Not with observation

By H.P. Liddon, D.D. (1829-1890)

Fr Liddon, son of a Royal Naval chaplain, was a priest, Dean Ireland's Professor of the Exegesis of Holy Scripture at Oxford, and later Canon Chancellor of St Paul’s Cathedral. From these positions, he fought against theological liberalism in defence of the Anglo-Catholic cause. He had a particular interest in the Old Catholic movement and, with Lewis Carroll, travelled to Moscow to build bridges between the Church of England and the Orthodox hierarchy. In this Advent sermon, he calls us to perception of the hidden light of God’s grace, working secretly in sacraments and prayers for the conversion of souls, that we may know if fully when it illuminates all things at the day of judgment.

As with the Church so with the soul, the law holds good, that “the Kingdom of God cometh not with observation.” (Luke 17:20)

When are the first germs of the new life deposited? It is when in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, the water of baptism is poured on an infant brow. This is what St. Paul calls “the washing of regeneration;” this is what our Lord had Himself described as being “born of water and of the Spirit.” We see nothing that is not perfectly ordinary and commonplace; a clergyman, a font, the infant, the parents, the godparents, the few surrounding worshippers. But true Christian faith knows that He is there, Who was crucified in weakness and Who reigns in power; present by the agency of His Divine Spirit, to turn what but for Him would be an empty and useless form, into a solemn act of momentous import, which is registered above; to make the child, who can offer no resistance such as an adult might offer to the influences of grace, then and there a “member of Christ, a child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven.” Truly, at a christening, the Kingdom of God cometh not with observation.

And if, in after-years, the precious grace thus given is, as it well may be, sinned away and lost, and nothing but the stamp or socket of the Divine gift remains, without its informing spiritual and vital power, then another change is necessary, which we call conversion. And what is conversion? Is it always a something that can be appraised and registered, as having happened at some exact hour of the clock; as having been attended by such and such recognized symptoms; as announced to bystanders in these or those conventional or indispensable ejaculations; as achieved among certain invariable and easily described experiences? Assuredly not. A conversion may have its vivid and memorable occasion, its striking and visible incidents; a light from heaven above the brightness of the sun, may at midday, during a country-ride, flash upon the soul of Saul of Tarsus; a verse of Scripture, suddenly illuminated with new, and unsuspected, and constraining meaning, may give a totally new direction to the will and genius of Augustine.

But in truth the types of the process of conversion are just as various as are the souls of men; the one thing that does not vary, since it is the essence of what takes place, is a change — a deep and vital change, — in the direction of the will. Conversion is the substitution of God's Will as the end and aim of life, for all other aims and ends whatever; and thus, human nature being what it is, conversion is as a rule a “turning from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that” a man may “receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among them which are sanctified through faith that is in” Christ (Acts xxvi.18). And this change itself most assuredly cometh not with observation. The after-effects indeed appear; the generosities of self-sacrifice; the unity of purpose which gives meaning and solemnity and force to life; the proper fruits of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, each in such measure as befits the requirements of natural character. Certainly when the Divine Kingdom has come into a soul, the result may often be traced by sure marks of its presence; but in this case too, the Kingdom of God cometh, at least as a rule, not with observation.

And so it is with all the more solemn and precious incidents of the life of the spirit of man. They do not court observation, they elude and shrink from it. Discussion, publicity, still more recognition and applause, are nothing less than death to them. It is only a shallow stream which catches the ear by its noisy ripples, as it forces its way over the pebbles in its bed: deep waters run still. Of the greatest lives that are lived, little or nothing is often heard at the time; if, indeed, much is ever heard in this world. The ruling motives in a good Christian, constantly, because instinctively, acted on, are never referred to; the most solemn voices that reach the soul are oftenest heard, not in the excitement of a vast crowd gathered in a lighted church, but in the loneliness of sorrow, or in the stillness of the midnight hour, when we feel that God is about our bed, and spying out all our ways; or at an early Communion, when the soul hastens to lay its best and freshest efforts of thought and will, unimpaired, untainted, by the busy cares and intercourse of a working day, at the feet of its adored Redeemer. In these and like matters it is true that the Kingdom of God cometh not with observation.

Will it ever be thus? In its full solemnity and import the Kingdom of God will come to every man as never before, at death and in Judgment. It will be brought home to each of us then; it will be inflicted upon our earthbound tempers, upon our palsied wills, upon our dull and reluctant senses, with an importunity from which there can be no escape. Even then, too, its approaches may be gradual and unperceived. Already, here or there, death may be preparing his stealthy march when the seeds of organic disease are sown in some constitution of proverbial soundness and strength. And if, as we heard in to-day’s Gospel, the Last and Awful Judgment will be heralded by signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars, and upon the earth by distress of nations with perplexity, the meaning and import of these tokens of the coming of the Son of Man may nevertheless escape all who are not expecting Him: in spiritual things “the fig-tree, and all the trees,” may “shoot forth” without our “seeing and knowing of our own selves that summer is now nigh at hand.” (St. Luke xxi. 29, 30.) But when we are in the act of dying, and see before us the manifested Judge, the Kingdom of God will be borne in upon the spirit irresistibly, in all its blessedness or in all its awe. “Every eye shall see Him, and they also which pierced Him, and all the kindreds of the earth shall wail because of Him.” (Rev. i. 7.)

God grant that we may take to heart the solemn words of Christ our Lord; certain that, if at this moment there is no token of His coming upon which observation can certainly fix, yet that the long train of preparations is ever hastening forward in the unseen world, until, at the predestined moment, as a thief in the night, as a lightning flash across the heavens, He comes to Judgment.

Read the whole sermon at https://anglicanhistory.org/liddon/troubles1881/01.html