Reginald Heber (1783-1826), Bishop of Calcutta

BISHOP Reginald Heber (1783-1826) saw in the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, our Gospel for The First Sunday After Trinity, an allegory of the Gentile Mission (Lk 16:19-31).

It was aimed, Heber suggested, at those Jews who assumed their own national election was absolutely secure, and cared nothing for being a light to the nations (Is 49:6).

TO this pride and confidence in their own spiritual privileges, which distinguished the Jewish Pharisee, is strongly and beautifully opposed the helpless outcast state of the Gentile world; who had no merits of their own, or of their forefathers, to plead; no spiritual food; no holy Scriptures; no prophets, to teach or comfort them: and who desired to be fed even with the crumbs, (this very expression had been used by the poor Canaanitish woman, whose daughter was tormented with a devil, Mk 7:28) with the very crumbs, or smallest part of that abundance of spiritual knowledge, with which God had blessed the Jews.

He was laid at the rich man’s gate; for the Gentiles were not allowed to go beyond the gate of the Temple: but were, in common language, considered as unclean, and hardly fit company for the dogs of Israel. He was covered with sores; — that is, with the corruptions of unreclaimed nature; and with those hideous sins, which ignorance of God’s law increased, and rendered almost incurable. …

“The beggar died; and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom; the rich man also died, and was buried: and in hell, he lift up his eyes, being in torments.”

Compare this description with what our Lord had said before, that the Gentiles “shall come from the east, and from the west; and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven: but the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness” (Lk 13:29): and you will not fail to observe, that the same thing is spoken of in both places; and that, here as well as there, the rejection of the Jews and the calling of the Gentiles is understood. …

But the most aweful, and, perhaps, the most striking, part of the whole parable, is the assurance of Abraham at the end of it, that they, who would not hear Moses and the prophets, would not be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.

Sermons On The Lessons &c. For Every Sunday In The Year. The Sermon XXXII.

Reginald Heber (1783-1826), Bishop of Calcutta

IN our second reading at Evensong (Heb 2:1-3:7), the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews cautions,

THEREFORE we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip.

For if the word spoken by angels was stedfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompence of reward; How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him?

This is one of several warnings in the New Testament, that it is possible for those who have been justified by faith and regenerated in Baptism to let slip their hold on salvation by neglecting the gospel of Christ handed down to us from the Apostles.

Such falls are by no means irremediable. Article XVI states,

AFTER we have received the Holy Ghost, we may depart from grace given and fall into sin, and by the grace of God we may arise again and amend our lives.

Not all, however, were happy with this mixed caution and reassurance. In 1595, John Whitgift, the Archbishop of Canterbury, quietly convened a select group of senior clergy at Lambeth with a view to driving the Thirty-Nine Articles in a definitively Puritan direction. The Nine “Lambeth Articles” which they sought to append (read online) went much further than Article XVI does.

5. A TRUE, living, and justifying faith, and the Spirit of God justifying [sanctificans], is not extinguished, falleth not away; it vanisheth not away in the elect, either finally or totally.

Queen Elizabeth I had not been told about this surreptitious synod, and her displeasure was bolstered by a widespread opposition in the Church lent urgency by the moral collapse that was held to attend these doctrines (why reform, if you are infallibly saved or damned regardless?).

The Lambeth Articles were never authorised; and on the Accession of James I in 1603, Elizabeth’s policy was confirmed, and our Thirty-Nine Articles remained unaltered.

THE caution will still remain in force; “let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed, lest he fall” (1 Cor 10:12). And no man can stand so surely in this world, but that his own carelessness, or want of faith, may, at any time, overturn his hopes, and that assurance of mercy, which was founded on the testimony of the Spirit in his heart.

What comfort is there, then, to them who believe; and who, knowing their own weakness, look forward with doubt and dismay to the temptations which beset their onward path through life?

I answer, great and sufficient comfort there is;— in the knowledge, that, weak as they are in themselves, the strength, which is given them by God, is more than sufficient for the work, which is set before them; and that if they do not forsake Him, He will never cast them away.

Bishop Reginald Heber (1783-1826). Sermon XXIX: Whitsunday

Reginald Heber (1783-1826), Bishop of Calcutta

REGINALD Heber (1783-1826), Bishop of Calcutta in India, asked how Christians today can know they are children of God, if they have no such spectacular proofs as the Apostles’ received at Pentecost, or as in our Epistle today (Acts 10:34-48).

THE best ground of comfort, and confidence, which a man can feel, that he is God’s son, and abiding in His favour, is that he is led by the Spirit of God.

Nor is it difficult for any man to discover, whether this be the case with himself or no: since the works, which that good Spirit produces, are manifest, says the Apostle, to all. “The fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.”

If, therefore, a man find these graces in his own heart and conduct, he may be sure, that, as it surpasses his own unassisted strength to plant them there, they must be planted by God: they must be the fruits of His good Spirit: and that he, being led by the Spirit, is the son of God.

And thus it is, that, among modern Christians, the Spirit beareth witness, with our spirit, that we are the sons of God. For if the Spirit of God lead us, it will produce such fruits in our behaviour, as that our own natural conscience will, thereby, be satisfied of the safety and blessedness of our situation; and, as St. John observes, “Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence with God.” —

He, therefore, who, on an impartial review of his own conduct, finds, that he is really, in the general course of his life, seeking to do his Heavenly Father’s will, need have no anxiety about his adoption, as God’s son; because the very power of thus obeying God, is given by God Himself, and is an evidence, that God accepts us.

Sermons. Sermons XXIX: Whitsunday

See more by Bishop Heber.

St Paul's Cathedral, Calcutta, India. © Mjanich, Wikimedia Commons. Used under licence.

AT the recent General Election, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York stated,

WE should not forget that, in spite of everything, many in the United Kingdom are still better off financially than they have ever been.  The deepest challenge is how the wealth we possess collectively is to become a real ‘common wealth’, wealth that serves a whole population not just the powerful and privileged. (Read here).

Yet our Divines believed that our deepest challenge was to help individual people care spontaneously about their neighbours.

They did not believe that any Government regulation could meet it. Reginald Heber (1783-1826), Bishop of Calcutta, warned that coercive redistribution of wealth comes a very poor second to the Church’s traditional esteem for private, in-house charity.

And he went on to reassure us – much as Aelfric of Eynsham had done over seven hundred years earlier (see here) – that the act of voluntary, face-to-face giving (in coin or kind, or simply in kindness), as an explicit part of our Christian discipline, is itself a precious gift. It makes us care, it makes us pray, and it binds us into one nation.

ALL these good feelings, and good principles, will soon perish and fade away within us; unless we bring them, into constant application, by acts of daily kindness; by acquainting ourselves with the wants, and distresses, of our neighbours; and, above all, by denying ourselves some portion of our own comforts and pleasures, for their sake, and in order to their assistance.

Not only, are services produced by love; but love itself is yet more certainly produced by acts of kindness and attention. We are always, for the time, well disposed towards those whom we assist. Our interest becomes joined to theirs; and we rejoice in their happiness, because it is, in some measure, our own work and contrivance.

And, accordingly, the more we labour in doing good, the more really kind will our tempers become; and we shall do good, with the greater readiness.

But, lastly, since the practice of charity, as we have seen, contains within itself so wide a range of duty and behaviour; since it requires, to be perfect, so entire a conquest of some of our strongest natural passions, of our pride, our anger, our idleness, our love of money, and our love of pleasure, how necessary is it to begin, and to accompany, all these endeavours, with unfeigned and earnest prayer to the Almighty author of all good gifts,— that His grace may strengthen our weakness, to those acts of selfdenial which surpass our powers; and that He would pour into our hearts, not only that faith which is the foundation of all other virtues, but that love, which is their ornament, and crown,— that blessed gift of charity, without which whosoever liveth, is counted dead before Him!

Sermon XXVIII: The Sunday After Ascension Day (Part II)

See also Wealth And Poverty, Taxation and Charity.

Reginald Heber (1783-1826), Bishop of Calcutta

OUR Gospel reading today is St John’s account of the Feeding of the Five Thousand in today’s Gospel (John 6:1-14).

Bishop Reginald Heber (1783-1826) reassured us that just as Jesus’s blessing made the meagre provisions of five loaves and two fish far exceed anything we would expect, so too even the smallest gestures of charity – even those which do not involve money or material goods – can be life-changing.

A SINGLE warm and comfortable meal given to a poor neighbour, in a time of distress, may, by its consequences, be the means of saving a family. It may seem strange; but what if this man were, even then, almost worn out with want and toil, and if such timely nourishment have prevented his falling sick, and preserved him in a capacity to labour; — are not then his own and his family’s lives sustained by it? or what, if such a small relief came at a moment, when his heart was growing hard with distress; and when he was tempted to take to bad courses, for support; — may not a soul have been saved for ever, by our means?

Oh, it will be a glorious sight, hereafter, when the books of Providence are laid open before our eyes; — to see by what secret springs, what humble exertions, what meek and modest charities, the happiness of families, the support of nations, the great machine of the world itself, have been regulated and influenced: — to witness how God’s Providence may have given power and energy to the feeble alms of a widow; or to the silent prayers of those, who had prayers only to bestow; or how a cup of cold water given in the name of Christ, shall, in nowise, lose its reward!

Sermons On The Lessons, The Gospel Or Epistle, For Every Sunday. The Fourth Sunday In Lent.

It would be very satisfying, to win back charity from distant and wasteful governments, and from those who are more interested in the pain it brings to the rich than the relief it gives to the poor.

Heber shows just how very powerful charity is when it is given in kind, in person, and in constant attentive gestures – and above all, when it is given with Jesus’s blessing.

More by Reginald Heber here, and on Charity here. Heber also wrote some well-known hymns.

Reginald Heber (1783-1826), Bishop of Calcutta

WHEN God makes men the instruments of his purpose, it can seem as if he is punishing them for what he himself has made them do.

Pharaoh is a prime example. “The LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart” we hear twice in tonight’s first reading (Exod 13:17-14:10). And Pharaoh was reviled and destroyed for his compliance with God’s disposal of history.

Yet Psalm 106:15 sheds some light on what might otherwise appear very unfair.

And he gave them their desire : and sent leanness withal into their soul.

There comes a point at which God stops pouring grace into the soul. At this, the heart becomes narrow, contracted, hard. But it is not arbitrary. It is the heart’s own desire. Bishop Reginald Heber (1783-1826) imagined God’s reasoning:

“THE king of Egypt,” the righteous God might say, “hath long and grievously offended me. Like others, he had once his day of grace, in which my Spirit was not withheld, and in which he might have found the gates of repentance and acceptance open.

But my Spirit shall not always strive with man; and that I have endured this wicked man so long is not in tenderness to him, but as a part of his punishment, and that his punishment might be more public and terrible.

To this end I have raised him up to a throne of which he is unworthy; to this end I have deprived him not only of the grace which he despised, but of that natural reason which, even on worldly grounds, might have taught him to avoid the destined punishment.

Let others learn from him that not only holiness but wisdom is mine to give or to withhold; and that he who seeks not after the one, may be made in the end to mourn the deprivation of the other.

Thus have I hardened his heart by confusing his understanding; by withdrawing the only check which remained on his furious and unruly passions; and by leaving him to the consequences of those counsels which he originally preferred to the light of natural religion and the whispers of natural mercy.” [...]

Oh, my brethren, while yet you feel within you a wholesome remorse for sin, a desire to escape from its snares, and those other gracious tokens of God’s presence in the heart by which we are moved and enabled to amendment, delay not for a moment to profit by that acceptable time, and to make, while it is called to-day, the day of salvation your own.

Sermons Preached In England (New York, 1929). Sermon VII: God’s Dealings With Pharaoh.

Reginald Heber (1783-1826), Bishop of Calcutta

THE Gospel reading today (Mt 20:1-16) matches well with our Epistle (1 Cor 9:24-27).

We saw John Wesley remind us that even St Paul must train and compete like an athlete, not to lose the victor’s crown which Christ has prepared for him. It is soberingly possible to throw away victory close to the finishing line.

Our Gospel reading comforts us with the complementary truth. It is reassuringly possible to be hired for the Lord’s work at the eleventh hour, and still receive all the glory promised to his longest-serving stewards.

But I would rather give you another meditation on this reading, from Bishop Reginald Heber (1783-1826).

ONE believer, for instance, is placed by His providence in a distinguished and, outwardly, an arduous station of duty. He bears the burthen and the heat of the day; he rides in the foremost ranks of the armies of His invincible Lord; he carries the banner of the cross where it is assailed by the potentates of earth, and the princes of the power of the air; and he fights, through along life, the good fight of faith successfully, being encouraged and supported, in part it may be, by the very conspicuousness of the sphere in which he moves, and still more and more, undoubtedly, by that secret influence of the Most High, which hath girded his loins with strength, and covered his head in the day of battle.

The pilgrimage of another is of an obscurer kind; his walk is through the secret paths of life, unknown, unpraised, perhaps reproved and slighted. He has no converts to show; he has had no splendid opportunities of evincing his love of God and his dauntless faith in his Redeemer. His warfare has been within; and in weakness and fear, in solitude and silence, he has struggled with the defects of an imperfect education, with the discouragement of unsuccessful labours, with the infirmities of a peevish and distrustful temper, with the unkindness or neglect of men, and with the indescribable terrours of those powers of darkness which are most potent with the weak and melancholy.

Yet, though he has trembled, he has not yielded; yet, though he has done little, he has endeavoured all he could; yet, though he has been encompassed with darkness and dismay, from the deeps he hath called upon God; and his eye, from the midst of the valley of the shadow of death, has been bent on the heavenly Sion! And of these two candidates, these martyrs of different descriptions, which best may claim the palm? I know not; who but God can know! But the men are both gone to their reward; and I am convinced that the more illustrious and distinguished servant of Christ would be neither surprised nor grieved to find his weaker brother set beside him!

Sermons Preached In India. Sermon X, The Labourers In The Vineyard (May 22nd, 1825).