A Sermon on the Misery of All Mankind, and on His Condemnation to Everlasting Death by His Own Sin.
Part One
The Holy Spirit, in writing the holy Scripture, is more diligent at nothing than at pulling down man's vainglory and pride. Of all vices this is the one most universally grafted into all mankind, ever since the first infection of our first father Adam. And so we read in many places of Scripture many notable lessons against this old, deep-rooted vice, lessons that teach us the most commendable virtue of humility: how to know ourselves, and to remember what we are of ourselves.
In the book of Genesis, Almighty God gives us all a title and a name in our great-grandfather Adam, a name that ought to warn us all to consider what we are, what we are made of, where we came from, and where we are going. He says:
By the sweat of your face you shall eat your bread, until you return to the ground; for out of it you were taken. You are dust, and to dust you shall return.
Here, as if in a mirror, we may learn to know ourselves to be nothing but ground, earth, and ashes, and that to earth and ashes we shall return. The holy patriarch Abraham remembered this name and title well (dust, earth, and ashes, assigned by God to all mankind), and so he calls himself by that name when he makes his earnest prayer for Sodom and Gomorrah. And we read that Judith, Esther, Job, Jeremiah, and other holy men and women in the Old Testament used sackcloth, and cast dust and ashes on their heads, when they bewailed their sinful living. They called and cried to God for help and mercy with this ceremony of sackcloth, dust, and ashes, so that they might show the whole world how humble and lowly an estimate they had of themselves, and how well they remembered their name and title: their vile, corrupt, frail nature, dust, earth, and ashes.
The book of Wisdom too, wanting to pull down our proud spirits,[1] earnestly moves us to remember our mortal and earthly origin, which we all have from him who was first made; and that all men, kings and subjects alike, come into this world and leave it in the same way, that is, of ourselves utterly miserable, as we may see every day. And Almighty God commanded his prophet Isaiah to make a proclamation and cry to the whole world. When Isaiah asked, "What shall I cry?" the Lord answered:
Cry out that all flesh is grass, and all its glory is like the flower of the field. When the wind of the Lord blows on it, the grass withers and the flower falls away. Surely the people are grass: the grass dries up and the flower fades.
And the holy prophet Job, having great experience in himself of the miserable and sinful state of man, opens it to the world in these words:
Man, born of a woman, lives only a short time and is full of many miseries. He springs up like a flower and withers again, slipping away like a shadow, never staying in one state. And do you think it fitting, O Lord, to open your eyes on such a creature and bring him to judgment with you? Who can make clean someone conceived of unclean seed?
And all men, by their evil and natural proneness, were so universally given to sin that, as the Scripture says, God repented that he had ever made man; and his indignation was so provoked by sin against the world that he drowned the whole world with Noah's flood, except Noah himself and his little household.
It is not without great cause that the Scripture of God so often calls all men here in this world by this word, Earth. "O you earth, earth, earth," says Jeremiah, "hear the word of the Lord." This is our right name, calling, and title (Earth, Earth, Earth), pronounced by the prophet; it shows what we really are, whatever other style, title, or dignity men may give us. So he plainly names us, he who knows best both what we are and what we ought rightly to be called. And so he sets us forth, speaking through his faithful Apostle St. Paul:
All people, Jews and Gentiles alike, are under sin. No one is righteous, not even one. No one understands; no one seeks after God. They have all turned aside and become worthless; no one does good, not even one. Their throat is an open grave; their tongues practise craft and deceit; the venom of serpents is under their lips. Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness; their feet are swift to shed blood. Ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they have not known; there is no fear of God before their eyes.
And in another place St. Paul writes:
God has bound all nations in unbelief, so that he might have mercy on all. Scripture has shut up everything under sin, so that the promise, through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe.
In many places St. Paul paints us in our true colours, calling us the children of the wrath of God from the time we are born, and saying too that we cannot so much as think a good thought of ourselves, much less say or do anything good of ourselves. And the Wise Man says in the book of Proverbs, "A just man falls seven times a day."
The most tested and proven man Job feared all his works. St. John the Baptist, who was sanctified in his mother's womb, praised before he was born, called an angel and great before the Lord, filled even from his birth with the Holy Spirit, who prepared the way for our Saviour Christ, and was commended by our Saviour Christ as more than a prophet and the greatest ever born of a woman, nevertheless plainly admits that he needed to be washed by Christ. He worthily extols and glorifies his Lord and Master Christ, humbles himself as unworthy to unbuckle his shoes, and gives all honour and glory to God. So too St. Paul, both often and plainly, confesses what he was of himself, always giving all praise, like a most faithful servant, to his Master and Saviour. So too the blessed Evangelist St. John, in his own name and in the name of all other holy men, however just they may be, makes this open confession:
If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
And so the Wise Man, in the book called Ecclesiastes, makes this true and general confession: "There is no one just man on earth who does good and never sins."
And St. David is ashamed of his sin, yet not too ashamed to confess it. How often, how earnestly and sorrowfully, he begs God's great mercy for his great offences, and asks that God would not enter into judgment with him! And again, how well this holy man weighs his sins, when he confesses that they are so many in number, and so hidden and hard to understand, that it is in a manner impossible to know, express, or count them!
And so, having a true, earnest, and deep contemplation of his sins, and yet not reaching the bottom of them, he prays God to forgive him his private, secret, hidden sins, which he cannot come to know. He rightly weighs his sins from their original root and spring-head, perceiving the inclinations, provocations, stirrings, stings, buds, branches, dregs, infections, tastes, feelings, and traces of them still continuing in him. And so he says, "Mark and behold, I was conceived in sins." He does not say sin, but, in the plural, sins; because out of one, as out of a fountain, springs all the rest.
And our Saviour Christ says there is none good but God, and that we can do nothing good without him, and that no one can come to the Father except by him. He commands us all to say that we are unprofitable servants, even when we have done everything we can do. He prefers the penitent tax-collector over the proud, holy, glorious Pharisee. He calls himself a Physician, not for those who are well, but for those who are sick and need his salve for their sore. He teaches us in our prayers to acknowledge ourselves sinners, and to ask forgiveness and deliverance from all evils at our heavenly Father's hand. He declares that the sins of our own hearts defile us. He teaches that an evil word or thought deserves condemnation, affirming that we shall give an account for every idle word. He says he came to save only the sheep that were utterly lost and cast away. And so few of the proud, self-righteous, learned, wise, perfect, holy Pharisees were saved by him, because they justified themselves by their counterfeit holiness before men. Therefore, good people, let us beware of such hypocrisy, vainglory, and self-justifying.
Let us look down at our feet; and then, down peacock's feathers, down proud heart, down vile clay, frail and brittle vessels.
Part Two
Since the true knowledge of ourselves is very necessary if we are to come to the right knowledge of God, you have heard in the last reading how humbly all godly men have always thought of themselves, and how they were taught by God their Creator, through his holy word, so to think and judge of themselves. For of ourselves we are crab-apple trees that can bring forth no apples.
We are, of ourselves, made of such earth as can bring forth only weeds, nettles, brambles, briars, cockle, and darnel. Our fruits are described in the fifth chapter of Galatians. We have neither faith, charity,[2] hope, patience, chastity, nor anything else that is good, except from God; and therefore these virtues are called there the fruits of the Holy Spirit, and not the fruits of man.
Let us therefore acknowledge ourselves before God as we really are: miserable and wretched sinners. Let us earnestly repent, humble ourselves heartily, and cry to God for mercy. Let us all confess, with mouth and heart, that we are full of imperfections. Let us know our own works, and how imperfect they are; then we shall not stand foolishly and arrogantly on our own opinions of ourselves, nor claim any part of justification by our merits or works. For truly there are imperfections in even our best works. We do not love God as much as we are bound to do, with all our heart, mind, and power; we do not fear God as much as we ought; we do not pray to God except with great and many imperfections; we give, forgive, believe, love, and hope imperfectly; we speak, think, and act imperfectly; we fight against the devil, the world, and the flesh imperfectly. Let us therefore not be ashamed to confess plainly our state of imperfection; yes, let us not be ashamed to confess imperfection even in all our own best works.
Let none of us be ashamed to say, with holy St. Peter, "I am a sinful man." Let us all say, with the holy prophet David, "We have sinned with our fathers; we have gone astray and acted wickedly." Let us all make open confession, with the prodigal son, to our Father, and say with him, "We have sinned against heaven and before you, O Father; we are not worthy to be called your sons." Let us all say, with holy Baruch, "O Lord our God, to us is rightly ascribed shame and confusion, and to you righteousness; we have sinned, we have done wickedly, we have behaved ourselves ungodly in all your righteousness." Let us all say, with the holy prophet Daniel, "O Lord, righteousness belongs to you; to us belongs confusion. We have sinned, we have done wrong, we have offended, we have fled from you, we have turned away from all your precepts and judgments." So we learn from all good men in holy Scripture to humble ourselves, and to exalt, extol, praise, magnify, and glorify God.
So we have heard how evil we are of ourselves; how, of ourselves and by ourselves, we have no goodness, help, or salvation, but on the contrary sin, damnation, and everlasting death. If we weigh and consider this deeply, we shall the better understand the great mercy of God, and how our salvation comes only by Christ. For in ourselves, of ourselves, we find nothing by which we may be delivered from this miserable captivity into which we were cast, through the envy of the devil, by the breaking of God's commandment in our first parent Adam. We have all become unclean, but we are not able to cleanse ourselves, nor to make one another clean. We are by nature the children of God's wrath, but we are not able to make ourselves the children and inheritors of God's glory.
We are sheep that go astray, but we cannot by our own power come again to the sheepfold; so great is our imperfection and weakness. In ourselves, therefore, we may not glory, who of ourselves are nothing but sinful. Nor may we rejoice in any works that we do, which are all so imperfect and impure that they cannot stand before the righteous judgment seat of God, as the holy prophet David says: "Do not enter into judgment with your servant, O Lord; for no one living shall be found righteous in your sight."
To God, therefore, we must flee; or else we shall never find peace, rest, and quietness of conscience in our hearts. For he is the Father of mercies, and the God of all consolation. He is the Lord with whom there is plentiful redemption. He is the God who, of his own mercy, saves us, and who sets out his charity and exceeding love toward us in this: that of his own free goodness, when we were lost, he saved us and provided an everlasting kingdom for us. And all these heavenly treasures are given to us not for our own deserts, merits, or good deeds (of which we have none of ourselves), but of his pure mercy, freely. And for whose sake? Truly, for Jesus Christ's sake, that pure and undefiled Lamb of God.
He is that dearly beloved Son for whose sake God is fully pacified, satisfied, and set at one[3] with man. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Of him alone may it be truly said that he did all things well, and that in his mouth was found no deceit or subtlety. None but he alone may say, "The prince of this world came, and in me he has nothing." And he alone may say also, "Which of you can convict me of any fault?" He is that high and everlasting Priest, who has offered himself once for all on the altar of the cross, and by that one offering has made perfect for ever those who are sanctified. He is the only Mediator between God and man, who paid our ransom to God with his own blood, and by it has cleansed us all from sin. He is the Physician who heals all our diseases. He is the Saviour who saves his people from all their sins. In short, he is that flowing and most plentiful fountain, of whose fullness we have all received.
For in him alone are hidden all the treasures of the wisdom and knowledge of God; and in him, and by him, we have from God the Father all good things belonging to body and soul.
O how greatly we are bound to this our heavenly Father for his great mercies, which he has so plentifully shown us in Christ Jesus our Lord and Saviour! What worthy and sufficient thanks can we give him? Let us all, with one accord, burst out in joyful voices, ever praising and magnifying this Lord of mercy for his tender kindness shown to us in his dearly beloved Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
So far we have heard what we are of ourselves: truly sinful, wretched, and damnable. We have heard, too, how of ourselves and by ourselves we are not able either to think a good thought or do a good deed, so that we can find in ourselves no hope of salvation, but rather everything that leads to our destruction. And we have heard the tender kindness and great mercy of God the Father toward us, and how generous he is to us for Christ's sake, without our merits or deserts, of his own pure mercy and tender goodness.
Now, how these exceeding great mercies of God, set forth in Christ Jesus for us, are obtained, and how we are delivered from the captivity of sin, death, and hell, shall be declared more fully, with God's help, in the next Sermon. In the meantime, and indeed at all times, let us learn to know ourselves, our frailty and weakness, without any boasting or bragging of our own good deeds and merits. Let us also acknowledge the exceeding mercy of God toward us, and confess that, as all evil and damnation come from ourselves, so likewise all goodness and salvation come from him; as God himself says through the prophet Hosea, "O Israel, your destruction comes from yourself, but in me alone is your help and comfort." If we thus humbly submit ourselves in the sight of God, we may be sure that in the time of his visitation he will lift us up into the kingdom of his dearly beloved Son, Christ Jesus our Lord. To him, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, be all honour and glory for ever.
Amen.