, let them come how they may—and that He sends them with a purpose, let them be removed in whatever way they may. And we conceive that it is our business as ministers of God to call the people’s attention to God in the disease and teach them the lesson which God would have them learn. I am not among those, as you know, who believe that every affliction is a judgment upon the particular person to whom it occurs. We perceive that in this world the best of men often endure the most of suffering and that the worst of men frequently escape. And therefore we do not believe in judgments to particular persons except in extraordinary cases. But we do, nevertheless, very firmly believe that there are national judgments, and that national sins provoke national chastisements.
As to individuals, their punishment or reward is reserved for the next state—but nations will not exist in the next world—there is no such thing as a judgment of nations, as such, at the Last Great Day. That will be the judgment of individuals one by one. The trial and punishment of nations takes place in this state, and it is here that we are to look for the judgment of God upon national sin.