The excerpts from the first sermon take us only so far: the excerpts from the second present a plan for life that we should follow. So in our second Advent reflection on the Son Rise Morning Show, on Monday, December 12, we'll look at some brief highlights from both sermons.
The first sermon is a Catholic sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Advent in 1856 preached at the University Church in Dublin, included in Sermons on Various Occasions; the second is from Parochial and Plain Sermons Volume 8, Sermon 14, offered in October 1830, just a couple of years after Newman had been named the Vicar of the University Church of St Mary the Virgin.
So I'll be on the air at my usual time, about 6:50 a.m. Central/7:50 a.m. Eastern. Please listen live here and remember that you may find the recording of the show later that day on the Son Rise Morning Show website!
In the complete sermon from 1856, Newman has taken as his verse "Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight His path. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low; and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways plain: and all flesh shall see the salvation of God." Luke 3:4-6, and he wishes to explore how these images from nature apply to the preparation of the individual human soul to be disposed to Faith in God and the Good News. What prepares a man or woman to have Faith in God?
Newman suggests one great means: the Light and the Voice of Conscience, which each of us sees and hears:
Whether a man be born in pagan darkness, or in some corruption of revealed religion,—whether he has heard the name of the Saviour of the world or not,— whether he be the slave of some superstition, or is in possession of some portions of Scripture, and treats the inspired word as a sort of philosophical book, which he interprets for himself, and comes to certain conclusions about its teaching,—in any case, he has within his breast a certain commanding dictate, not a mere sentiment, not a mere opinion, or impression, or view of things, but a law, an authoritative voice, bidding him do certain things and avoid others.
I do not say that its particular injunctions are always clear, or that they are always consistent with each other; but what I am insisting on here is this, that it commands,—that it praises, it blames, it promises, it threatens, it implies a future, and it witnesses the unseen. It is more than a man's own self. The man himself has not power over it, or only with extreme difficulty; he did not make it, he cannot destroy it.
He may silence it in particular cases or directions, he may distort its enunciations, but he cannot, or it is quite the exception if he can, he cannot emancipate himself from it. He can disobey it, he may refuse to use it; but it remains.
As the sunshine implies that the sun is in the heavens, though we may see it not, as a knocking at our doors at night implies the presence of one outside in the dark who asks for admittance, so this Word within us, not only instructs us up to a certain point, but necessarily raises our minds to the idea of a Teacher, an unseen Teacher: and in proportion as we listen to that Word, and use it, not only do we learn more from it, not only do its dictates become clearer, and at its lessons broader, and its principles more consistent, but its very tone is louder and more authoritative and constraining. And thus it is, that to those who use what they have, more is given; for, beginning with obedience, they go on to the intimate perception and belief of one God. His voice within them witnesses to Him, and they believe His own witness about Himself. They believe in His existence, not because others say it, not in the word of man merely, but with a personal apprehension of its truth.
Newman further points out--still before we have encountered Jesus and the Gospel--that as we learn and respond to the Light and Voice of Conscience we become frustrated with our own inability to obey it, and we may become fearful of the consequences of our failures, not knowing what to do. Thus, Newman says, we cry out, "Unhappy man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death!" (Romans 7:24)
It would have been strange if the God of nature had said one thing, and the God of grace another; if the truths which our conscience taught us without the information of Scripture, were contradicted by that information when obtained. But it is not so; there are not two ways of pleasing God; what conscience suggests, Christ has sanctioned and explained; to love God and our neighbor are the great duties of the Gospel as well as of the Law; he who endeavors to fulfil them by the light of nature is in the way towards, is, as our Lord said, "not far from the kingdom;" (Mark 12:34) for to him that hath more shall be given.
Newman asserts that because we perceive that this voice comes from outside of us and calls us to an authority above us, it is preparation for Faith in God:
Newman further points out--still before we have encountered Jesus and the Gospel--that as we learn and respond to the Light and Voice of Conscience we become frustrated with our own inability to obey it, and we may become fearful of the consequences of our failures, not knowing what to do. Thus, Newman says, we cry out, "Unhappy man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death!" (Romans 7:24)
Nevertheless, this experience of our efforts to follow the Natural Law of Conscience is a preparation for Faith in Christ and the Gospel.
Indeed, in 1830--in a passage Blum does not quote--Newman told his Anglican congregation that
"obedience to conscience leads to obedience to the Gospel, which, instead of being something different altogether, is but the completion and perfection of that religion which natural conscience teaches". It almost seems that Newman delivered "Obedience to God the Way to Faith in Christ" the week after "Dispositions for Faith", not some 25 or 26 years earlier!
Blum's excerpt begins with another sign of continuity:
The Anglican Newman warns his congregation against Christian views that offer different paths to salvation,
substituting their own methods or measures of being disciples. But Newman presents many passages from the New Testament to demonstrate that these other methods are not what God has taught us.
Blum does not include the end of Newman's Anglican sermon on "Obedience to God the Way to Faith in Christ", but in that exhortation, he reminds us of the reward those who obey will receive:
These, be they many or few, will then receive their prize from Him who died for them, who has made them what they are, and completes in heaven what first by conscience, then by His Spirit, He began here. Surely they were despised on the earth by the world; both by the open sinners, who thought their scrupulousness to be foolishness, and by such pretenders to God's favour as thought it ignorance. But, in reality, they had received from their Lord the treasures both of wisdom and of knowledge, though men knew it not; and they then will be acknowledged by Him before all creatures, as heirs of the glory prepared for them before the beginning of the world.
Saint John Henry Newman, pray for us!
Image Credit (Permission Details): Conscience by Andrei Mironov (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Image Credit (Public Domain): James Tissot, Jesus Sits by the Seashore and Preaches
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