The Tokens Thicken

From a sermon by the Rev'd E. B. Pusey, D.D. (1848)

Dr Edward Bouverie Pusey (1800-82) is one of the best known fathers of the Oxford Movement. Suspended from university preaching for two years after a sermon in which he asserted the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, this great linguist and scholar of both Scripture and the Fathers maintained a conservative theological stance against the liberal hermeneutics with which ancient texts were increasingly approached in the academy. The Oxford house that bears his name was founded two years after his death and maintains its mission of Anglo-Catholic chaplaincy and witness to this day.

“What afterwards?” Or as we might more naturally say now, “what next?” With these words, Dr Pusey captures the spirit of our age at least as well as that of his. Our desires drag us on, but whatever we grasp, it is never enough. We think that we will be sated, and in our very effort at satiation, crave more. This is the nature of sin, and Advent is a salutary time to shed it. There is only One who can satisfy our every desire, though by celestial irony, it is precisely (and uniquely) in the desire that the desire is sated. As St Gregory of Nyssa understood, desire for God is its own reward. What next? More, without lack or surfeit! — T.P.

Revelation 21:6. “And He said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End.”

And now, Brethren, having thus looked back on this world, as it shall then seem at the end amid the fires of the Judgment Day, take up your stand again where ye are now, amid the temptations, cares, deceits, follies of the day, and thence again look forward, if ye can and will. Look forward anew to the vanities of the world, its schemes and pleasures, its strifes, and wealth, and power, and honours; the praise of men, the gaining of all the wishes of your hearts out of God; set before you, if ye will, hold in your grasp, all that your minds, in their wildest dreams, ever fancied, or pictured to themselves, of good out of God. Only take heed, that ye look far enough. Look on, if ye will. Add pleasure to pleasure, gain to gain, honour to honour, vanity to vanity, self-indulgence to self-indulgence; stretch out your sight, month after month, year after year. Be it that each step, instead of weariness and loathing, should but satisfy your hearts the more!

We will look on with you, if ye will look on with us. We will look on with you, step by step, through all the years of time, grant all ye claim, if ye will but look on with us, beyond all time, to eternity. Imagine to yourselves, what ye will do or enjoy, or sin, next, and next, and next; so ye still ask on, "But what next?" "And what afterwards?" "What afterwards?" belongs to time; ask on beyond all time; what is that "afterwards" which has no "afterwards," the afterwards of an everlasting unchanging doom? Do what ye will, so that those words "What afterwards?" ring in your ears, and ye with truth will answer them. When thou art tempted to sin, pause but this one moment, ask thyself steadfastly, "And what afterwards?" await the answer (sin has but one "afterwards," deep penitence or Hell), and through God's mercy on thy soul, thou wilt sin no longer. Those words "What afterwards?" have by God's mercy converted souls to Him; for surely no things of time can satisfy a soul made to outlive all time, no things of sense can suffice an undying spirit; nothing passing can be the end of the soul which abideth; nothing created can fill the soul made for its Creator. …

Shrink we not, although as we bring our works near to the light of that Day, much seeming good be shewn to us to be real evil, or full of imperfection. Shrink we not, although our seeming treasure melt away, and wherein we thought ourselves rich, we find ourselves poor; shrink we not, although the fire of that Day, while it burns away our dross, scorch us; draw we not back, although by that light, we see that we must part with this self-indulgence, or sloth, or quickness of temper, or that cherished way of acting, which has wound close round us, self-esteem, or love of the praise of man, or even longing' for human sympathy. Rather, offer we ourselves, in union with the All-Atoning Sacrifice, to love nothing, to prize nothing, to wish for nothing, to fear nothing, to hold nothing, to regret nothing but what we shall love, prize, wish for, or be glad we had feared, held, regretted, when our Saviour's and Judge's Voice shall utter those dread words "It is done." So, baring ourselves more and more of all unpleasing unto Him, shall we with less sluggish steps, follow Him, Who emptied Himself of all which was His, that He might give us All.

Nor, having chosen or wishing to choose the better part, think we that it will be long and wearisome to do without this or that; let not Satan turn or hold us back by telling us we can never hold on so long without this or that; think we it not a weary, dreary future, to wait so long for the Coming of the Lord. Advent by Advent, His Coming draweth nigh; Advent by Advent, with each decaying year, the tokens thicken of the world's decay, the closing strife, the Coming of our God.