A Sermon by John Kennedy
Psalms 9:18. For the needy shall not alway be forgotten; the expectation of the poor shall not perish for ever.
These words are in a strange connection with the preceding verse. They seem to give the reason why “the wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God”. “Turned into hell” the wicked shall all be, whoever they may be and wherever they may be, whatever form they may assume before men, however deftly they may disguise themselves, be they in the church or in the world, in the palace or in the cottage, in the pulpit or in the pew, if they do not have the fear of God in their hearts. These are swayed by a principle of enmity to God though, by ignoring Him, they preserve an utter unconsciousness of this state of feeling. These form part of the army engaged in conflict with the Almighty, and whither can they turn away from “the thick bosses of His buckler” when He arises to execute judgement, but towards the only opening that has been allowed to remain for them – the gate of an eternal hell.
Thus too it shall fare with “all the nations that forget God” – all those nations that do not acknowledge Him as their supreme Governor, that do not care to have His worship observed, His laws respected and His Church maintained, and whose whole influence is exerted without any regard to His glory. From this sweeping sentence no wicked person, no God-forgetting nation, can escape unless divine grace grants deliverance, in a way which secures the claims of divine justice.
But how is this related to the text? Is it because grace is secured to “the needy” that vengeance is sure to them? The connection of judgement and the needy in the work of salvation is often exhibited to us in Scripture – so often that we need not wonder to find it here. If the destruction of the wicked is required, in order that “the poor” may be succoured, can we any longer wonder that it should take place after we have looked at the death of “the Lord of glory”? He who bruised His well-beloved Son will not hesitate to crush the wicked for the sake of the needy, whom He loves with an everlasting love. Can we wonder that He who “spared not His own Son, but gave Him up” to death for His people, should say, “I gave Egypt for Thy ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for Thee”.
But how does the work of destruction tell on the work of salvation in this case? That can be seen when we connect the work of judgement on the cross
1This sermon was preached at Dingwall and is taken, with editing, from his published volume of Sermons. Kennedy was born 200 years ago and died in 1884.
with the succour which came from heaven to the poor. But how can the destruction of wicked persons and of ungodly nations be regarded as a proof of God’s grace to “the needy?” In so far as “spiritual wickedness in high places” is concerned, it is evident that there can be no salvation of the “poor” without its utter destruction. But wicked people and ungodly nations are referred to here, and the question is: How can the destruction of these be a proof of God’s care of His people?
Surely the needy were not crying for this work of judgement? Certainly not. But there are two ways in which the judgement prepares for, and proves, the mercy. (1.) In the measure in which these enemies were oppressors of God’s people, the destruction of them is at once a proof of His awful wrath against sin and of His loving zeal for the welfare of His people. Because the needy must be remembered, these must be destroyed. (2.) The poor and needy, by their self-denying zeal, have merged themselves in the Lord’s cause, so that whatever is done in advancement of that cause is done to them. They have given themselves to prayer for the coming of His kingdom, and all He does in opening up, by works of judgement, doors of access for the gospel to all parts of the earth is an answer to their cry. “By terrible things in righteousness” He gives an answer to their prayers, and they accept this answer with gladness, even though, as they think of the “terrible things” done “in righteousness”, they must join trembling with their mirth.
There seems to be a great difference between the connection of the two verses before us and the connection we find between the “nations” and the “poor” in Psalm 72. In verses 11 and 12 of that Psalm we read, “All kings shall fall down before Him; all nations shall serve Him. For He shall deliver the needy when he crieth; the poor also, and him that hath no helper.” There it is the conversion, not the destruction, of the nations that is connected with the succour of the poor. How these are connected is not so difficult to discover. For (1) the conversion of the nations is in answer to the cry of the needy throughout many generations; (2) it takes place because the Lord has blessed the service which He has helped the poor to render; and (3) it is when kings and nations come to know Messiah as the deliverer of “the needy” that they will be disposed to fall down before Him and to serve Him.
Till that blessed time comes, sweeping destruction shall overtake nation after nation. Thus only by a work of judgement, in vindication of His claims, shall God answer the cry of the oppressed. If you are a true friend of Messiah, you must meanwhile be content if God deals with the nations that refuse to serve Him to show His zeal in behalf of His Anointed One and make manifest the glory of His righteousness, while you enjoy the hope that all kings will in due time bow before your Beloved, and that all nations will serve Him.
But, confining our attention to the text, let us consider (1) the description which it gives of the Lord’s people and (2) the gracious promise of the Lord regarding them.
1. The description: the needy, the poor. Such is the Lord’s way of describing His people. They, according to His account of them, are “needy” and “poor”. As to their condition they are “needy” and as to their disposition they are “poor”. They are “needy” in their consciousness of what they are, and they are “poor in spirit”. He has so arranged their lot on earth that they cannot but be “needy” and He has so renewed their spirit that they cannot but be “poor”.
Do not imagine that the Lord here makes an exposure of His people. He does not so intend the description which He gives of them. It is just that this is the view of them in which He specially delights. “To this man will I look,” He says, “even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at My word.” “I dwell . . . with him . . . that is of a contrite and humble spirit.” Why should He not thus describe them when the best thing even He can do for them is to keep them conscious of their poverty, and willingly and hopefully dependent on His grace? And what more befits His love than to delight in their willing reception of His grace? And what is more becoming to Him “who inhabiteth eternity”, and “whose name is holy”, than that He should delight in and dwell with the only people on the earth who accord to Him His place as “the fountain of living waters”, and who are willingly subjecting themselves to the operation of the Holy Ghost, in order to the destruction of all sin?
Let us not think that this aspect of true godliness is something that ought to have passed away with the gloom of Old Testament times. Surely Christ’s description of those who are truly blessed must apply to spiritual religion in every age and clime. That description, in Matthew 5, begins by calling them “poor” and mourners, and closes by calling them “persecuted”. While in each one of all the intervening marks by which they are indicated, there is something on account of which they cannot fail to be both “needy” and sorrowful. That is the infallible account of true religion – the true description of the true Christian – and it quite accords with what this Old Testament verse tells us of the people whom the Lord delights to succour.
To the eye of the world this seems a very ungainly aspect of religion. They are prone to say, If these are the people who are truly religious, we prefer to be outside of their circle. This has set some to think that, in the interests of true religion, this aspect of it should be kept out of sight. Exhibit, they say, only the joyousness of Christianity, so that the world may be attracted and not repelled.
But would that not be a one-sided, and therefore false, representation of it? And are you to gain, by a lie, accessions from the world? Are you to hide that aspect of true religion in which God especially delights? Are you to succeed by being unlike the “Man of Sorrows” and by following a different course from Him, who never hid from inquirers the painful trials which awaited all who followed Him? If you imagine that there is anything about true religion which requires to be hidden, what a poor estimate you have formed of it! And you are utterly mistaken if you think that any attraction will ever effectively win souls to Christ but His own beauty and love as, lifted up on the cross, He is presented in gospel light before the perishing.
Men of a naturally joyous temperament, with a whole heart, may find it easy to present a somewhat effective attraction to the world. But they draw people to themselves and not to Christ. Those too who have attained to an easy hope that all is well with them may readily keep a soulless smile on their faces; they may have much to say of gladness and nothing of sorrow, in their experience of what they call Christian life. These may be as zealous and as successful as the Pharisees were in making proselytes, by inducing others to be like themselves. But what is either the world or the Church the better of their labours?
There are some who think that the presence of sorrow in the consciousness of a Christian is always the result of backsliding. There are few greater mistakes than this. It was not the fruit of backsliding which gave Job his bitter experience of anguish, and Paul was never further from being in a backsliding state than when he cried, “O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” It is true that a Christian can have no spiritual gladness while unpardoned sin lies on his conscience, and sin unmortified is cherished in the heart; but it is just as true that the Lord is sovereign in dispensing the comforts by which the broken heart is made glad.
It is also a mistake to imagine that an assurance of an interest in Christ banishes all sorrow from the heart, and that if there is sorrow it must be the result of unbelief. It is quite true that, without the hope of glory, no Christian can be glad – at any rate, he can have no spiritual joy, though he may have the ease that is found in sleep. But it is quite as true that the man who rejoices “in hope of the glory of God” has enough in himself to make him sorrowful even when rejoicing. It is then that his pain is deepest, because of the corruption he still finds within himself, because of how little he has ever rendered to the Lord for all His benefits, and because of the condition of the Church and of the world around him. This is in contrast to what is before the eye of his hope in the company of those who have reached home in heaven before him.
So bent are some on the banishment of all sorrow from their religion, and
at the same time so haunted by the thought that perfect sinlessness must precede perfect joy, that they have conceived the idea of attaining to such a victory over sin, even in this life, as shall allow them to “rejoice” without “trembling”. It is quite easy for these dreamers to attain an unconsciousness of sin. They have merely to form a standard of experience and service for themselves, apart from the Word of God, and thus attain to an imagined perfection and reach a dreamer’s place of perfect happiness.
But true Christian gladness springs out of conflict and requires brokenness of heart. The “new song” is one sung in the midst of the battle, in anticipation of the final triumph; it does not require all sorrow to be banished from the heart in order that songs may arise from it. There is a joy which is according to the measure of the sorrow which attends it, the joy that flows from looking on the slain Lamb. The measure of the sorrow flowing from looking on Him “whom they have pierced” is just that of the gladness which that look produces. The sorrow and the joy are not in conflict but in harmony. They are mutually helpful, rather than opposed.
Let our great care be to “pass the time of our sojourning here in fear” of God, and to “walk in love”. Let the gravity of godly fear combine with fervent love in the Christian’s bearing towards the world around him. It is thus that he will show himself to be Christlike. His joy is safe in the Lord’s hands. Let him not selfishly concern himself with it.
Nor is the aspect of religion presented in our text at all inconsistent with the counsels addressed to Christians to “rejoice in the Lord”. It is because they have so much in themselves to make them sad that they are called so often to “rejoice in the Lord”. In Him there is no cause for sorrow; in Him they may always be glad. There is an infinite and unfailing fountain of blessedness in Him, and it is in the measure in which all, apart from Him, is disappointing and distressing – and they so find it – that Christians will be found coming to it. “Sorrowful, but always rejoicing,” is what can be attained to here. Sorrow without joy, and joy without sorrow, are not the alternative feelings on earth – the former belongs to hell, the latter to heaven.
“The needy.” In a ruinous hut, through which the winds blow and into which the rains pour, in a distant wasteland, infested with wild beasts, and haunted by thieves and murderers, lies a poor man covered all over with sores and reduced to utter helplessness. He cannot move off his bed, and even were food and medicine placed beside him, he does not have the strength to raise either to his mouth. He has only one friend on earth who can do anything for him and is dependent on him for all he needs. Would you not call this man needy? And who could suffice to act the part of a friend to someone in such circumstances? He is dependent on the only one who is
disposed to help him for protection, food and medicine, and to attend on him. If so, how can someone be found to undertake to keep him alive and to restore him to health. His case seems utterly desperate. Death in various forms seems to encompass him, and it would seem as if there is “no help of man at all” for him.
But just as needy is each one of God’s children while on the earth. Each of them is in a frail body in the “waste, howling wilderness” of this world, to whose polluted atmosphere it presents so many openings. Within the soul, within such a body, is the body of death. Because of this he finds himself covered all over with wounds and bruises and putrifying sores. His lot in life has its crosses, and against him have been awakened the hostility of the world, and of the powers of darkness. Both by “deceit and violence” these do what they can against him. From their power he cannot deliver himself and, even if he could, who is to heal him and feed him? He can of himself make no use of the grace brought near him in the gospel and he must utterly perish if someone who can meet all his needs, and is disposed to do so, does not care for him. Is not that person fitly called “needy”? And is not this the condition of every true Christian while on the earth?
None of all the children of God, while on the earth, can outgrow this sense of want and desolation or leave it behind. Instead of this, the longer they are here the more they are conscious of their utter dependence on the one Friend of “the needy”. “The old man” is not becoming less offensive, nor is the world becoming less troublesome, nor the powers of darkness more tolerant. The more the work of God makes progress, the more irritated these become, and only in times of backsliding and slumber can the believers’ consciousness cease to assure him of this. But the more he makes progress in a life of holiness, the more sensitive does he become to all the movements of backsliding and slumber. And in the measure he realises his poverty, he becomes “needy” in his consciousness.
Thus increasingly, to the end, a sense of destitution remains. And the sense of desolation keeps pace with this feeling except in the measure in which the presence of Christ is enjoyed. The nearer he approaches to his journey’s end, the greater is his longing to be home. And the more his heart is with his treasure in heaven, the more lonely does it feel amidst his surroundings in his life on earth.
Why shrink from realising this as the condition of the child of God on earth? What does all this indicate but his entire dependence on the Lord? Would you have him less dependent? Would you give him something in himself to make him feel less poor and needy? Would you furnish him, in his own consciousness, with what would lift him above all sense of destitution?
If so, you would deal very unwisely with his case. He is in better hands than yours. The Lord will allow him only what keeps him quite dependent on Himself. It is to “the needy” He can reveal Himself as the “God of all grace”; it is “in weakness” He can make His “strength” “perfect”.
The “needy” are also called “the poor“. This is not a mere repetition of the same idea. They are poor as to their disposition. Not ignobly poor, but willingly dependent. Not poor as the beggar who goes to every door, and takes all the scraps and coins that may be given him. This poor one is no beggar, and yet he is as destitute, in his own consciousness, as any beggar who craves alms of all who meet him. They are poor, and they cry for mercy, but it is to their own Father they direct their petition. It is because they are children of God that they see they are poor. Born of God, as they are, they have “a new heart” and “a right spirit” within them. Their royal rank accounts for their being poor. By nature they were proud, and determined to be independent of grace and of God. But they are “renewed in the spirit of their minds” and are now willing to be debtors to “the God of all grace”.
We can conceive of someone conscious of utter destitution, and yet proud in the midst of his needs. We have known such a combination, and it produced extreme wretchedness. But those described in our text have more than a sense of poverty. They are willing to take their place among the sinful poor, at the footstool of “the throne of grace”. They have not merely “a poor mouth”, as many beggars have who, with all their wails, have often more in their purse than those to whom they apply for alms. There are not a few such people in the Church. They pick up words which they have heard from the contrite, and over cold hearts they utter them with a “deceitful tongue”.
One of them came to a minister once, and began to declare herself to be a very great sinner, indeed the very chief sinner in the parish. “I never had any other opinion of you”, the minister said. “But I am not so bad as you think”, she at once said, showing that she had yet to learn to make her mouth speak as her heart felt. The truly poor feel more than they can express even unto God, and their great affliction is that their feeling is not still deeper, and that there is still in them a proud heart that will not allow them to come with their empty vessels to the store of grace in Christ. They are so poor that they are debtors to the Father as the great Provider, to the Son as the great Procurer, and to the Holy Ghost as the great Dispenser of saving grace. They who incur such a debt are “poor” indeed. But by being thus “poor in spirit” they attain to a kingdom – indeed “all things” are theirs. By becoming debtors to free grace they inherit all things.
Ulrich Zwingli the Swiss Reformer1
3. Expounding the Scriptures in Zurich
F R Daubney
Zurich. In October 1518, Zwingli was informed that the position of people’s priest at the Great Minster (Gross Münster), one of the three parishes in Zurich, was vacant. Although the position was poorly paid, it would give Zwingli great influence. His enemies, to prevent his getting the post, accused him of worldliness and even of wrongdoing with a female in Einsiedeln. He disproved the accusations, though he admitted previous improprieties. Nevertheless he was offered the appointment and his place at Einsiedeln was given to his friend Leo Jud.
Zwingli was formally inducted as priest at the Gross Münster on Saturday, 1 January 1519. To the Cathedral canons, his first priority was to bring money into the church and they instructed him to make every effort to collect revenue and exhort the faithful to pay all their tithes and dues: “You will be diligent in increasing the income from the sick from masses, and other ordinances. As for the administration of the sacraments, preaching and caring for the flock, you may employ a substitute, particularly in preaching. You should administer the sacraments to none but persons of note, and then only when requested”.
Zwingli, however, was having none of it. “It is to God’s glory, to the praise of His only Son, to the real salvation of souls and to their edification in the true faith that I shall devote my ministry,” he informed them. The next day he began a continuous exposition of the Gospel of Matthew, not according to the Fathers, but according to the Scriptures themselves. This created something of a sensation and caused some adverse criticism. One canon asked the cathedral Provost to prevent Zwingli from disturbing the faith of the people but the new priest remained resolute. Having preached his way through the Gospel of Matthew, he continued, in his first four years, through Acts, 1 and 2 Timothy, Galatians, 1 and 2 Peter and Hebrews. “Thus I planted. Matthew, Luke, Paul and Peter watered, but God in a wonderful manner gave the harvest.” He also preached from the Psalms every Friday in the market place for the benefit of the country people.
Soon after Zwingli came to Zurich, the indulgence seller, Samson, came to the city to complain to the Diet that Henry Bullinger (father of Zwingli’s successor) had refused to let him sell his wares in the church at Bremgarten, near Zurich. Zwingli preached against him and got the support of the local council. Samson appeared before the Diet requesting that his credentials be
1The previous section of this Theological Conference paper followed the development of Zwingli’s religious thinking in two country parishes in Switzerland.
confirmed in writing by the Pope. As a result of Zwingli’s influence, the Diet sent a counter-deputation to Rome to complain of Samson’s activities. The Pope responded by saying that he would prefer that the Diet would permit Samson to continue his work, but they could send him back to Italy if they chose. They did choose the latter option and he was not heard of again. This shows again the different approach Rome took to Zwingli and the Reformation in Switzerland compared with Luther and Germany.
Zwingli was no doubt thankful that he and Zurich had escaped so lightly as he was aware of the Pope’s machinations against Luther. In 1519 he wrote of the Pope: “It pains me that the man-pleaser, or if you prefer, the cuckoo, is entertaining designs against the rising theology. May Christ so order it that I may be able to disclose the shamefulness of this wanton clothed in purple.”
In the same year, 1519, the plague swept through Switzerland. Zwingli was away from the city when it broke out in Zurich. He hurried back and attended to his people faithfully. Two thousand five hundred townspeople died and in September he fell victim to it himself and was near to death. However, he began to recover and, by the end of December, was well again. It is believed that his nearness to death had a profound spiritual effect on him.
By 1520 Zwingli’s preaching had been so blessed to the people and Council of Zurich that a decree was issued to all parish priests, curates and exhorters throughout the Canton, “that they should freely and everywhere preach the holy Gospels and the apostolic Epistles, and all speak the same language as the Spirit of God should direct them, and only teach what they could prove by the Word of God. As for the doctrines and commandments that were of man’s institution, they should let them alone”. This was indeed a victory for the gospel.
In 1521 the King of France sought once more to enlist the Swiss against the Pope. The leading men of each canton were bribed in the usual way and all of them joined the French, apart from Zurich; Zwingli’s preaching had successfully convinced the citizens that they should not involve themselves in foreign politics. Cardinal Schinner, however, reminded Zurich that they had bound themselves in 1515 (before Zwingli came to the city) to support the Pope and defend the Church. The Council agreed that this was the case and accordingly went to war on the side of the papacy. The French, with their Swiss mercenaries, were completely overcome. The fact that Zurich fought against their fellow countrymen from other cantons created much bad feeling, and Zwingli was blamed. Following this, the Canton of Zurich took an oath that they would never again accept gifts or draw pensions from any foreign prince, the Pope included.
Zwingli had friends in the gospel, in Basle, Berne and, of course, Leo Jud
in Einsiedeln. However, he also had many enemies, in particular the monks who were now obliged to preach only the Word of God (which most of them had never read), and the mercenaries who had lost their pensions and bribes. Their view was that “since the plague did not carry off Zwingli, we must see what we can do to crush him”. Zwingli’s friend, Oswald Myconius, a teacher of the classics in Zurich, wrote, “There was not an hour that did not give birth to some deep-laid plot among the laity and priests against the life of the apostle of truth and righteousness”. Zwingli himself wrote to Myconius: “I pray to Christ for grace to meet whatever may befall me with manly courage, and that He may either uphold me or break me in pieces, as may seem good to Him”. By the grace of God, all endeavours to murder him, or bring a halt to his reforms, failed.
Zwingli had persuaded the Zurich Council to allow priests to marry and in 1522 he married a widow in his congregation, Anna Reinhard. Zwingli’s tendency was to use a softly-softly approach so, although the marriage was no secret among his friends or enemies, it was not formally celebrated in the Münster until two years later. Anna had three children by her first husband and she and Zwingli had a further four children. Marriage was now becoming a common practice among the clergy; in 1523 Leo Jud, who had left Einsiedeln to become the people’s priest at St Peter’s church in Zurich, also married.
Although Zwingli felt 1516 was the beginning of the Reformation in Switzerland, the event popularly thought to have sparked the Reformation in Zurich was the “Affair of the Sausages” in 1522. Zwingli, given his desire to preach and teach from scriptural principles alone, naturally spoke publicly on fasting, particularly on the strict rules imposed by the Church against eating meat during Lent. As a result, at the beginning of Lent in 1522, a group in the house of a printer, Christoph Froschauer, gathered to eat sausages, consciously transgressing the fasting rule in order to proclaim their Christian liberty. Zwingli was present and, though he did not eat any of the sausages, he was clearly supportive of those who did. The event caused a public outcry and Froschauer was arrested. Shortly afterwards Zwingli preached and published a sermon entitled, “Regarding the Choice and Freedom of Foods”, in which he argued that fasting should be entirely voluntary, not mandatory. The Council of Zurich sought advice on the matter from the other people’s priests in the city. They (including Leo Jud, of course) agreed with Zwingli that fasting during Lent was tradition and not supported by Scripture. Froschauer was released.
In 1523 the Great Council of Zurich arranged a debate which became known as the “First Disputation”, between those who preached the gospel and those who considered their doctrines to be heresy. The Council’s hope
was “that God would illuminate the matter, that we may walk in the light as children of the light”. All priests and pastors from the city and surrounding area were invited to come and prove the truth from Holy Scripture – 600 participated. In preparation for the Disputation, Zwingli produced 67 Articles to sum up his teaching.
The Bishop of Constance sent a delegation led by his Vicar General, Johannes Fabri. Fabri, however, said that he was forbidden to discuss theology in front of laymen and that universities, rather than the Council, should be the judges in disputes regarding doctrine. He claimed that he and his cohort had come simply to find out about the religious differences in the Canton. Zwingli in return made the point that God was the only infallible and impartial judge but, as he had been described as a heretic, he was going to defend his doctrine. Various topics were ultimately discussed – the intercession of saints, clerical celibacy, and the authority of the Church but, though urged by Zwingli and others, Fabri refused to give Scripture proofs in support of Rome’s doctrines. At length the debate was over, and the Council decided that Zwingli be allowed to continue his preaching and that all other preachers should teach only in accordance with Scripture. It was a resounding victory for the Reformed cause; the Abbot of Kappel, a Zwingli supporter, asked, “Where were those who wanted to burn us and had piled the wood at the stake? Why did they not show themselves?”