1 Samuel 10:24 And Samuel said to all the people, See you him whom the LORD has chosen, that there is none like him among all the people?… It does not need a great deal of historical acumen to see that the Coronation of King Edward VII of England will stand out even in our remarkable national history as an event of peculiar and pathetic importance. We have been accused by a friendly, if somewhat cynical, critic of applying to ourselves as a nation all the promises of favour and the dignity of responsibility which God bestowed on His chosen people, the Jews, in the days of their faithfulness and trial It would be strange if we had reaped no benefit from our national study of and veneration for the Bible. What then does the person of the King represent to us, clothed with all the insignia and majesty of supreme glory. I. THE KING IS THE REPRESENTATIVE AND EMBODIMENT OF CERTAIN PERSONAL AND IMPORTANT PRINCIPLES AND AMONG THESE WE RECKON FIRST IN THE PERSON OF THE KING THE MAJESTY AND DIGNITY OF LAW. He is the fountain of a nation's law, the supreme embodiment of its liberty and privileges based on law. In looking back over our chequered history we see the fierce nature of the conflict which has raged round this conception of the regal office. Our King does not reign as a despot in defiance of his people's rights, but as the living embodiment of all that they most venerate and cling to. As children we were accustomed to read history with an eye to the stirring events of the battlefields, and the struggles of kings and people in all the moving incidents of the public tragedies which surround a nation's growth, and as we get older we shall find that these struggles lose none of their interest. They gain in importance, as the conflict of liberty with oppression, of order with disorder, now on this side, now on that. We mark in them the gradual evolution of a clearer idea of what is meant by a monarch, in his supreme character as the guardian and fountain of law; we see the diminution by slow degrees of the idea, of personal irresponsible power, and the quenching of the lust of greed and oppression, and the emerging of the figure of dignity and religion, under which a nation venerates the figure of her liberty. Have we learned yet all the beauty and grandeur which lie expressed in that sacred name — law? When the old Greeks looked out on this magnificent universe in which all things perform their ordered functions, they called the world by a name which signified order, as if that were the main end pervading characteristic which was stamped upon its Divine mechanism. The reign of law, of perfect, unswerving law, excited their veneration and awe; and it was magnificent, it was Divine. And so we are accustomed still in most intimate and hidden ways to trace the action of the Holy Spirit in the regions of order and discipline within the soul. The Spirit of God which once moved upon the face of the waters when order emerged from chaos still rules over the hearts and lives of those who give themselves up to His gentle guidance. While we honour this great principle of law and order in the person of our King, whom we crown and consecrate, let us see to it that we honour every manifestation of it in our own lives. It is a sorry thing to contend for the liberty of the subject, sad maintain the long conflict for the integrity of our laws, if at the same time we are living the life of slaves, in a voluntary subjection to the tyranny of evil. The struggles of the nation for freedom and for liberty are paralleled in the life of many a man today, with a very diverse issue of the conflict. The supremacy of law, within the circle of his own life, is the inherent birthright of every man. We are born free, but the issue of life's struggle too often leaves us slaves. Let us at least venerate the fount of law, as those who know the blessings of law in our inmost selves. It is a turbulent kingdom which God has called upon you to rule. There are fierce passions which were designed to serve under your kingship, which are only too ready to rise in rebellion and oust the ruler from his throne. Not many hundred yards from this cathedral there once existed that strange region known as Alsatia, with which the pen of the novelist and the brilliant pages of Macaulay have made us familiar, that region in which the king's writ did not run, the abode of criminal disorder and vice. So many a man has elevated his besetting sins into an Alsatia, an abode of privileged misdeeds, where the will gives no order, and the law of God makes no appeal. I appeal for a larger and more whole-hearted veneration for law and order within the kingdom of our own lives. Let us have no Alsatias, no privileged sins, no times, no places, or moods which are outside the beneficent rule of law. Let us bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. II. THE KING, ONCE MORE IS THE REPRESENTATIVE TO US OF OUR NATIONAL TRADITIONS. The history of the nation hangs round it like a necklace, studded with glorious jewels, which represent the traditions which have been worked out of its long and chequered careers. There are memories of struggles at home and abroad, of some of which we are ashamed, of most of which we are proud. We remember how, in the very place where we are standing, the expiring struggle of heathenism, the advancing powers of Christianity, the bitterness of religious and civil strife have all left their mark on history. Nelson and Wellington lie buried in our crypt, to remind us of the European struggle which made such an impression on our national sentiment and showed England the great destiny she was called upon to fulfil. And we thank God that while seldom free from some form of war in some part of our vast Empire, God has mercifully shielded us from the horrors of war in our own island. The battle of Sedgemoor, in Somerset, fought in the rebellion of Monmouth in the days of James II, is generally regarded as the last serious battle fought in our own land; for which we may, indeed, thank God, when we see what war means — as, for instance, to the sunny plains of France in the awful struggle of 1870, or in South Africa in the horrors and destruction of the war now happily and gloriously concluded. Through long centuries of struggle, of blessings received and warnings given, we do feel that there has emerged a great; tradition which we are pledged to maintain, and of which our crowned king is the personal representative. We do not as a nation care much for glory; it is an evanescent and intoxicating sentiment which is foreign to our character. We seem, on the contrary, to be almost cynically indifferent to the hostile criticism of our national actions, which we are at the same time powerless to avert. But, thank God, there has emerged as the permanent tradition of our race, and as the prevailing symbolism of our national flag, the sense of duty. However we fail in its practical application, however imperfect may be our realisation of our responsibilities, still it is something to feel that it is the great tradition of our race, that England expects that, every man should do his duty, and that greed and injustice, where and if they exist, exist only in defiance of our most cherished national traditions. Every man is better for a tradition in his life. The novelist has traced for us with merciless accuracy the career of a man who fell from bad to worse, largely because he had no tradition in his life; who never could remember the time when he was not indolent and self-pleasing; who had no battlefields of struggle, no records of victory to help him with the strength of a tradition, or the memories of outlived sorrow. And so he fell, as one who is alone when he falls, and who has nothing to keep him up, or anything of which he should say, "God forbid that I should be false to my better self, or betray my nobler past." Under the name of principle we all of us recognise with an instinctive homage a tradition, which it is only honourable for a man to maintain. A temptation to a degraded sensuality loses half its malignity when it comes to a man, not as an isolated experience in a multiform career, but as a blow aimed at a cherished principle of life and a uniform course of action. It is an immense strength for a man to be able to say to the enticer, "I never have yielded to that kind of temptation yet, and I am not going to begin now." It is an immense support to a life of integrity, to be able to meet the specious appeal to a supposed profit in dishonesty by an honest repudiation which can say, "I have never done a dishonest action yet, nor told a lie, and it would be contrary to all my principles to do so." One of the greatest national treasures is the glorious tradition which is the heritage of our race, and therefore once more, as the depositary of that tradition, and as the upholder of its integrity, we say of him whose coronation we acclaim today, "God save the King." III. BUT WE MUST NOT FORGET THAT HUMAN NATURE BEING WHAT IT IS, AND OUR ENGLISH NATION BEING WHAT IT IS, THERE HAS GATHERED ROUND THE BEST TRADITION OF OUR LOYALTY A DEPTH OF PERSONAL FEELING FOR THE PERSON OF THE SOVEREIGN. Not officially only, but personally, out of respect and affection for the reigning monarch; where that has not been made impossible, we have loved to say, "God save the King." We, none of us, are likely to forget the great personal devotion which all classes of English men and English women displayed towards our late Queen. Her throne, if any, was reared up in the hearts of her people. Nor is this a merely sentimental affection. In crowning our King, we crown the majesty of law, we crown the greatness of our tradition, and the glory of our race, but we also crown one, who has mounted the steps of the throne, straight from the shaping tenderness of the loving hand of God. And, therefore, with all our hearts we say, "God save the King." (W. C. E. Newbolt, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: And Samuel said to all the people, See ye him whom the LORD hath chosen, that there is none like him among all the people? And all the people shouted, and said, God save the king. |
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