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Title: Plain Sermons - Preached at Archbishop Tenison's Chapel, Regent Street
Author: Cowan, James Galloway
Language: English
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Transcribed from the 1859 William Skeffington edition by David Price.
PLAIN SERMONS
* * * * *
PREACHED AT
ARCHBISHOP TENISON’S CHAPEL,
REGENT STREET.
* * * * *
BY
JAMES GALLOWAY COWAN,
MINISTER.
* * * * *
* * * * *
Published by Request.
* * * * *
* * * * *
LONDON:
WILLIAM SKEFFINGTON, 163, PICCADILLY.
1859.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
SERMON I.
TAKING THOUGHT FOR TEMPORAL THINGS.
_St. Matthew_, vi., 24, 25. 1
. . . Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your
life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor
yet for your body, what ye shall put on . . .
SERMON II.
RIGHT THOUGHTS OF CHRIST.
_St. Matthew_, xxii., 42. 14
What think ye of Christ?
SERMON III.
THE CHURCHMAN’S THOUGHTS ABOUT DISSENTERS.
_St. Luke_, xvii., 16. 27
And he was a Samaritan
SERMON IV.
ETERNAL ABODE WITH GOD.—A FUNERAL SERMON.
1 _Thessalonians_, iv, 17. 40
So shall we ever be with the Lord
SERMON V.
MAN’S KNOWLEDGE LIMITED.
1 _Corinthians_, xiii., 9. 53
We know in part
SERMON VI.
CONFESSION.
_Proverbs_, xxviii, 13. 64
He that covereth his sins shall not prosper
SERMON VII.
FORGIVENESS.
_Psalm_ cxxx., 4. 82
There is forgiveness with Thee
SERMON VIII.
THE PRINCIPLE OF OFFERINGS TO GOD.
II. _Samuel_, xxiv., 24. 101
Neither will I offer . . . unto the Lord my God of that
which doth cost me nothing
SERMON IX.
SPIRITUAL PROGRESS.
_Philippians_, iii., 13, 14. 115
Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but
this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are
behind and reaching forth unto those things which are
before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the
high calling of God in Christ Jesus
SERMON X.
SPIRITUAL THINGS NOT REVEALED TO THE NATURAL MAN.
I. _Corinthians_, ii., 14. 127
The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit
of GOD: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can
he know them, because they are spiritually discerned
SERMON I.
TAKING THOUGHT FOR TEMPORAL THINGS.
ST. MATTHEW, VI., 24, 25.
. . . “Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
“Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye
shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye
shall put on.” . . .
EVERY one who has thoughtfully read that description of the Samaritans in
the second book of Kings—“they feared the LORD and served their own
gods”—must have been struck with the mockery, the blasphemy, the
absurdity of such a fear. Fear Him, who claims to be the only GOD, and
yet regard many others as equally and independently gods! Worship Him,
all whose service is pure, and innocent, and self-emptying, and righteous
and yet worship Ashtaroth, the goddess of licentious pleasure—Moloch, the
god of cruelty—Chemosh, and his abominations—Belial, and his worldliness!
This, my brethren, we all see is not simply a _forbidden_ but an
_impossible_ service. The commands, the sanctions, the promises, the
service of Jehovah, and of any one of these others, are so thoroughly
opposite, so condemnatory of each other, that the man who attempts to
observe them both, is far more impious and more foolish than the
benighted heathen who carves an idol out of a block of wood or piece of
stone and bows down to it alone in homage, and looks up only to it for
blessings. If, then, mammon means a false god—either a deified human
being, or a personified vice or virtue, or an actual dumb, senseless
idol,—we feel that Christ has rightly said, not ye “_shall_ not,” but ye
“cannot” serve it and GOD. There is no room for the question whether GOD
will wink at a divided homage; whether, provided He is _one_ of the
objects of worship, He will not be over-severe with you for having other
objects. The attempt to serve both is an attempt at what is impossible;
not at what may not be, on account of certain commands and restrictions,
but at what cannot be from the very nature of things. GOD altogether—or
mammon altogether, if you will; but “ye cannot serve GOD and mammon.”
You see this, you approve Christ’s teaching, you are ready to condemn,
you do now condemn—the impiety, the folly of attempting to serve GOD and
mammon.
But, my brethren, consider. Do you know what and whom you condemn? Are
you quite sure that you do not yourselves attempt to serve mammon as well
as GOD? Oh, yes! you are quite sure! Mammon, a false god—a name without
a being like Jove and Mars, like fairies and genii—or a substance without
life—like Bel of the Chaldeans, or Juggernaut of the Hindoos—you are not
so senseless as to serve this!
Or, again, if mammon be, as some commentators tell us, only a
personification of riches, and his service therefore be the immoderate
pursuit of wealth and worldly aggrandisement, still you are free. You
may sometimes make great efforts to be rich, you may often desire and
covet wealth; but you are not sordid misers; you are not engrossed in the
pursuit of wealth; you do not treat it as a god, and give to it the
thought and homage due to Jehovah.
Dear brethren, it is not so certain that you could quite clear yourselves
of the sin and folly of serving mammon, even if this were all that is
meant. But it is not. Look to the text, “Ye cannot serve GOD and
mammon.” What then? Why give up mammon! And what is mammon? The next
verse tells you, “Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your
life, what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body,
what ye shall put on.” So, then, taking thought for these things is
serving mammon.
Who is free from idolatry now?
“But,” some are ready to exclaim, “taking thought for these things is a
very law and necessity of my being. I came into this world needing food
and clothing. Others had to take thought to feed and clothe me. They
early impressed upon me as one of the clearest duties of my responsible
life that I should take this thought for myself, and now I can only get
these things for myself and my family by taking thought for them.” Ay,
and the very Word of GOD enjoins the duty: “Go to the ant, thou sluggard,
consider her ways and be wise”—learn, that is, from her forethought and
provision; look about thee, be industrious, store up for future wants.
Our LORD Himself set the example of such forethought, when He committed
the care of a bag to one of His disciples, that food, and money to buy
food, might be carried about with them; and the Apostle Paul plainly
taught—“If any will not work, neither shall he eat.” “If any man provide
not for his own, he has denied the faith and is worse than an infidel.”
My brethren, the law of nature has imposed, and the Word of GOD therefore
approves, that we should look about and provide for our necessities.
Wherever there is power to do this, the power must be exercised, or we
must run the risk of want. The lilies of the field are fed by GOD’S own
hand with nourishment, which they cannot seek. The unfledged bird has
but to open its mouth to receive the food, which divinely implanted
instinct has caused the parent to bring; but when it is grown it must
itself make provision—it must search the trees for berries and the earth
for worms, or it must die of starvation. GOD takes thought for sparrows,
yet He requires, if I may so speak, that they should think for
themselves; and thereby He teaches us, confirming this teaching by plain
words of revelation, that it is incumbent upon us to make provision for
our necessities, and so, of course, to _think_ about them. But
_thinking_ is not _taking thought_. When our Bible was translated, to
“take thought” meant (as the Greek word which it represents does) to be
anxious, troubled, perplexed about a thing, and so to be drawn off by its
consideration from other thoughts, and cares, and duties. The
consistent, devoted servant of GOD, while intent upon his due and loved
service, may and should use precaution and diligence to sustain in
appointed ways the lower life and wants of himself and his; but if he
takes thought about them, cares more or thinks more about temporal things
than spiritual; if he leaves undone religious duties, or transgresses
divine commands, or wears out his zeal, or consumes his time (of choice)
in securing or seeking worldly provision, then does he attempt to serve
mammon as well as GOD, and in so doing—attempting what cannot be—he
actually foregoes the service of GOD and becomes an idolater.
My dear brethren, let us go into this matter, and pick out its plain and
wholesome lessons, and ask GOD to engrave them deeply on our hearts. The
text is especially addressed to such as we are. It is not mainly for the
grossly covetous; for the would-be hoarders of great wealth; for the
epicure, intent upon dainty dishes and costly wines; for the giddy
votaries of fashion, ever meditating fresh extravagancies and greater
absurdities, betraying by their silly, unchristian finery the emptiness
of their minds and the callousness of their hearts, making themselves
gazing-stocks to the thoughtless and objects of pity to the thoughtful.
It is not, I say, _chiefly_ for these (though it is indeed _for_ them,
and it behoves them to regard it very seriously), but it is for those who
take thought for necessaries that our text was spoken and written; who
are in concern not for a superabundance, but for a sufficiency of the
things of this life. To them it says, Take no thought, be not anxious,
perplexed. Let not these things engross your hearts, or cause you in any
way to swerve from the pure and entire service of GOD, for—this is the
first reason—to do so is to sin, it is to give up GOD and choose mammon.
Ye who do it are idolaters. Make no plea of opposing difficulty or
necessity, count upon no indulgence. If you serve mammon, you do not
serve GOD. GOD will have no part of a divided heart, and will not be
served at all by those who do not serve Him altogether.
Dear brethren, try to embrace this truth. GOD’S commands are not to be
explained away, nor are excuses to be made for disregarding them. Obey
them at all hazards—do not pare them down by pleas of expediency.
Doubtless, the service is a very hard one. It is very difficult not to
take thought for immediate and pressing wants. It is a great temptation
to a very poor man to have an opportunity of making a few shillings by
working or keeping his shop open on the LORD’S Day. It is a great
temptation to one who is hard-worked during the week to have the power of
turning the day of holy rest into one of worldly pleasure. It would be
very convenient to the man of business to make up his ledger when he
should be reading his Bible; to be thinking of his projects and prospects
in this life rather than his coming eternity; to be pushing a bargain
which is very advantageous, though it is a little unjust; to get what he
_can_ for his goods, rather than what he _ought_; to tell little
untruths; to grind down his dependents; to withhold from charitable
purposes the money which can be made useful for self; in short, to be
ever taking thought for temporal things and not taking thought for
spiritual, and so to miss opportunities of meditating, and reading, and
praying, of worshipping, and communicating, and doing good, and preparing
for heaven. The comparatively well-to-do man doubtless finds this
worldly taking thought agreeable and in a sense advantageous; the poor
man is hard pressed to give way to it; but still the command of GOD
stands out—“Take no thought.”
Do not say you must—you _must not_.
“My wants,” says one, “must be relieved; my family must be fed and
clothed; my work must be done; my interests must be looked after; my
health must be preserved.” No, brethren, there is no _must_ in any one
of these. GOD must be served; all the others may be, if they can be
included in His service, not otherwise.
And would you really come to want, if you were more religious? Would
your family be left unprovided for? Would your health suffer? You do
not seriously think it would. But what if it did? Welcome want, welcome
sickness, welcome death—anything rather than worldly prosperity, if it
can only be obtained by renunciation of GOD’S enjoined service and
idolatrous devotion to mammon. The world will laugh at such preaching,
brethren, and call it foolishness; but the world is nothing to us. It is
doomed to pass away with all the things in it which lure us to take
thought; but you and I must live on to eternity, and how we are to live
shall be decided by the master we serve—GOD or mammon.
A second reason why we are not to take thought is—that doing so will not
insure what we want. “Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit
unto his stature;” or, rather, such is the real meaning, can increase,
even by a little measure, the length of his life. And, on the other
hand, avoiding taking thought (from religious motives) _will_ insure what
we want. “Seek ye first the kingdom of GOD and His righteousness, and
all these things shall be added unto you;” _i.e._, you shall not want (no
more is promised here) food and raiment. At first thought, doubtless
some of you fancy that your experience contradicts both these divine
statements. You know many men who by taking thought have secured ample
provision, have apparently even added to their lives, and you think you
know some who have trusted in GOD’S promise and fulfilled its conditions
and yet suffered grievous want. That some—yea, that many—by taking
thought have secured what they wanted, is notorious; but that others, who
have taken equal thought, have failed, is also notorious. Can you count
the disappointed ambitious? the thwarted seekers of pleasure? the
distressed hard-working? the bankrupts who have devoted every thought and
effort, soul and body, to business? No! Well then taking thought does
not insure what we want.
And, on the other hand, though a Lazarus is _sometimes_ fed with crumbs
only, if you knew the inner life of the seeming waiters on GOD who are in
want, you would nearly always find that their necessity remains
unrelieved, because they have not thoroughly performed the prescribed
conditions; or that it was in some fit of independence, by some forbidden
taking thought that they overreached themselves and fell. In proportion
as any one has opportunity to investigate the causes of distress, he will
surely be more and more ready to confirm the testimony of a great
observer:—“I have been young and now am old, and yet saw I never the
righteous forsaken or his seed begging their bread.”
And what, then, are we to infer from all this? That besides GOD’S
general providence which rules over all, ordering, as from a distant
throne, the being and motions of the universe, He exercises a particular
providence, drawing nigh to individuals, stepping in between cause and
effect, saving, helping, prospering, hindering, confounding, destroying,
just in those very cases which natural laws would treat otherwise. Not
that this is always done in the case of all men. The wicked are often
and chiefly let alone; they are, it may be, in great prosperity for a
time; they come perhaps to no present misfortune; they do violence and
escape justice; their time of reward is not yet. Again, the righteous
are not exempt from trials, and troubles, and privations—their time of
reward is not yet (and if it were, their very trials, in the spiritual
effects they produce, may be part of their blessedness); but they are
never forsaken. The very hairs of their heads are all numbered. Nothing
befalls them but by GOD’S permission—a permission which is only given
when the event will work for their good. They may commit themselves unto
Him as unto a faithful Creator and most merciful Saviour; they may put
their trust in Him, assured that it will not miscarry; no evil shall
approach to hurt them lastingly—He will keep them as the apple of His
eye; none shall be able to pluck them out of His hand. In short, while
they desire the things which He promises, and love and do the things
which He commands, He will forward all their wise undertakings, and bless
them in all their circumstances; and when their own ignorance, or want of
forethought, or external so-called chances, or the machinations of evil
men or spirits expose them to danger, He will interfere and ward off the
consequences, save only when, like the trials of Job or Joseph, they can
be made productive of greater excellence and so of greater reward. If
this be so, then surely expediency approves what right demands, that we
should forego the taking thought which is so uncertainly successful, and
that we should repose in a care which never fails—“Casting all your care
upon Him for He careth for you.”
Oh! my brethren, try to believe heartily this great doctrine of a
particular Providence! Look not back to the creation of the world, and
to the working out of men’s redemption in Judea, or forward to the
Judgment Day, as though GOD were only working and manifesting Himself
there and then. GOD is everywhere and is active everywhere; He is here
now; He is marking how we conduct ourselves in this house; He is looking
into the very depths of our hearts and minds, and noting whatsoever lurks
there. This night He will be about our beds; to-morrow about our paths;
always spying out all our ways. Of every thought, of every word, of
every deed of ours, He will at once note the intent and the measure. Of
all that is done in His fear and service, He will record that it is
“righteous worship;” of all else that it is “idolatry,” the setting up of
some person or some thing as more worthy to be loved or feared than He
is. Every undertaking, every endurance, all safety and all danger, all
wisdom and all folly, will be watched and allowed or overruled according
as we deserve or deserve not to be dealt with in love by a present GOD.
Oh! if we felt this, how easy would it be to avoid taking thought for
temporal things! how full would be our minds of GOD! how should we
breathe as in His presence, and listen for His guidance, and trust in His
providence! And then how determined would be our service of Him! We
should not talk of expediency; we should not invent excuses; we should
not do evil that good may come, or avoid good that we may escape
unpleasant circumstances. No! GOD would be indeed GOD; religion would
be the one thing needful; we should hope for what it promised, and fear
what it threatened. The allurements of the world, the offers of
pleasure, riches, power, honour, would be scorned as childish toys idly
held out to sage and sober men. The scoffs, the sneers, the threats, the
persecutions of the world would be nothing cared for—they would be as the
impotent threats of chained madmen.
Serve God or mammon? Who would be in doubt which to do, who would shrink
from or fail in the service, if GOD were only thus palpably present?
Having thus set GOD before us, how zealously should we serve Him, how
confidently should we rest on Him!
And, lastly, what men of prayer we should become. If we felt that GOD is
indeed an interfering power in the world; that His superintendence is not
general only but special also; that He may at any time avert a threatened
danger, or confer an improbable blessing; that, in short, He may alter
the whole face of things, and their working upon us and ours on them at
any moment, and that our doings, our yearnings, our prayers may prompt
His interference; then would not prayer cease to be regarded as a mere
necessary religious exercise, to be gone through much as grace before and
after meat is; would it not become a vivid recital of our wants and
feelings, an earnest pleading, a very wrestling with GOD? Would not
every event, every shadow of weal or wo bring us to our knees? Should we
make any plans or enter upon any course, or indulge any thoughts, before
we had laid all before Him? In all our efforts, all our fears, all our
wishes, all our sufferings, should we not betake ourselves to Him not
only as the Wise Counsellor but the Effectual Doer? And in all our
blessings and averted dangers, as readily and as heartily should we offer
the tribute of thanksgiving; asking from Him what we desired, ascribing
to Him what we received throughout our life, and its every circumstance
realizing that the LORD GOD Omnipotent reigneth, and that we are the
subjects of His rule; in all our interests and all our duties resting and
acting upon the tremendous truth that GOD is a GOD at hand and not a GOD
afar off!
SERMON II.
RIGHT THOUGHTS OF CHRIST.
ST. MATTHEW, XXII., 42.
“What think ye of Christ?”
JESUS we know claimed to be the Christ. He was not wont, indeed, to
manifest Himself plainly in that character to the multitude; He did not
often so speak of Himself even to the chosen; but still, indirectly, by
hint of speech and deed, He did—parabolically—propose Himself to mankind
as the promised Messiah, the Son of GOD, the Son of David, the Saviour of
the World. But He was not often so received. A Galilean fisherman was
enabled by the Spirit to confess—“Thou art the Christ, the son of the
Blessed.” A Samaritan asked in wondering faith—“Is not this the Christ?”
But more frequently He was regarded as merely a prophet, as Elijah or
Jeremiah, or as a wonderful man who came from GOD; who spake as no other
had ever spoken; who could not do such works except GOD were with Him.
This was among the well-disposed.
His enemies called Him “Beelzebub, the Prince of the Devils;” “The fellow
that deceiveth the people;” “a Nazarene;” “a sinner;” “a winebibber;” “a
Sabbath-breaker;” “a blasphemer;” “guilty, _i.e._, deserving, of death.”
It mattered not that they were unable to resist the wisdom with which He
spake; that He did all things well, making both the deaf to hear and the
dumb to speak; that He was proved to be versed in Divine letters, without
ever having learned (of men); that His appeals to GOD for vindication as
a teacher of truth and a forgiver of sins were visibly answered. They
saw no beauty or comeliness in Him, nor anything that should make them
desire Him; they would not come unto Him that they might have life. He
was despised and rejected.
It was when He had been exhibiting His credentials very openly and
condescendingly, and when the witnesses, with marvellous obstinacy, had
refused to believe what they saw, that drawing off their thoughts for the
moment from Himself the fulfiller of prophecy, He bade them look back
upon the prophecy itself and answer to themselves and to Him what it was
they expected: “What think ye,” He demanded, “of Christ?” “Since you see
not in me any resemblance to GOD’S portrait of His anointed One, tell me,
tell yourselves what are the features for which you look. I am not the
being whom you expect—what, then, do you expect? what think ye of the
Christ?”
But the question was a wide one, and had they been willing, it might have
perplexed them to know how to begin to answer it. Therefore as though
dealing with them as children, and considerately attempting to lead them
on step by step, He immediately limits the inquiry to _one_
particular—First tell me “whose son is He?” Ye searchers and expounders
of prophecy, what have you ascertained, what do you know of the descent
of the Messiah? whose son is He? They say unto Him—“The son of David.”
Now, if any of us, my brethren, were catechising Sunday School children,
and they so answered such a question, we should commend the answer as
true though imperfect, and we should patiently and encouragingly
continue—“True; but has He not besides another Father? an elder and
superior birth? Who else in Holy Scripture is called His Father?” It
might be that then some would answer—“He is the son of Abraham,” or
perhaps even “the seed of the woman.” We should bear with this, we
should approve it; we should become more hopeful of leading them to the
perfect answer, and we should therefore gently proceed—“It is so; but now
you have traced back His earthly being to its source, tell me whether he
had not another and previous existence, and if so from whom He derived
it.”
In this way should we question children; in this way from what we know of
his forbearance and condescension do we believe that JESUS would have
dealt—that indeed He did deal—with Galilean fishermen or Samaritan women;
but not in this way did He deal with the Pharisees. He made an objection
to their answer—He seemed to reject it as wrong. He asked how can that
be. “How then doth David in spirit (by inspiration) call Him LORD?” If
David call Him LORD, how is He his son? and He put them to silence, and
turned away from them. He was not _pleased_ that they were so far
orthodox as to say the “son of David,” instead—as so many Jews would
erroneously have done—of “the son of Ephraim.” He did not lead on, “What
else? whose son besides? you have but in part traced His parentage.
Consider, what are you taught more?” No! He seems to contradict them—to
say, He is not David’s son; He is David’s LORD—and He leaves them in
apparent perplexity.
Brethren, if you are in the habit of considering what you read, this
passage of Scripture must at some time have occasioned you more or less
difficulty. Why should Christ have apparently repudiated His true
parentage? Why should He have darkened instead of enlightening these
imperfect theologians? It was because they had knowledge, but perversely
abused it; because they were partial in learning and teaching the
Scriptures; because they contented themselves with low thoughts
respecting Him. They were not uninformed heathen: they were not tyros in
the school of divinity. They were _teachers_ of the Word of GOD—they
possessed His whole Word (as far as then written), and they were
familiarly acquainted with all the contents of that Word. Theirs was the
ignorance of men enabled to be wise, and responsible for wisdom: it was
the corrupt misconception of what was palpable and easy to conceive
aright. Human pride, false tradition of their own invention,
self-interest, wilful short-sightedness, or, at the best, culpable
contentedness with low and imperfect doctrine, had caused them to utter,
perhaps to conceive, only half a truth, when it was in their power to
know the whole truth. It was then in accordance with that teaching of
His in parables—dark sayings hard to understand—it was on the principle
that “he that hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he seemeth
to have,” that He who hardened Pharaoh’s hard heart, and chose not Esau
for not choosing Him, now darkened the understanding of the Pharisees,
and made them blind because they would not see.
And His treatment of them utters a loud warning, brethren, to us. The
question, “What think ye of Christ?” is not addressed with its full force
to open heretics—to Gnostics, in whose philosophy Christ is but one of
many æons emanating from the hidden god of the Pleroma; to Arians, who
make Him but an inferior and created god; to Docetæ, who teach that He
never was more than the shadow, the ghost of a man; to Eutychians, who
make Him a compound of GOD and man, partaking of both, yet being neither;
to Unitarians, who regard Him but as a perfect and pre-eminently godlike
man; to Universalists, who say that every one, righteous or unrighteous,
submissive or rebellious, must be saved by Him at the last; to particular
Redemptionists, who suppose that only a chosen few, themselves that is,
shall be saved, and they without regard or care for their holiness or
iniquity—it is not, I say, to them that this question is mainly
addressed—it is to _us_; the orthodox, the enlightened, the receivers of
the whole Word of GOD, the maintainers of the Three Creeds, the
theoretical believers, that JESUS is the Christ, the son of David, the
son of Abraham, the seed of the woman, the Son of GOD, the Saviour, the
Prophet, the Priest, the Vine, the Shepherd, the LORD, the King, the
Judge. It is to us that the question is addressed with all its
force—with how much of its rebuke—“What think ye of Christ?”
Christians! what think ye of Christ? Ask and answer this question with
all earnestness, as in the presence of Him who first put it, Who is true,
and demands the truth, and the whole truth—and ask it, not of your minds,
which it may be supposed are ready to assent to all that Holy Scripture
sets forth respecting Him, but of your hearts, your heart of hearts, the
seat of your affections, out of which are the issues of life—“What think
ye of Christ?” And stay for a moment, pause at the threshold of the
inquiry, and honestly consider whether you think of Him at all. Do you
ever _feel_ that there was and is such a Being? Do you ever meditate on
what He is, and what He has done, and is doing, and is yet to do for you?
Do your affections twine themselves around what they can reach of Him,
and yearn for a more perfect hold? Do your spiritual appetites crave
food of Him? your spiritual understandings beg for light? In your sin,
is He grasped as your Saviour? in your sorrow as your Sympathiser? in
your troubles as your Helper? in your comforts as your Benefactor? in
your hopes as your All? in your life, passive and active, as your LORD?
Do you feel any of this about Christ, or do you only think of Him as of
some historical person long since passed away, or as of some distant
lord, who knows nothing, for the time, of his vineyard—some _future_
judge, whom you need not trouble yourselves about now, and yet whom you
will not have to fear then? Is it only on Sundays, at church, by your
bedside, that you think of Christ? Is it only as some ideal being, some
vague, distant, indifferent, easy person of the past, the present, or the
future, that you think of Him; or is He more real and perceptible to you
than the men and women around you—more in your thoughts than any one
else—more feared than your earthly masters and rulers—more implicitly
obeyed than your most revered earthly superior—more looked to than your
most substantial earthly benefactor—more loved than the dearest earthly
object of your affections? Is Christ in you the worship of your heart,
the motive of your life, the centre and summit of your hopes? If He
stood visibly before you now, and asked, “Do you _think_ of Me;” and if
your hearts, your thoughts, your lives, rather than your lips, had to
answer, would you be able to say honestly, “Yea, LORD, Thou knowest that
I do think of Thee?”
It is well, brethren, to put this preliminary question, and try to reply
to it. It is well to consider whether you do think at all of Christ,
before you are further asked _what_ you think of Him; because, if you are
led to feel that you do _not_ think of Him, you will be ready to
administer reproof to yourselves, and that, by GOD’S grace, calling you
to a better mind may spare you the rebuke of Christ; because, too, if you
do think of Him righteously, though imperfectly and partially, you will
be enabled to look up with humble hope of indulgent consideration from
Him who was the Instructor of the simple and the unwise; and because,
_feeling_ your thought, you will be anxious to enlarge, and deepen, and
direct it, and so will strive to provide yourselves with a right and full
answer to the question, _What_ think ye of Christ? To do this fully, is
not the work of a mere half hour. You must take out of GOD’S Word, each
description, each title of Christ; you must ask for the Holy Spirit’s
special aid in its examination; you must survey it and search it, and
survey and search yourselves, and then with earnest desire to know Him,
and to know yourselves, with long meditation and much pains, you must
find out your _heart’s_, your _life’s_ answer to the question, What think
I of this view, this title of Christ? Then, after profiting by this
answer, enlarging what is right, correcting what is wrong, filling up
what is wanting, you must go on to another and another description and
title, _keeping in mind all the while those that have been already
received_.
Thus, and thus only, will you come to _know_ Christ rightly, and so to
_think_ rightly of Him, advancing step by step, growing day by day, till
you reach His actual presence, and see Him as He is, and are audibly
approved by Him as of the perfect stature and fulness of a man in Christ
Jesus.
To help you in this most profitable, spiritual exercise, let me suggest
to you how to pursue some few of its particulars.
What think you then of Christ as the son of Abraham, the seed of the
woman, _i.e._, as the promised Saviour, in Whom whosoever would was to be
blessed? Do you really appreciate the salvation which He has wrought out
for you? Do you duly consider the misery of the “not saved?” and are you
heartily thankful for the proffered knowledge of the saved? Do you
remember that He is a Saviour _from_ sin, that there is no hope whatever
of deriving any benefit from His sacrifice, so long as you willingly
yield to the temptations of the devil, or indulge the lust of the eye,
the lust of the flesh, or the pride of life? Do you therefore resolutely
come out, and become separate from sin and sinners? Do you further
consider how His salvation is to be laid hold on? Do you avail
yourselves very largely and eagerly of the means of salvation, wrestling
in prayer, searching the Scriptures, using diligently all ordinances of
grace? Is each sin carried to Him to be effaced, and laid before Him,
bedewed with the tears of repentance? In every weakness and doubt do you
apply to Him (in holy communion, for instance), for strength and
guidance? Is it your desire, your labour, to be joined to Him, to derive
grace from Him, to grow in His image, because of your duty, because of
your interest, because, above all, of your grateful love? The amount of
your gratitude and devotion to Him; of your abhorrence and renunciation
of sin; of your attendance on means of grace; of your growth in holiness;
of your joy in salvation, will furnish you with a faithful answer to the
question, “What think ye of Christ as a Saviour?”
Again, what think ye of Christ as the son of David, the promised LORD and
King who should sit on the throne of the true Israel, and own and rule
all GOD’S chosen people? Do you feel that He is indeed your LORD and
Master; that He has purchased you wholly to Himself; that you are pledged
and bound to His entire service; that every precept which He has
delivered, must be implicitly obeyed; that there must be no doing of what
He has forbidden, no omitting of what He has commanded, no self-seeking,
no mammon-worship; that all your faculties and talents must be laid out,
and all your work done for Him; that there must be no empty profession,
“LORD, LORD,” while you do not the things that He bids—no wasting of His
goods, no neglecting of His service? As your LORD, He claims you wholly,
body, soul, and spirit, thoughts, words, and deeds. As your King, He has
prescribed the service you are to render. By and by, sitting on His
throne, He will bring you to account, and deal with you according to your
merits. What think ye of Him as your Owner, your Ruler, your Judge?
Again, what think ye of Christ as the son of Mary, the perfect human
being; partaking of all the properties and qualities, the infirmities and
sufferings and sympathies, the desires, the wants, the hopes and fears of
man, as far as they are separate from sin? Do you contemplate His life
on earth, to ascertain what you can and ought to be, and to follow His
example? Are you encouraged in every aim, every resolute resistance of
evil, every patient submission to suffering, every fulfilment of duty,
every pursuit of righteousness by the thought “_Man_ has done it, the Man
Whom I am required to imitate.” Do you think of Him as still retaining
His manhood with all its experience, and acquired wisdom, and perfected
obedience? Do you rejoice in such a Sympathizer, such a Mediator, such a
Helper, such a Judge? One who can feel for you in your trials, can
describe faithfully to His Father, from His own experience, your
condition and necessities, through His knowledge can supply exactly what
you need, and make due allowance for your shortcomings and offences?
Once more, what think ye of Christ as the Son of GOD? very and eternal
GOD, with all the Divine attributes, power, knowledge, justice, holiness,
and exaction of obedience, abhorrence of evil, wrath against sin, love of
righteousness? Do you feel that He is mighty to save? Do you live as
under His all-searching eye? Are you convinced that He is impartially
just, alike to approve and disapprove, to reward and punish, in His
present and future dealings with all the partakers of His covenant? Do
you realise the utter impossibility of being loved by Him, of being
allowed to draw nigh to Him, of deriving any benefit from Him now or
hereafter, if you are impure, worldly, unloving, indifferent? Are you
impressed with the guilt of disobedience to Him, a twice revealed, a
doubly jealous GOD, binding you to Himself by the mercies and
responsibility of redemption, as well as creation, and by the threats and
forebodings of a particular and most righteous judgment? Is it thus you
think of Christ as GOD?
Dear brethren, make use, I beseech you, of these brief and plain
suggestions, to ascertain your past thoughts of Christ, to rebuke them,
if they have been low and partial, to lead you on to perfection. Beware
of separating what GOD has joined together, of recognising in Him who is
the Son of GOD, only the son of David. Never allow yourselves to joy
over salvation without remembering judgment. Dwell not on the Deliverer
apart from the Purchaser; appropriate not promises, if you do not observe
commands; count not on human sympathy, if you do not deserve Divine
compassion; expect not heavenly blessings, without using appointed means.
You do not think of the Christ of the Bible, unless every phase of His
character there represented, has its due place in your thoughts. And so
your thoughts are unacceptable to Him, and unprofitable to you; they are
neither worship, nor helps to salvation; they do not recognise Him at
all, because they do not recognise Him altogether; they prompt to no
service, because they prompt not to all. An imperfect Christ is no
Christ. A Christian who regards Him as imperfect, is no Christian.
Oh, may He who has given Christ to be our All in all, enable us to
recognise and incline us to serve, and love, and depend on Him, as indeed
our All in all!
SERMON III.
THE CHURCHMAN’S THOUGHTS ABOUT DISSENTERS.
ST. LUKE, XVII., 16.
“And he was a Samaritan.”
THE people known as Samaritans had their origin from certain Gentile
tribes sent into the country of Samaria early in the Babylonish
captivity. They were of course idolaters, and they continued to be mere
idolaters, until, being troubled with lions, which had become very
numerous in Samaria, and understanding that these were let loose among
them by the god of the country (for various countries in their creed had
various gods) to punish them for neglect of his worship, they applied to
King Shalmanezer for one of the captive priests to teach them the
Levitical law. Then they began to combine with their own superstition
the acknowledgment and ceremonial service of Jehovah. “They feared the
LORD,” we read, “and served their own gods.”
On the return of the Jews, these Samaritans, who, it would appear, had
now relinquished much of their idolatry, sought permission to take part
in the rebuilding of the temple; but being properly rejected, they in
revenge hindered and harassed the builders, and at length, by false
representations to the Syrian King, procured a decree which suspended the
continuance of the devout work. This naturally made the Jews bitterly
hostile to the Samaritans: and the building of a rival temple on Mount
Gerizim—the rejection of all the inspired Books, excepting those of
Moses—the encouragement given to Jewish criminals and outlaws to seek
refuge among them, and many other provocations, had so sustained and
deepened the feeling against them, that, in our LORD’S time, the Jews
would have no dealings with the Samaritans; and in any want or danger,
would much rather have suffered death, than receive succour at their
hands.
Thus were the Samaritans despised and shunned; and that there was at
least some measure of justice in their treatment, we may safely infer
from our LORD’S rebuke of them—“Ye worship ye know not what;” and from
His charge to the apostles, “Into any city of the Samaritans enter ye
not.” Their creed was heretical, their worship schismatic. They
belonged not to the covenanted people of GOD. And yet the _only one_ out
of ten miraculously healed lepers, who discharged the religious
obligation of rendering thanks and glorifying GOD, and who received
spiritual benefit from Christ, was a _Samaritan_. The model neighbour to
the man who had fallen among thieves, was a _Samaritan_. They were
Samaritans who so early and so openly professed, “We have heard Him
ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the
world.” And when the Jews persecuted the disciples, and thrust them out
of Jerusalem, Samaria readily and largely received the Word of GOD at
their mouths. Thankful and acceptable adoration of GOD, exemplary
brotherly love, enlightened faith, prompt renunciation of error, and
acceptance of truth—these were graces which shone conspicuously in
heretical and schismatic Samaritans, and won for them from the Saviour of
Israel approbation, and love, and blessing.
Remarkable as these things are in themselves, they become much more so by
contrast with the several cases of the Jews mentioned in their respective
contexts. Thus nine _Jewish_ lepers were unthankful; a priest and a
Levite passed by on the other side; the Prophet returning from Samaria,
where He had been confessed, was not respected in His own country;
Jerusalem had but lately rejected the Word which Samaria received. How
was this? How came heterodoxy to be productive of acceptable fruit,
while orthodoxy in the same circumstances was barren and unfruitful? The
pursuit of this inquiry would doubtless be very interesting, but it would
necessarily occupy much time, and lead us into the regions of
speculation. I prefer, therefore, just now, to deal with the history of
our text as a _fact_, and to endeavour to deduce from that fact three or
four plain and profitable lessons. Nine professors of the true religion,
members of the covenanted people of GOD, to whom pertained all the
privileges, and gifts, and evidences, and responsibilities of a
manifested Divine rule, were undutiful and unblessed in the very
circumstances in which a stranger, an alien, belonging to a sect unsound
in doctrine, and schismatic in practice, _volunteered_ to GOD most
acceptable service, and received from Him the highest spiritual
benediction.
Now, what does this teach us—us, the members of the Church of England?
First, with respect to ourselves, it teaches us not to pride ourselves
in, or to rest satisfied with, a mere profession of the true faith.
There is indeed but one true faith—that, namely, which GOD has delivered
to us in His Word, and maintained by the testimony of His Church. To
accept this faith in its integrity, is to set one’s seal to the testimony
that GOD is true; to reject deliberately one article of it, no matter how
small, how apparently unimportant, is to make GOD a liar, inasmuch as it
is to refuse as false what He has offered us as true. Common _duty_
then, and ordinary fear lest we should become blasphemers, render it
imperative that we should most anxiously inquire what is the true faith,
and then most implicitly receive its every article. We _may not choose_
(heresy means choice) what we will believe, and what reject. To alter,
or accept less than what GOD has propounded, is to act in defiance of
Him, and to cast a slur upon His infallible truth. Is it reason to
suppose that we can do this with impunity? Besides, remember, what GOD
reveals to us as articles of faith, are no mere abstract truths for the
philosopher to muse upon, and no more. They are the impelling force, the
germ and embodiment of principles and ways of life, on the observance of
which our very salvation depends. “How can this man give us His flesh to
eat?” Whosoever says, “I do not _choose_ to believe that He can in any
way,” does not, as he imagines, merely deny a subtle dogma, he gives up a
vital principle of godliness, without which of course he will not seek to
eat Christ’s flesh; and so, if Christ be true, can have no spiritual life
in Him.
For these two reasons, then—because they are revealed by GOD as verities,
and because they are the foundations of godliness—it is essentially
important to receive every article of the faith: and we, who find
ourselves members of a communion in which the faith is thus received,
which is apostolic in doctrine, and primitive in practice, have therefore
much indeed to be thankful for, and may harmlessly, so as it be humbly,
rejoice in the possession of such great privileges. But let us not be
high-minded. “Let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he
fall.” The Jews were a highly privileged people; they received the whole
inspired Word; their priests were all called of GOD, as was Aaron; they
worshipped in the appointed place, and observed all the enjoined times
and ceremonies; yet with many of them GOD was not well pleased. They
were unreal, hollow, formal, hypocritical; their service was listless and
unmeaning; and so, notwithstanding all their privileges and all their
orthodoxy, a Samaritan, a dog of the Gentiles, a publican, a harlot was
often nearer to the kingdom of heaven than they were, and met Christ,
when they missed Him.
Is not this a warning to us? What though we possess the pure and entire
faith, though we have an appointed ministry, and continue in the
apostles’ fellowship, though the spirit of Christ be present in our
ordinances, and all our forms and ceremonies be after an approved
pattern, yet may we not any of us be unreal in our use of these things,
hollow, formal, listless, and so go away unaccepted and unblessed, while
the less privileged Romanist or Dissenter is receiving the sweet
assurance, “Thy faith hath made thee whole?” Depend upon it this may be,
and often is the case. GOD would have us _intellectually_ wise, but He
would also have us _heartily_ good. A good heart and a right mind
_united_, form the being who is most blessed; with whom the covenant is
surest, and in whom GOD takes most delight; but better, far better, a
good heart alone, than a right mind alone.
Christ, as He walked on earth the messenger of peace and love to all men,
had a special interest in the Jews (His own people), but it was in Jews
whose practice corresponded with their profession, whose heart and life
illustrated what their understanding received. On such as these, His
highest favours would have been most readily bestowed; but wanting these
qualities, He estimated their orthodoxy at nothing; and, on the other
hand, finding these qualities among strangers and aliens, He allowed not
their heterodoxy to prove an obstacle to their blessing. In many cases
uncircumcision was counted for circumcision, and circumcision for
uncircumcision.
My dear brethren, value ordinances greatly, but rest not, I charge you,
in them. Boast not that you are Anglo-Catholics; that your ministers
have an Apostolic succession; that you were regenerated in baptism; that
you are regular communicants and worshippers at the daily service. These
are, indeed, great privileges; but connected with them are great
responsibilities. Is your pure faith illustrated by a pure life? Do you
make the best use of an Apostolic ministry? Are you growing in the
spirit of which you were born again? Do you feel and sustain the
communicated presence of Christ within you? When you go down from the
sanctuary, does your life shine, as Moses’s face did, with the reflected
glory of GOD? If not, talk not of your high privileges—your case would
be better without them. When GOD ceased to wink at the errors and
ungodliness of mankind, He began by punishing, and with much severity,
the errors and ungodliness of the privileged Jews. Yes, and whenever He
takes account, and passes judgment, it is on the principle that to whom
much has been given, of him shall much be required. “You only have I
known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for
all your iniquities.” “To him that knoweth, to do good and doeth it not,
to him it is sin.”
The second thought which the fact of our text suggests, is one of great
comfort to the benevolent heart. It is, that GOD will make a way through
a bad system, to the disciple of that system who has been trying to reach
Him. When one reflects on the grave and blinding errors of modern
Romanism; on the awful denial of our blessed LORD’S Divinity by the
Unitarians; on the capricious choice, what to believe, what to deny,
which each Protestant sect ventures to make and maintain; on the disuse
of a ministry, the ignoring of sacraments, and other holy ordinances by
the Society of Friends, what a comfort is there in our text, “And he was
a Samaritan;” in feeling that GOD condescends to get through all this, to
the yearning, would-be faithful heart; ay, that He even accepts the
purblind visions and stammering utterances of such an one as _faith_.
“Thy faith hath made thee whole”! Most of us know some members of such
sects with whom we should wish to dwell together in heaven, for whom our
heart is rejoiced to feel that there are such prospects, in whose
sanctified lives we have the present proof, that (however _originators_
of heresy and schism may be regarded) in every nation and every sect, he
that heareth GOD, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with Him.
But, thirdly, are we therefore to make no difference between orthodoxy
and heterodoxy? Are we to be indifferent to truth and error? Are we to
frequent Romish chapels or Dissenting conventicles with as little
compunction as though they were our proper sanctuaries? Are we to
promote the schemes of other communions, by contributing to them out of
our substance, or by lending our names or presence to them? No,
brethren, we are not to confound Jew and Samaritan, nor to regard the
schismatic building on Gerizim, as equally an approved sanctuary with the
temple at Jerusalem. We are not to gather professors of different sects
together; by concessions and suppressions to produce an outward
conforming, and then to proclaim, “This is what Christians should be.
This is an Evangelical alliance.” Evangelical alliance! alliance,
_i.e._, according to the Gospel! Christ, indeed, willed us to be one;
but it was by all receiving the whole truth, not by paring and cropping
it each one as he will, and then calling the hacked and deformed thing of
our own shaping His glorious Gospel. Judge for yourselves:—one man
believes that the Blessed Virgin and other saints are his mediators with
GOD; another, that Christ alone is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, but
that Christ must be sought in His own appointed sacraments, or not found
at all; a third completely ignores all sacraments. Shall these three
stand side by side, and say, “We are allied according to the Gospel—we
all believe alike”? Surely such a thing is a mockery of common sense,
and an act of treason against their respective communions.
Yes, and it is worse. For, first of all, as I have already said, there
is but one faith propounded in Holy Scripture. Men may differ in their
perception of that faith—the Romanist regards it in one light, the
Anglican in another, the “Friend” in a third. But each of these believes
himself to be right, and he _must therefore_ regard the others as wrong.
Now, if they are wrong, then by slurring over their error, he makes it
his own; he joins in the choosing of a creed other than that GOD has
framed, and so insults the Infallible Truth. Again, there are no sins
more strictly forbidden, more severely denounced in the Bible than those
of heresy, _choosing_ what to believe, instead of adopting the Apostolic
faith, without increase or diminution, and schism, separating oneself,
that is, without most strong reason from worship in appointed places,
conducted by appointed officers, according to the prescribed form. These
sins are classed by St. Paul with the grossest works of the flesh, and it
is said of those that cause them, that they shall not inherit the kingdom
of GOD.
It is evident, then, that patronising or encouraging in any way a
religious community from which we personally honestly differ, is
disobeying a positive command of GOD, and incurring awful risk of His
displeasure. And there is another argument against seeming recognition
of heresy or schism: namely, that we thereby often cause the weak brother
to offend, and hinder the anxious inquirer after truth from renouncing
error. If those who look up to us for guidance—and there are very few of
us but are accepted as guides by some—see us _once_ among the Samaritans,
they will take license and encouragement from us to be there
_frequently_; and so, if those who are in doubt between remaining aloof
from the Church and joining it, see Churchmen in their assemblies, they
will assuredly gather that there is no difference of importance between
them and us, and will remain where they are. For all these reasons, it
is of the utmost importance that the Churchman, while entertaining the
most benevolent feelings towards those who differ from him, while
gratefully acknowledging the good they do, while inwardly rejoicing that
wandering sinners should be proselytised by them, and have a faith of
some kind rather than none at all; while, too, hoping and praying that
our blessed LORD’S prayer may yet be realised, and that all who call upon
His name may ultimately be of one heart and one mind, and with one mouth
glorify GOD; should still most strictly abstain in presence, in deed, in
speech, and in look, from the remotest encouragement, or sanction of
erroneous doctrine, or religious disunion and division. Meet these men
in business you often must; meet them in friendship, in secular
consultation, in practical benevolence, you may; but meet them in their
religious capacity, frequent their places of worship, forward the objects
of their sect you must not, unless you are prepared to go over to them
altogether; to maintain that theirs is _the_ faith, and _the_ fellowship;
and that all not in communion with them are heretics or schismatics.
Give no uncertain sound. Halt not between two opinions. “He that is not
with Me is against Me.”
One more lesson to guard against misinterpretation of the last. I have
used some strong words in speaking of those that differ. Do not, pray,
suppose that I would have you regard them with any but kind feelings,
much less that I would teach you to cry out against their errors, in
railing or contemptuous tones. The Christian minister intent upon laying
down clearly the line of right thought and practice, has occasion to
speak plainly, and for his hearers’ sake to call things by their right
names, however grating they may sound; but with the private individual it
is otherwise. In his ordinary course, he has no need to speak of these
things, or to think of them, further than to prompt his earnest prayers
for the decay of error and dissension, and the establishment of truth and
union. And if at any time it becomes his duty or desire to stay a soul
from error, or to convert him from it, let him remember, and be sure it
is true, that one ounce of love will do more good than many pounds of
controversy. {38}
Loud cries of “No popery,” invectives against High Church or Low Church,
sneers against “cant,” imputations of unworthy motives to those who
differ, contemptuous pity of their ignorance or inferiority, are all
carnal. They will unspiritualise yourselves; they will retard, rather
than advance the good work on others; they will drive away from you the
only power in which you can hope to prevail, that of the Spirit of
holiness, and love, and peace.
While then as Churchmen, it is your bounden duty to regard other systems
of religion as inferior, perhaps erroneous; be sure that in dealing with
the individual disciples of those systems, you remember the history of
the thankful Samaritan, and consider that like him, they may be approved
and sanctified followers of your common LORD.
Resolve to put away all animosity, and strife, and captiousness; to take
the best rather than the worst view of what you dislike, or do not
understand; in short, while maintaining as far as possible the orthodoxy
of Him who was a true Israelite; like Him, and for His sake, endeavour to
love men for themselves, if you cannot love their system; and to rejoice
in the opportunity of treating the Samaritan as a brother, and of
bringing him within nearer reach of abiding blessedness.
SERMON IV.
ETERNAL ABODE WITH GOD.—(A FUNERAL SERMON.)
1 THESS., IV., 17.
“So shall we ever be with the Lord.”
WE read in the third chapter of Genesis of the introduction of death into
our world—how sin alienated GOD from man and man from GOD, how those who
had been endowed with the best faculties of enjoying bliss, who were
surrounded by all desirable blessings, who dwelt beneath the bright sun
of GOD’S favour, were by an act of unbelief and wilfulness, suggested by
the evil one, driven angrily into the outer world, where toil, and pain,
and manifold misery were thenceforth to be their lot.
We are sometimes tempted to think, that the actual punishment of our
first parents was less than that they had been threatened with. “In the
day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die,” was GOD’S assurance;
but when they ate they did not die,—as we account dying; they were but
banished from the Garden of Eden, and prevented from returning, by
cherubims who kept the entrance, and a flaming sword which turned every
way. It was indeed a sad reverse—a wilderness instead of a garden—sorrow
instead of joy—toil instead of rest—curses instead of blessings: but it
was not the threatened death. They did not die.
So we are wont to think: but we err therein; they did die, brethren.
This reverse _was_ death. Death (what GOD means by death) is not
annihilation—not ceasing to be; it is protracted existence apart from
GOD, and the blessings of His right hand, and the light of His
countenance. More truly did they die when they entered upon this state
of existence, than when, hundreds of years afterwards, their bodies
stiffened, and their breath ceased, and their flesh turned to corruption
in the grave. It is a misconception—a practical unbelief of immortality,
which makes us think otherwise. The soul does not perish—does not
slumber; living once, it lives ever, and ever knows and feels its
existence. The separation of it from the body alters its circumstances,
uncasing it—depriving it of one of its appendages—breaking off its
connexion with a material and natural world; but not destroying it. No;
it lives on, and lives on (in its spiritual relations) as it did before,
save that the withdrawal of bodily senses enables and _obliges_ the
spiritual senses to exercise themselves to the full, and so intensifies
the feelings, and completes the realisation of the spiritual state.
Suppose that in the moment that Adam was driven out of Paradise, he had
actually died, that his soul had been immediately separated from the
body; what would have been the state of that soul? The same, really, as
it was while he lived—banishment from the presence of GOD, with the
consequent absence of what was desirable, and presence of what was
hateful. He would have _felt_ it more. Having nothing else to gaze on,
the blankness of the spiritual world around him, save where evil spirits
stood revealed, would have been more terrible. The desires would have
been more intolerable when there was nothing to divert attention from
them, and the constrained employments more distasteful. Hopelessness,
too, of remedy in that fixed state, which is to have no change but that
of increase throughout eternity, would have caused his death to _appear_
a greater reality, but it would not have _made_ it a greater reality.
The continuance of bodily existence palliated death; a natural world
spread before his eyes diverted his gaze from the spiritual “void”;
natural pain even, and sorrow, and toil, beguiled his thoughts and
feelings, in a measure, from spiritual miseries; but still he _was_ dead,
though he knew it not fully. His state was like to that of the child who
sleeps calmly in the dark; but when it wakes, cries and starts in terror.
There was darkness all along; but only when the eyes were opened was it
fully perceived—_felt_.
Now, natural death is like this _waking_; it does not so much transfer us
to another state, as show us clearly in what state we are; whether in the
presence of GOD, or banished from Him. To be in outer darkness, where
hope never comes, where the sun of heaven sends forth no rays; to be
punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the LORD, and
from the glory of His power, this is death _completed_. Surely, then, to
be without GOD in the world; to be removed from His favouring, and
comforting, and guiding presence; to live only in such unconscious
dependence on Him as the beasts that perish; to have but the good things
of our own finding; this is death _begun_: this is to have a name to
live, and yet be dead, to be as really dead as are the spirits of the
doomed-departed, except that we know not fully (which is part of death)
the misery of our condition; and (blessed be GOD!) that we may as yet
live again, and be restored to His presence, because Christ has opened
the gates of Paradise, and bids His angels gently drive us in, if we
will; yea, calls to us Himself, and entreats us to enter; to have again
the condition—spiritualised, exalted, perfected—of unfallen Adam.
My brethren, thus think of death, and of life. Do not make so much of
the heaving of the last sigh; the drawing of the last breath; as though
the battle of life were fought, and the victory achieved on a death-bed;
as though the soul began its banishment when it quits the body. Many,
whose flesh has long since mouldered into dust, have never really died;
and many, who still walk the earth, full of energy, and vigour, and what
man calls life, are really dead. To live, is to be with GOD: to live for
ever, is to be with GOD for ever. To die, is to be without GOD: to die
for ever, is to be without GOD for ever. “If,” says Christ, “a man keep
my sayings, he shall never see death.” “Whosoever liveth and believeth
on me, shall never die.” “He that hath the Son hath life, and he that
hath not the Son of GOD hath not life.”
I have said thus much to suggest to your consideration a very important,
life-directing truth, viz.: that the heavenly life and the second death,
both have their beginning on this side the grave; that GOD, for Christ’s
sake, vouchsafes His presence, to those who seek and honour it, to guide,
and comfort, and strengthen, and sanctify them; and where He is there is
real life: on the other hand, that GOD withdraws Himself from those who
disregard, or slight Him; and where He is not, there is death, the second
death—capable, as yet, of being overcome, and put to an end; but more
likely to prevail permanently in proportion as it is not felt; and even
now working many of its miserable effects on all, not excepting the most
hardened and apathetic who are subject to it. Try, dear brethren, to
impress yourselves with this truth. Do not merely _hope_ for eternal
life, or _fear_ the second death _beyond the grave_, _after you die_.
Try to secure the one (the actual possession of it, I mean), and to avoid
the other, in _this_ life, by earnestly seeking and sustaining the real,
the proffered presence with you, and in you, of the life-giving and
upholding GOD.
But, there is a better presence, a more perfect life, spoken of in the
text. To this I would refer, as furnishing truest consolation, exciting
liveliest hopes, and stimulating to holiest exertions,—“eternal abode
with GOD in heaven.” When the minister of Christ would comfort the
mourning relatives of a departed saint, and, as the phrase is, improve
the occasion to their good, he does not forbid them to feel and express
sorrow, for he remembers that Christ wept at the tomb of Lazarus, but
only charges them to set bounds to their sorrow, and prepare to stay it
presently; because, it is merely a _natural_, and not a _Christian_
feeling; because, if continued, it becomes a selfish, inconsiderate
bemoaning of their personal loss; a virtual denial that the departed is
at rest, and in bliss; a rejection of the hope that they shall meet
again, in a better and abiding home. “So shall we ever be with the
LORD.” What mean these words? We know in theory (many of us, let me
hope, experimentally), what it is to be with GOD, or to have Him with us
_here_. It is not simply to dwell in the same world with Him, near Him,
close to Him, by His permission, under His observance and government, as
the omnipresent GOD. No! it is not the _necessary_, but a _special_
presence which we mean. A presence like that which accompanied the
Israelites through the wilderness; which actually went with them, guided
them, fed them, helped them in difficulties, reproved them in
transgressions, interested Itself specially in their circumstances, and
manifested that interest, not only by its doings, but by a sight of
Itself in a pillar of fire, or a pillar of a cloud.
Again, like that presence, it is not constant; the pillar is sometimes
withdrawn. There is, occasionally, no answer given by Urim and Thummim;
we are left to fight, now and then, in our own strength only, and then we
fail; we hunger, we thirst, and no Divine supply comes; we mourn, and
there is no spiritual comfort; we murmur, and there is no reproof; we
sin, and there is no chastisement: GOD, for the time, is absent from our
camp.
Again, like that presence, it does not secure us from trials. We have
long marches, and powerful adversaries; we journey on in perils in the
wilderness, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of our
own countrymen (our fellow Christians), in perils by the heathen; in
weariness and painfulness; in watchings often; in hunger and thirst; in
fastings often; in cold and nakedness; in deaths oft. GOD, peradventure,
is with us all the while; but it is through the world of tribulation He
leads us, not by a miraculously smooth and safe path. His presence is
manifested in occasional glimpses. His voice is heard in disjoined
words. His arm is felt in intermittent upholdings. I cannot well
picture this presence to those who have no experience of it; I need not
do so to those who have realised it: but all may see that, in this lower
world, we are not ever with the LORD in the fullest manifestation of His
presence; in the constant upholding of His arm; in entire exemption from
trials; in perfect fruition of blessings. That may not be on earth. The
sun may lighten up our dark hovel; but it is a hovel still. Divine help
may lessen our labour; but we must labour still. Divine consolation may
soothe us in our losses; but we are to suffer losses still. Howsoever
GOD be with us; whatsoever He does for us; the wilderness is still a
wilderness.
But the wilderness has a limit; its limit is what we call death. To the
faithful, that bourne is like the Jordan,—when they have crossed it, they
shall be in the promised land, the land that floweth with milk and honey,
where GOD’S abiding, glorious temple is set up; wherein there remaineth
rest and joy for the people of GOD. Whoso entereth that land, shall be
ever with the LORD, enjoying His most complete and satisfying presence.
“Father, I will that those whom thou hast given me may be with me where I
am, that they may behold my glory.” This prayer shall then be realised.
They shall see the King in His beauty, and the land that is now afar off.
There shall be no more curse; but the throne of GOD and of the Lamb shall
be in their dwelling: they shall serve Him, and they shall see His face:
with what feelings and emotions, at present we can form no adequate
conceptions; but we know that it shall be with joy: that they shall love
and praise Him; that it shall be their untiring, unalloyed delight to
gaze upon His glory, to sing His praises, to share His love.
And they shall be like Him. As, in this world, they have borne the image
of the earthly Adam, so, in that, they shall bear the image of the
heavenly. That image, lost in the fall, must indeed begin to be resumed
here in regeneration, and be more and more put on in life-long conversion
to GOD. By contemplating Christ, and watching His countenance, as we are
allowed to see it here, we must gradually assume His features, and be
changed into His image. But we must see Him, not in faint resemblances,
and bare outline, but as He is, before we can be wholly like Him. Then,
but not before, shall we be transfigured, and glorified, and changed from
glory to glory; body and spirit advancing in excellence, and
intelligence, and love, and bliss, till they become what and as Christ
is,—reaching unto the full stature of a man in Christ JESUS, satisfied
with the perfect assumption of His likeness.
Yes, and as they gaze ever on Him, so shall He on them. No sin shall
cause the LORD to hide His face from them; no discipline shall require
His occasional withdrawal; no cloud shall obscure heaven’s sky; no frown
shall be seen; no reproof heard. _He_ shall not try them. _Evil_ shall
not approach to tempt them. A Saviour’s love shall surround them; not to
carry them through a wilderness, not to keep them in tribulations, but to
lead them beside the clear fountains of peace; to plant them all around
His throne, where with eyes wiped of all tears, they shall feast on His
presence, and, with adoring souls and bodies, rest in His love.
And shall not the sharing of this presence with others augment their
bliss? _We_ (they and us) shall be ever with the LORD. All the sons of
GOD shall there meet together, and dwell with the LORD. Man, I need not
tell you, is a social being: he is formed for company; he cannot be fully
happy alone. It is by sharing his good things that he comes to enjoy
them; it is by speaking of them, that he comes to feel them. (Would that
Christians could be brought to act on this admitted truth, as
Christians!) In this world there is no greater enjoyment than to
associate with a band of fellow-countrymen, journeying towards the same
place, with kindred tastes, and tempers, and hopes. Oh! what then shall
be the blessedness of association in heaven with the whole body of the
saints? Think of being associated in the presence, and favour, and
adoration of GOD, with holy angels; with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob;
with David, and Daniel, and Mary, and John, and Paul; and all the others
whose praise is in the Gospel! Think of meeting, in heaven, with all the
primitive Christians and martyrs; with all the perfected saints who once
walked on earth with us; with our relatives, our parents, our brothers
and sisters, our children, our bosom friends: to be re-united with them
in bonds that shall never be broken; where all are happy; where every eye
looks to JESUS, where every heart leaps to Him; each mouth is opened in
His praise; each knee is bent in His adoration; where GOD is the centre
and the circumference, and heaven the roof and the floor! And all this
for ever—uninterrupted, unending, growing fresher, intensified, better
appreciated by the rolling on of eternity. _So_ shall we ever be with
the LORD.
Bereaved Christian, as you gaze upon the vacant place of one who is in
Paradise, advancing to this heaven, will you dare to sigh that the old
armchair, or the little cradle, is unoccupied? Would you prefer for your
loved one, as a _better_ condition, that he or she should come back and
share your sorrows, and difficulties, and perplexities, and be exposed to
toil and contamination? Will your ingratitude think lightly of what GOD
has done, and is doing, for the removed one? Will your selfishness (oh,
if the dead should know of this!) demand—“Let me have my loved one’s
company, though thereby that loved one lose GOD’S?” Oh! there is no
religion, there is no human love, in the mourner who does not smile away
the tears of worldly sorrow with the joy of this blessed consolation; who
does not turn each thought of the righteous dead into a theme of praise
for their deliverance; into a prayer, that he, too, may soon be added to
the number of those who are ever with the LORD!
Christian pilgrim, journeying through the wilderness, footsore,
beleaguered, stumbling, smitten, losing sight ever and anon of the
guiding pillar, wandering out of the path, too often unsustained,
uncomforted, do you _fear_ death? Do you shudder at and flee from the
sight of the Jordan through which angels wait to guide you; whose other
bank is in heaven? Oh! how little do you think of GOD’S abiding
presence! What a mere name is your love of Christ! How unreal was your
professed affection for those who have gone before! How foolishly blind
are you to your own best interests! What a sham is your so-called
pilgrimage, your journey to a shrine which you fear to reach! What shall
I say to those who wilfully linger in the wilderness, while the host
passes on, and the night, with all its howling terrors, is at hand; to
those who would turn back, and would cross again the Red Sea into Egypt,
while the waves are prepared to overwhelm the Egyptians—in plain terms,
to those who live not in GOD’S presence here, and seek not to have it
hereafter? Shall I describe to you the positive horrors of hell; its
gnawing worms, its devouring flames, its malignant frenzied spirits? No;
I will but warn you, that you are fast approaching an outer darkness,
where there is no enjoyment, no hope, no heaven, no Saviour, no GOD. Ye
shall be for ever without the LORD.
Brethren, one and all, what shall we do to inherit the glorious, abiding
presence of GOD? Oh! let us make much of the partial presence which is
now within our reach. “Abide in me, and I in you,” says Christ. Let us
live near to Him; let us live much in Him; let us live as He tells us.
Contemplate we Him in His holy Word; pore over it day after day, till we
see Him as in a glass; till His glory is reflected on us, and we shine
with the glorious light. Watch we for Him in all our ways, listen for
His voice, lean on His arm, fight in His strength. Feed we our desires
with heavenly food; not the quails of our own lust, but the manna from
heaven, and the water out of the rock; the bread and wine, which are meat
indeed and drink indeed. Having this hope—desiring, that is, to be ever
with Him—let us purify ourselves, even as He is pure, and study day by
day to conform ourselves more and more to His pattern.
Yes; believe in heaven, desire heaven, live for heaven. As St. Peter
says, “Add to your faith, virtue; and to virtue, knowledge; and to
knowledge, temperance; and to temperance, patience; and to patience,
godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly
kindness, charity. For if these things be in you and abound, they make
you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of
our LORD JESUS CHRIST; and so an entrance shall be ministered unto you
abundantly, into the everlasting kingdom of our LORD and Saviour JESUS
CHRIST.”
SERMON V.
MAN’S KNOWLEDGE LIMITED.
I. COR., XIII., 9
“We know in part.”
IN one sense, the words of our text have been ever true, and ever shall
be. Even in the Garden of Eden, when man possessed knowledge of such a
kind, and to such a degree, as to be a feature of the moral likeness of
GOD, there were still many things which he could not grasp, nor fathom,
nor measure, and there were many others which the Divine will purposely
kept unrevealed from him. And so too, hereafter, in heaven itself, the
perfected finite being must necessarily fail to comprehend and scrutinize
thoroughly the great infinite, and doubtless will be left uninformed of
much that he could grasp, because the knowledge thereof will not concern
his duty or his interest.
But, in another sense, man did once know, and shall again know,
perfectly. In his unfallen state, GOD talked to him plainly, made His
presence to be realised, in a way showed Himself as He is, that is, as He
is in His relation to obedient and holy man, taught clearly the duty, and
revealed the destiny and hopes of His creature. And, again, in heaven,
though still dwelling in light which no one can approach to, though still
the Invisible, Whom no man hath seen or can see, GOD shall yet be plainly
reflected in His Son, the visible Deity with Whom the redeemed shall
stand face to face, Whom they shall see and know even as now they are
known by Him. And man, too, though still not omniscient, shall know
thoroughly with whom he has to do; shall trace with easy clearness the
path along which he has been led; shall realise his position and
appropriate his privileges, and see even to the utmost his eternal
future. This has been already, in a measure. This shall be hereafter
entirely; but this is not now. “We know in part.”
When man sinned, the lamp of knowledge grew dim, and well nigh went out.
GOD put a thick cloud between Him and His creature, and between that
creature and the future; and around him and above him, for light He gave
obscurity. But yet straightway of His compassion and love in Christ, He
began to give back as with a slow hand, what He had suddenly withdrawn
with a swift hand. A tiny spark was kindled, which was very gradually to
be fanned into a little flame, and finally to burst out into a blaze,
which should make all visible again. Yea, and _more_ visible than at the
first. You know how the grace of GOD—which made man at the first
innocent, upright, and happy, with great power of understanding and free
will—having been forfeited, was withdrawn, but yet began at once to be
recommunicated—not immediately in its former perfection, but by little
and little, and at slow paces; first, externally by the Spirit in the
world; then, internally, by the Spirit of regeneration planted as a seed
in each Christian’s heart, to be gradually developed into the blade, the
ear, and, finally, the ripe corn in the ear, at the resurrection, the
restoration to the full favour and realised presence of GOD.
This may explain to you how knowledge was reimparted. At first it was
but a spark for the whole world; then it became a tiny flame, by which
those near at hand might dimly see. Then a spark from it was struck into
each Christian mind, which may be, and is to be gradually fanned up in
him, revealing more and more what is in him, and about him, and before
him, till in heaven it bursts out into a full flame, showing all things
clearly. Into each of us this spark has been struck; in each of us it is
to be fostered, and fed, and developed; to exhibit more and more what GOD
is, and does; what we are, and have, and hope for, till we come unto
perfect knowledge, and see all clearly. Men of the patriarchal age had
but the one spark among them. The Jews had this spark become a little
flame; and some of them, as David, Solomon, and Daniel, had each a torch
lighted from it, and held near at hand to them, as by a guardian angel.
We Christians, I say, have each _in us_ a spark kindled. If we feed and
fan it, it becomes a flame; and according as we feed and fan it, grows
brighter and larger, and extends nearer and nearer to that point, where
it shall unite with others, and light up heaven with an eternal blaze.
_Thus_ do we know, all of us in part, but not all equally, some less,
some more, according to our measure, and according as we guard and tend
it, and all imperfectly, because the time and place of perfection are not
yet.
“We know in part.” Now, one of the most important thoughts which this
text suggests is, that we Christians all have to some extent the
privilege of spiritual knowledge, and consequently, we all have resting
upon us, the responsibility of maintaining and increasing knowledge. You
all, brethren, know in part. I do not mean merely that you have the
instinct and intelligence which certain sagacious animals of the lower
creation have, nor yet that by natural conscience, the embers of the
primeval spiritual fire, you are enabled dimly to discern between right
and wrong, to perceive that there is a power above you, and an immortal
future before you: I mean, that you all _as Christians_ are partakers of
a new gift of knowledge—that you have within you, as one of the ordinary
graces of the Spirit of regeneration in Christ, that Spirit which was
given to guide men unto all truth, to convince of sin, of righteousness,
and of judgment; the faculty of knowing spiritual things—a faculty to be
sustained in appointed ways, and to be exercised upon the revelations of
knowledge contained in the Word of GOD.
I shall not stay to prove this; you know that since in Christ all is
quickened, which died in Adam, knowledge must be revived. You know that
the Spirit of Christ is frequently spoken of as the Imparter of light to
all whom He visits; that the coming of Christ to men, _externally_ even,
as a teacher, took away all cloak and excuse for ignorance and sin; that
to sin after receiving the Spirit, is to sin against the knowledge of the
truth, knowledge attainable, if not attained; that under the Gospel
dispensation, the servant who knows not his Master’s will, is
nevertheless to be beaten if he transgresses it, because he might and
should have known it; that to remain ignorant is to bring upon us
judicial ignorance; that from him that hath not (that acts, _i.e._, as
though he had not), from him shall be taken away even that he hath; that
the light within us, if treated as darkness, will become the greatest and
most terrible darkness. You know, too, that we are commanded to increase
and improve this gift, to grow in knowledge, to walk in the light; and
you know how to do it, by asking wisdom of GOD, by heeding what the
Spirit says, and by searching the Scriptures, the source of spiritual
knowledge. We all know—that is, we all have the _power_ of knowing—we
all are required to know, we shall all be judged as those who know, and
we shall all be rewarded according to our use or abuse, our growth, or
falling off in knowledge.
Now, is not this a solemn thought? Does not it exhibit to us a great
responsibility? Does not it speak stern reproof to our frequent and
willing ignorance? How little are many of us acquainted with GOD, the
Father of our LORD JESUS CHRIST. What little knowledge have we, and do
we seek to have, of Providence, of grace, of moral discipline, of duty,
of prospects, hopes and fears, of spiritual succour and spiritual
assaults of time and eternity, of probation and judgment, of heaven and
hell. Is there any other subject of which the vast majority of us are so
ignorant, and so contentedly or carelessly ignorant, as of that which GOD
has made so easy to learn, and has so imperatively required us to learn,
the knowledge of Him, of ourselves, and of His dealings with us, revealed
to us in the Bible, to be discerned by the Spirit within us?
Year after year passes away, and we realise no more, and feel no more
what GOD is, what we are, what we have to do, and why, and what awaits
us. Chapter after chapter of the Bible is read, or heard again and
again, and what we did not understand at first, we still do not
understand; what we did not feel at first, we still do not feel. Sermon
after sermon is preached, and our stock of knowledge after all is just as
much (is it always this?) as was forced upon us at school, or in
preparation for confirmation and first communion. Restless and ever on
the move in all other respects, we are content to stand still here; ay,
and if the preacher strives to lead us on, by unfolding some great
spiritual truth as far as he can, by exhibiting and explaining some
difficult doctrine more fully than usual, too often we withhold the
attention which we usually give him, and after he has done, not
unfrequently condemn his pains, and exclaim against his learned and
abstruse sermon.
Is not it so? Are not there many who cannot recollect a time when they
had less spiritual perception than they have now, and who therefore are
witnesses to themselves that they have not grown in knowledge? Are not
there many who are less acquainted with the Bible than with any other
book that has come into their hands? Are not there many who, while they
may have familiarised themselves with the history, the geography, the
anecdotes so to speak of Holy Scripture, and the fanciful, often daring,
interpretations of unfulfilled prophecy, yet know comparatively nothing
of what GOD is to them, what they are to GOD, what is required of them,
and what is promised or threatened?
Oh! brethren, how and why is this? How is it that the Object of supreme
love and fear is to us but a shadowy and unintelligible name? How is it
that we have no perception of the ever-present, ever-speaking,
ever-acting, all-important Spirit? How is it that we have no intelligent
or inquiring thought of the heaven which we are bidden to seek, and of
the hell which we have to avoid; of the Master we are bound to serve; of
the business to which life is an apprenticeship; of the race in which we
are runners; of the warfare which we are enlisted to wage; the weapons to
be used; the mode of fighting; the field of battle; the foes we are
opposed to; the punishment of desertion: the reward of constancy; the
prospects of victory; the perils of defeat? Is not it that we are not
impressed with the responsibility of having this gift of knowledge? with
the peril of folding up in a napkin a precious talent given us to use and
improve? Is not it that we do not think seriously of the existence of
GOD, of the possession of His Spirit, of the reality of heaven and hell,
of the obligations of Christian service, of spiritual helps, and
difficulties, and perils? Is not it that we have not (which means that
we do not seek) that faith which is the substance of things hoped for,
and the evidence of things not seen, enabling us to realise and grasp, as
though it were a substance, that which is as yet but future; and to
behold plainly, with the eye of faith, that which to natural sense is not
perceptible?
Have but this faith, and you will soon add to it knowledge. Concern
yourselves about GOD only as much as you would about the man with whom
you have most to do in life, and from whom you have most to expect or
fear; treat religion as you would the business by which you are to
sustain natural life, and to make or mar your temporal fortune; and then
interest and desire (as much and more than duty) will impel you to use
every effort to acquaint yourselves thoroughly with GOD; to understand
the working and unravel the mysteries of religion; to ascertain all
particulars about what you have to hope for or fear—heaven and
hell—angels and demons—the Holy Ghost—and the spirit of evil. Deeper and
deeper will you drink of the well of knowledge; and each deep and
frequent draught will but quicken your thirst and impel you to drink
again.
But take care not to err in the other extreme: we know _in part_, and are
always to know in part only. Our knowledge of allowed and enjoined
things, though ever increasing, shall never be perfect on this side of
the grave. We are to augment it as much as we can, but we must stand
really face to face with Christ, before we see Him as He is. Our
grossness must be refined, our souls and minds wholly transformed, and
our bodies glorified, before we can fully perceive and appreciate the
Holy Spirit. We must be in heaven to know thoroughly what heaven is. We
must have Christ for our audible teacher, and angels for our prompting
fellow scholars, and the eternal records for our books, and all time
spread out before us as a map, before we can learn _perfectly_, what we
are to spend this life and exercise the Spirit of knowledge in acquiring
_in part_. And even then, as I said before, there are things which we
shall not be able to grasp, or fathom, or perceive thoroughly. We shall
never see GOD the Father visibly; we shall never comprehend altogether a
Being without beginning or end; we shall never be omniscient or
omnipresent. GOD will treat us as trusty and privileged friends, and
reveal to us much that is not revealed here, and give us new powers of
understanding it. But He will not open to us all the workings of the
Divine mind. He will not transform us into gods, nor even into angels.
We shall still be finite human beings, of limited understanding and
limited knowledge. The things which concern us we shall know fully; the
things which concern us not, we shall not know; just as the angels
desired once to look into, but were not able, the mysteries (which did
not concern them) of our redemption.
Well, then, if there is to be holy ground in heaven, which we must not
tread on with the shoes of idle curiosity; if there is to be there a bush
behind which we must not look; if even then there shall be secret things
which belong only to GOD, and which we must not pry into; how much more
so here and now! How necessary to remember that we are to know only in
part; that we are not to seek to be wise above what is written; that,
respecting mysteries which concern not us, it is distinctly charged:
“Draw not nigh hither”!
When God puts forth and reveals His arm, He proves to us, indeed, that
there is more of Him that is not revealed; but it is profane to demand
that it should be revealed. When He tells us, that the world was created
so many thousand years ago, He proves that it was not before then; but He
does not permit us to inquire, what was then? When He tells us, that He
made all good, and that the devil introduced evil, He does it not that we
should inquire subtilly into the origin of evil. We are to study what is
revealed, and not what is hidden. Where did GOD exist before the worlds
were made? What is existence without beginning? How was matter produced
out of nothing—evil out of good? How is it possible for GOD to have His
will, and man his? Why did not GOD prevent evil? Why does He now
tolerate it? Why were fallen angels not redeemed? Why is man not
perfected without trial? How can finite beings be infinitely rewarded or
punished? These, and the thousand other curious questions, which
perverse man is ever asking, are inquiries which He forbids and
baffles—which we may be sure provoke His displeasure.
Check we, then, brethren, our wandering fancies, by the thought that we
are to know only in part; and that the only part which we are to know is,
that which concerns our duty, and hopes, and fears; and our intelligent
service and worship of Him. There is no better sacrifice to God than
that of curbed idle curiosity. There is no better discipline than that
which requires us to trust in what we can only imperfectly comprehend.
There is no surer test of our earnestness about salvation, than the ready
renunciation of unnecessary inquiry, and the steady, concentrated effort
to understand that which was revealed to be understood.
SERMON VI.
CONFESSION.
PROVERBS, XXVIII., 13.
“He that covereth his sins shall not prosper.”
SIN unconfessed is sin unforgiven. He who has not brought himself to the
approved publican’s mind, and with that publican’s deep, heartfelt
humiliation and self-abhorrence, poured out the contrite entreaty, “GOD
be merciful to me a sinner;” he who, as he stands or kneels before the
throne of grace, is not emptied of self-justification—is not convinced
that mercy alone can save him—is not eager to embrace the only proffered
propitiation of rebels and outcasts (that afforded by the Son of
obedience and love), is still in the depths of iniquity—still under the
condemnation of the law: “The soul that sinneth, it shall die.” Nor even
if he has this general sense (and confesses it) of sinfulness and
unworthiness, is he much nearer to pardon and justification unless,
besides, by diligent self-searching he has found out wherein he is a
sinner and unworthy, and, like penitent David, makes mention before God
of every ascertained act, and word, and thought of offence; every
omission, every transgression, and prays for power to know himself
better, that he may confess himself the more fully.
I need not stay to prove to you that all this is required. There are
many precepts and many examples in the Bible, which set forth clearly the
necessity of both general acknowledgment of sinfulness, and also special
confession of particular sins to GOD, as preliminary to pardon.
And we may easily see why it is so. All things are indeed naked and open
unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do; and He, therefore, needs no
informing of our circumstances, our wants and feelings, our griefs and
burthens. But, by a rule of His own establishing, He does not bless us
in providence or grace, unless we ask for the blessing, and assure Him
that we should appreciate it. When of His free love He had designed to
bestow great things on the Israelites, and had even commissioned His
prophets to make known the intention, He, nevertheless, restrained the
flow of His bounty by the condition, “I will yet for this be inquired of
by the house of Israel, to do it for them.” {65} He would have men
realise that they wanted the blessing; and He would have them
_acknowledge_ their dependence on Him for the bestowal of it.
And if this feeling, this acknowledgment and supplication were required
even when, if I may so speak, He longed to confer the gift, and was
standing with it ready in His stretched out hand, how much more requisite
must they be when His face is averted, and His heart displeased; when it
is His _wrath_, rather than His _love_, which is made ready to reveal
itself, and will presently reveal itself, unless it is deprecated and
propitiated, and His love won back? Yes, surely, in such a case, we must
arise and go to Him, like the prodigal, acknowledging that we are not
worthy to be called His children. We must smite upon our breasts, like
the publican, and cry out of our distress, “GOD be merciful to me a
sinner.” We must win His general sympathy by the manifestation of our
contrition; we must tell Him, one by one, of the items of offence which,
of His mercy in Christ, we would have Him blot out of the great book of
His remembrance; and not visit with His threatened vengeance.
We can have little fear of His offended justice, if we do not thus guard
against every particular exercise of it. We can have but little
appreciation of His pardoning grace, if we will not be at the trouble of
telling Him when and for what we want it. And we can have but little
sense of His awful holiness, if—all unclean, and able only to be cleansed
by Him _in answer to our entreaty_, _and on the showing of our stains_—we
yet approach Him, and expect to be tolerated in His presence,
unconcernedly defiled, and in filthy rags. “Ask, and ye shall have.”
“He that covereth his sins shall not prosper.” “When I kept silence, my
bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long. For day and night
Thy hand was heavy upon me. . . . I acknowledged my sin unto Thee, and
mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions
unto the LORD; and Thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. For this shall
every one that is godly pray unto Thee in a time when Thou mayest be
found.” {67}
And there is a gracious purpose, a merciful regard for the sinner’s best
interests, in this imposed law of general and particular confession. The
offering of frequent confession will keep a man mindful of his state
before God. It will lead him to consider what he has to confess; and so,
through self-searching, he will come to self-knowledge: and the act of
describing each sin to GOD will operate in representing that sin
faithfully to the sinner; so that the very ordinance, which is properly
the acknowledgment before GOD of sins realised, regretted, and forsaken,
will often serve to show the sinner, for the first time, the sin which he
has to repent of and forsake.
And one other benefit will surely arise from this exercise, namely, that
the sinner will be deterred from a fresh commission of that confessed
sin; that, having ascertained what are his evil propensities, what are
the weak points in which Satan successfully assails him, he will be more
on his guard against lapses, and wanderings, and defeats. He will nerve
himself, and fight more _certainly_; “not as one that beateth the air.”
He will seek to be better covered with the armour of GOD, and grasp more
resolutely the sword of the Spirit. He will go forth conquering and to
conquer.
To obtain pardon, then, for past sins, it is necessary (in accordance
with GOD’S law) to confess them. To know ourselves, our difficulties,
failures, trials from within and without; to shame ourselves out of sin,
and to guide and encourage us to victory over it, it is expedient (and
GOD has mercifully required it) that we should tell out before Him, ever
and anon, all that we can rake up against ourselves; and not present even
that as a total, but beg Him to add to it the secret things, in which we
offend without knowing it. “Who can tell how oft he offendeth? O,
cleanse Thou me from my secret faults.”
Alas! my brethren, how high is the standard! How far do many of us fall
short of it! Where, among the frequenters of the temple, are the
abashed, and humbled, and contrite penitents, proclaiming their
sinfulness, and imploring pardon: “GOD be merciful to me a sinner”?
Where, among professed Christians, are the imitators of David, communing
with, searching out their spirit in the night season, rising early, to
tell out with sighs and pangs each sin that they can discover; each
renewal of it; each thought of it? But an hour since, we all joined, or
professed to join, in words of general confession. Who felt and abashed
themselves as sinners? Who really confessed any sin to GOD? Presently,
some of us will take part in a more solemn form, and draw nearer still to
a present GOD, seeking most intimate communion with Him. What sins are
we going to confess, and pray to be relieved from? How much of
self-abasement and contrition shall we take with us to the foot of the
altar? No further back than yesterday each one of us sinned in thought,
in word, or in deed; perhaps, in all three, How many of us brought those
sins to remembrance, last night or this morning, by self-examination, and
confessed them, and with contrition sought pardon of them? Which of us
has done this, and is wont to do it, whenever wrong has been done, or
right omitted? Remember, there is no forgiveness, there is no favour
with GOD, nor hope of heaven without it. There is no knowledge of self,
no perception of danger from without, no spiritual progress. He that
covereth his sin shall not and _cannot_ prosper. He walketh
independently, ungratefully, rebelliously—in his own way; and the end of
that way is death.
My brethren, think of these things; think of your imperative duty, and
your sovereign interest; and let close self-examination, honest,
heartfelt, contrite confession, be your frequent and diligent exercise.
Every morning settle what you have to do and avoid; every evening
consider what you have done and omitted, and lay the account religiously
before GOD. Daily dress and undress your souls. Cleanse yourselves of
what is amiss by confession and repentance. Prepare yourselves for
future success, by the examination of past failures. You cannot approach
GOD: He will not approach you (but for judgment), unless you have thus
purified yourselves, and put off the things that defile holy ground.
Thus much by way of reminder and entreaty respecting confession to GOD,
general and particular. But the question is asked in these days, and
being asked should not be left unanswered, whether, in any case, and if
so, in what, confession should also be made to any other than
GOD?—whether it is ever needful, or expedient, to uncover our sins, and
make known our spiritual burthens to our fellow man?
Now, any mindful reader of the Bible must be ready at once to answer
that, on Divine authority, it _is_ sometimes necessary, and often
expedient. When we have injured another, by word or deed; when we have
defrauded him, misled him, maligned him; provoked him to anger or
displeasure, or only in some secret way harmed him; we must, as a
foremost duty, go and acknowledge our fault, and obtain his forgiveness,
or at least leave nothing undone to obtain it. The rash striker, the
undutiful child, the dishonest tradesman, the unfaithful servant, the
seducer into any sin, the scandalmonger, the slanderer, the base
supplanter, the peacebreaker, may not atone for their offences, may not
have remission from GOD, but by the consent, or at least after the sought
consent, of the person offended against (which, of course, implies
previous acknowledgment and confession of the offence). “If thou bring
thy gift to the altar,”—_i.e._, if thou approachest GOD in any way, to
serve Him, or to seek His blessing—“and there rememberest that thy
brother hath aught against thee; Leave there thy gift before the
altar,”—stop at the threshold of God’s presence—“and go thy way; first be
reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.” {71} And
if the offence has been a public one, to the scandal, or detriment, or
provocation of a community, the confession, too, must be public; so that
St. Paul, writing to the Corinthians, commands that such an offender
should be publicly censured, and put away from among them; and implies,
that he is not to be considered restored to the privileges of a
Christian, until the community, satisfied that he is penitent, shall
pronounce his forgiveness, and confirm their love towards him.
In obedience to this Scripture rule, the ministers of our Church are
ordered to admit no notorious evil liver, nor any that has done wrong to
his neighbour in word or deed, to holy communion; until, if he be an open
offender, he has openly declared himself to have truly repented (in some
such form as that of the Commination Service); or, if he be a private
injurer, until he has recompensed the parties to whom he has done wrong.
This discipline is not indeed enforced (as it should be) by _man_.
Sinners and saints mingle together in the LORD’S house, and alike partake
outwardly of the tokens of spiritual approval and blessing: but,
assuredly, GOD, who is true, maintains jealously what man neglects; and
refuses with displeasure the offerings of the violators and despisers of
His law. Ay, and moreover places a firm and impassable barrier of
excommunication between Him and them, which shall not be removed till the
appointed reconciliation with man has been made. In such cases, then,
confession to man, to the injured or offended, is necessary by the
ordinance of GOD.
In many other cases it is expedient, we might even say enjoined, since
inspired precepts recommend it. When, for instance, the burthened
conscience needs the sympathy, the advice, the prayers of others to
lighten it. “Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for
another, that ye may be healed.” {72a} Or when, again, the present
consequences of a past sin can only be removed by the active assistance
of others, as when Achan was bidden by Joshua—“My son, give, I pray thee,
glory to the LORD GOD of Israel, and make confession unto Him; and tell
_me_ now what thou hast done; hide it not from me.” {72b} In this latter
case, GOD had signified that Achan was the offender who had provoked His
wrath against Israel; and Joshua, the ruler of Israel, rightly demanded
what was the offence, that he might know how to do away with it.
Whenever, then, you feel spiritual perplexity, heaviness of soul which
you cannot relieve, faintness of heart, need of consolation or help in
prayer, you may and should make known your circumstances to some pious
and wise Christian or Christians, able and willing to advise, to succour,
to intercede for you. And whenever you cannot undo the consequences of
your sin without the active assistance of others, you are bound to take
to you partners in the work, and to communicate freely to them what you
have done, and wish undone.
It is not easy for me to say—your own feelings will guide you best in
such a matter—what confessor you should choose. In some cases a parent
would be the most fitting, or a bosom friend; in others, a stranger, or
slight acquaintance; in some cases, again, a person of your own age and
circumstances; in others, a senior, or a superior. But if these fail to
serve and relieve you, then, in all cases, should you avail yourselves of
the ordinance of GOD, and choose out your spiritual guide from among
those whom He has specially appointed to teach, and to console, and to
intercede. First, be sure that you cannot help yourselves, because GOD
has imposed upon you an individual responsibility, and entrusted to you
powers of soul and mind which you may not neglect to exercise. Then, if
you fail, go, call to yourselves that aid which seems best in itself, and
can be secured with least violence to your natural feelings, and least
injury to your social character and position. If that does not avail,
then betake yourselves to the ministers of religion, in the hope, nay,
with the assurance, that even if their learning, their habitual
examination of human nature’s wants and failings, their experience and
interest in soul-work, should, after all, leave them insufficient guides
and helpers, still GOD, to Whom in the person of His representatives you
have thus come, will not let you depart without a blessing, but will send
down from heaven itself His light, and comfort, and effectual strength.
One of two objections to this teaching may present itself to some of
those who hear me. Some of you, my brethren, may be ready to assert,
that human aid is not wanted in such circumstances; and others, that to
seek it of the clergy is to draw near to the error and corrupt
superstition of the Romanists.
To the first, I would simply answer, that they cannot really know much of
spiritual life, if they suppose that he who would lead such a life can
always get on without external help, and that they are little acquainted
with GOD’S mysterious ways, if they do not know that He ever works by
agents, in the religious and the moral, as well as in the physical world.
For their enlightenment, let them inquire of the eminently spiritual, or
the marvellously reformed, and they will assuredly find, that human helps
and sympathies have formed many steps of the ladder by which these have
climbed so high towards heaven.
The other objectors merit a longer answer, because the charge they make
is a serious one; not only affecting individuals, but casting a blot upon
the good fame of our Church itself, which unmistakeably teaches and
recommends, in special cases, the use of human and clerical confessors.
My dear brethren, let me ask you to bear with me patiently. I have no
party motives to serve, nor party prejudices to indulge; GOD is my
witness I reluctantly speak to you on this subject. I am only induced to
do so by the consideration that, when a religious question is agitated
out of doors, it is the minister of GOD’S bounden duty to take it up in
the pulpit, and exhibit it, as far as he can, in scriptural light,
keeping aloof alike from prejudging approval, and from capricious and
worldly condemnation of the thing maintained. “The priest’s lips should
keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth.” {75}
What, then, first, is the Romish use of confession? Every lay member of
the Church of Rome is obliged, at stated times, to make a full and
particular confession to a priest, of every sin, of every kind, that he
or she can call to remembrance. No matter, that they are repented of and
confessed to GOD; no matter, that the way of escape from them is plain;
that they have been escaped from; out they must come, with all their
preceding, accompanying, and following circumstances; without reserve of
any kind. If but a _thought_ of sin be kept back; if the priest but
_fancy_ that something is kept back; excommunication is pronounced, and
the offender, or supposed offender, is cut off from all means of grace.
{76} And the doctrine which guides this practice is, that no sin is ever
forgiven by GOD, unless it has first been confessed to a priest; and
that, even then, though its eternal punishment is remitted by their
giving of absolution, works of penance must be performed on its account,
or a longer or shorter period of suffering in purgatory will have to be
endured.
Such is Rome’s course. I need scarcely tell you, that our Church, in
condemning the “sacrament” of penance, and denying the existence of a
purgatory, has swept away the only pretences on which such a prying,
unscriptural, and most mischievous confessional could be maintained.
But, still, the Church of England has a doctrine and a practice of
confession. In the exhortation to holy communion, it is enjoined, “If
there be any of you, who by this means,” (self-examination) “cannot quiet
his own conscience herein, but requireth further comfort or counsel, let
him come to me, or to some other discreet and learned minister of GOD’S
word, and open his grief, that by the ministry of GOD’S holy word, he may
receive the benefit of absolution, together with ghostly counsel and
advice, to the quieting of his conscience, and avoiding of all scruple
and doubtfulness.” And in the Order of the Visitation of the Sick it is
directed: “Here shall the sick person be moved to make a special
confession of his sins, if he feel his conscience troubled with any
weighty matter.” And let it not be said, that these are Romish elements
in a “tesselated ritual.” The exhortation is a Protestant composition;
and the words that make it imperative on us to move every sick person we
visit to a special confession, if he needs it, were added at the last
review of the Prayer-Book.
What, then, is the sum of Church teaching? Men are to confess their sins
to GOD alone, with a view to pardon and religious homage. (In certain
cases, they are advised to seek _assurance_ of _absolution_ from the
clergy. I dwell not on this now, because I purpose, GOD willing, to give
the subject full consideration on an early occasion. {77}) When they
find this confession sufficient to procure spiritual peace and amendment
of life, they need not, and ought not, to make known their faults to
others. They are not to make their ministers partakers of the thoughts
and secrets of their breasts; they are not to look to them for pardon;
they are not to get rid of their responsibility to GOD, by accepting
penance at man’s hand; they are not to seek direction from a priest, in
the ordinary ways of life; they are not to submit themselves to close
catechisings, and prying investigations. But they are, when in doubt, in
difficulty, in overwhelming grief, in all circumstances of spiritual
helplessness, so to reveal their lives and open their thoughts to a
spiritual officer, that he may, out of the treasure of his knowledge and
experience, and by virtue of his commission as a minister of holy things,
direct, and comfort, and strengthen them, more really and effectually
than he can in public sermons, from mere guessing at their condition.
When the public ministry suffices for them, let them seek no more; when
they need, likewise, private ministry, by all means let them demand it:
the Church binds us to render what they ask.
This kind of confession has the hearty approval of spiritual men of all
ages, and all shades of theological opinion. All our reformers urged it.
Luther said he would rather lose a thousand worlds than suffer private
confession to be thrust out of the Church. Calvin exhorted all who
thought they would be benefitted by it, to use it readily, and showed
them, by precise rules, how to do so. Puritans of old, so-called
evangelical ministers of our day—presbyterians, anabaptists, wesleyans,
independents, all maintain and practise it now, though sometimes under
other names—“consultation,” “history of conversion,” “detailing of
experiences.” Richard Baxter’s characteristic words, exhibiting the true
spirit of Church teaching, and showing how nonconformists cling to it in
this case, are specially worthy of full recital.
“I know,” he writes, “some will say, that it is near to Popish
auricular confession, which I here persuade Christians to; and it is
to bring Christians under the tyranny of the priests, and make them
acquainted with all men’s secrets, and masters of their consciences.
To the last, I say—to the railing devil of this age—no more, but the
LORD rebuke thee. If any minister have wicked ends, let the GOD of
heaven convert him, or root him out of His Church, and cast him among
the weeds and briers. But is it not the known yoke of sensuality to
cast reproaches upon the way and ordinances of GOD? Who knoweth not,
that it is the very office of the ministry, to be teachers and guides
to men in matters of salvation, and overseers over them. . . . I am
confident, many a thousand souls do long strive against anger, lust,
blasphemy, worldliness, and trouble of conscience, to little purpose,
who, if they would but have taken GOD’S way, and sought out for help,
and opened all their case to their minister, they might have been
delivered in a good measure long ago. And for Popish confession, I
detest it: we would not persuade men that there is a necessity of
confessing every sin to a minister before it can be pardoned. Nor do
we it in a perplexed formality only at one time of the year, nor in
order to Popish pardons or satisfactions; but we would have men go
for physic to their souls, as they do for their bodies, when they
feel they have need. And let me advise all Christian congregations
to practise this excellent duty more. See that you knock oftener at
your pastor’s door, and ask his advice in all your pressing
necessities. Do not let him sit quiet in his study for you: make him
know by experience, that the tenth part of a minister’s labour is not
in the pulpit.”
One more quotation: it will be heard with respect when I tell you it is
from the Bishop of Lincoln’s sermons on repentance: “As ministers should
be, by their profession, usually the best advisers in cases of
conscience, and are, or ought to be, every penitent’s ready and
sympathising friends, so to them the stricken or perplexed soul will
often have recourse. And thus, there is a sense in which those dreaded
words, ‘confession to the priest,’ (in one sense, justly dreaded, for the
iniquity of ages is upon them) may express an edifying practice, and even
at times a duty.” {80}
Thus, my brethren, have I endeavoured to set before you, the true merits
of the question, “Ought man to confess to man?” to remind you what is
required, what is allowed and recommended, what is forbidden by
Scripture, and the Witness and Keeper of Scripture, the Church.
Endeavour, all of you, to learn from the subject, charity and wisdom. If
you feel that you need not this use of confession, thank God for your
easy circumstances; but, blame not, and, above all, dare not to ridicule,
those who have need. If you want it, by all means seek it; we may not
refuse it. To all of you, I would say, at all times regard your
clergyman as indeed an appointed spiritual friend and adviser, and so
make use of him; but, especially in sickness, when you call him to your
bedside, so far, at least, admit him to your confidence, and enlighten
him with respect to your spiritual state, that his instruction may be
pointed, and his prayers appropriate; and so his visits blessed. Oh!
look not upon us as mere Sunday lecturers, or mechanical readers of
prayers, in whom you have no week-day interest, and from whom no benefit
is to be derived, but what may be had in church. Degrade not our office,
nor ignore our authority, nor slight our willingness to use both for your
temporal and eternal good. Nor, on the other hand, exalt us to the false
position of spiritual despots—lords of men’s consciences; idols occupying
the place of GOD. _Ministers_ we are; servants of Christ; and your
servants for His sake. Make use of our ministry as a ministry, and doubt
not but GOD will then make it profitable to you, and accomplish by it,
all the ends for which He appointed it.
SERMON VII.
FORGIVENESS.
PSALM CXXX., 4.
“There is forgiveness with Thee.”
WE all know what _forgiveness of sin_ means, namely, remission of the
punishment due to it by Divine sentence, and restoration of the offender
to the position and privileges of the righteous. We all know, too, our
individual need, our ever fresh recurring need of this forgiveness; and
we also know, all of us, that forgiveness is granted only for the sake
and merits of the LORD JESUS CHRIST, and on fixed conditions.
Alas! my brethren, how little do we _feel_ what we know. With what vain
speculations, what idle dreams, what perverse errors do we too often
darken knowledge!
Forgiveness, ransom from eternal death, deliverance from the terrible
inflictions of Almighty wrath, gracious reception into GOD’S own family,
and full participation of His inexhaustible love and benediction, how can
sinners consent not to value this when given or offered, not to desire
and seek it when needed? Yet so it is. There is many an one of our
poorest possessions which we cherish more fondly; there is many an
unobtained bauble which we would make more real effort to obtain.
Ask yourselves, seriously, and answer to yourselves, honestly, my
fellow-sinners, whether it is not so. All of you believe that you have
been forgiven some thing, nay, many things. You do not suppose that you
are carrying about, each one of you, the unmitigated condemnation of
original sin; the full burthen of every transgression and omission of
your whole lives, from the first exercise of your self-will in childhood,
to that in which you offended but an hour since. You know, indeed, that
much remains written against you; but you believe that much more has been
blotted out; that GOD has been propitiated and reconciled to fallen man
by the sacrifice and intercession of His Son; that wrath has been
displaced by love; that the way of return is open; that the ears of mercy
are unclosed; that the arms of grace are stretched out to unfold all
those, who by birth inherited banishment, and were kept in exile by the
fiery sword which turned every way and allowed none to pass to the
paradise of bliss and the tree of life. What Adam lost, that and much
more has Christ won. In Him you already have regained much; through Him
you may have all and abound.
This you know. How much of it do you feel? Where is your joy of
deliverance? where your heart-leapings of praise? where your homage of
gratitude for what has been forgiven? And where are your yearnings, your
wrestling prayers, your strenuous efforts after the forgiveness yet
needed? the cries and struggles of drowning men, grasping in your fresh
peril the again stretched out rope of deliverance; imploring to be taken
up once more into the ark of salvation; to be landed yet again on the
shore of hope? Alas! where? Is not forgiveness obtained, unheeded;
forgiveness not obtained, unsought? Not altogether, GOD be praised!
There are some who never forget their deliverance; who have learnt from
it gratitude for the past, and hope and direction for the future. There
are some who are wont to gaze upon the book of the Divine account of them
(that is, so much of it as is revealed), and as they gaze, to keep moist
with the tears of humble penitence and love, the red stain of Christ’s
blood, which hides, nay, has obliterated so many of the black items
against them; and who, seeing how much is cancelled, cannot bear that
aught should remain uncancelled, and therefore rest not, nor cease from
pleading and entreating, while one single black figure is uncovered by
the crimson mark of remission.
Some of you, my brethren, surely there are, who, looking back, perhaps
upon a youth of wild and wicked folly, or a manhood of worldliness, or
much of an old age of dull, spiritual indifference, from the thraldom of
which, by GOD’S grace, you have been delivered, whose fearful guilt, you
have reason to believe, has been remitted; some of you, I say, surely
there are, who so appreciate the obtained mercy as to think nothing
comparable to it, no gratitude enough for it; and who, therefore, when
need of more forgiveness arises (as, of course, it constantly does),
betake yourselves early, with the first fruits of your desires, and the
quick steps of urgent, craving want, to the fountain that ever floweth,
by whose waters alone you can be cleansed and refreshed. Yes, there are
such; a few of them; and they do value, they do seek forgiveness.
But, do the many? Judge for yourselves, brethren. Trace back, all of
you, as far as you can, the course of your respective lives; review your
old habits, your former careers of transgression or omission; or pick out
some single sin, if you will of recent date; some one of those many
offences against which GOD’S wrath is pronounced, and on account of which
it must descend, unless forgiveness is secured. Is it a lie, a filthy
jest, a profane speech, a word of slander? Is it a thought of malice, an
encouraged lust, a meditated misdeed? Is it an act of fraud? Did you
use false balances, or adulterate your wares, or drive an unfair bargain,
exacting more, or giving less than was right? Did you pilfer from your
employer, or rob him of your bought service, or betray his interest? Is
it direct ungodliness? Did you act in defiance of GOD’S known
commandment? Did you profane His holy day? Did you disregard His fear?
Did you withhold aught that He claims of service, of prayer, of praise,
of money, time, talents, influence, of example?
Brethren, most of you follow, or have followed, some bad habit; at least,
each of you has committed, and can now bring to quick remembrance, some
one evident, wilful sin. Now GOD forbade that sin, and warned you of
condemnation if you did it. GOD witnessed its commission. His
displeasure arose; He registered it in heaven; He wrote down _death_,
_eternal death_, against it; and angels, beholding what He did, prepared
themselves to fly with the lightning’s speed and execute that sentence,
at the first motion of His commanding will. The sentence is not
executed. The sin has, or has not, brought you inconvenience,
perplexity, contempt, pain, sickness, loss. But, at any rate, it has
_not_ brought you death. Brethren, why not? Do you know? do you
imagine? do you care? Is the sentence still impending, or has it been
reversed? Are you forgiven? or have you yet to seek forgiveness? Do you
concern yourselves at all about the matter? If you have forgiveness, do
you really value it? If you have it not, do you really seek it? Oh!
judge yourselves, brethren, that ye be not judged of the LORD.
I can imagine the comparatively religious ready to urge, “Thus saying,
you reproach us also; you bring all in guilty; you do not allow that any
are in the right.” Even so, brethren, for there is none clear in this
matter. The standard of right is so high, that all come short of it.
Infirmity checks the accomplishment of our best purposes. Sin defiles
even our holy things. The flesh ever resists the spirit, and too often
blinds and deadens it. And so our warmest desires are often all but
cold; our greatest industry is but little removed from sloth. We
_cannot_ do the things, nor think the thoughts that we would, in
perfection. Let us gather consolation from the fact, that this is a law
even of our regenerate being, when we fall short of what we desire and
aim at; but let us not thereby justify ourselves in spiritual
indifference, nor suppose that a general culpability exonerates the
individual. Much will always be amiss, through the opposition of the
flesh, and through the difficulty of discerning spiritual things; and
much allowance we may hope will be made for us: but, much that _is_
amiss, might be corrected, and ought to be; nay, unless it is, we shall
be without excuse. It is so, be assured, in this matter of forgiveness.
At the best, we shall never, in this world, appreciate it fully, when
bestowed; nor seek it with sufficient earnestness, when needed. But, if
we concern ourselves to think right thoughts about it; if we ascertain
more clearly what it is, and how obtained, we shall speedily become more
grateful for it, more eager to obtain it, more sure partakers of it. Let
me throw out a few suggestions, which, by GOD’S blessing, may help to
bring us nearer to this better state.
First, consider what Divine forgiveness is. It is not capricious
reversal of the sentence, “The soul that sinneth it shall die.” Divine
justice does not give up its claim. Divine truth does not belie itself;
Divine resoluteness become fickle. GOD is not a man, that He should
repent, or that He should say and not do, or that He should come to love
what once He hated. GOD might have been freely reconciled to the
transgressor, if He had not made transgression sin. He might, even then,
have left the sinner alone, imposing no other punishment than exile from
His presence, if He had not solemnly declared, “In the day that thou
eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die.” But now, His holiness, His
justice, and His truth are irrevocably pledged to banish and destroy
transgressors. It can never be otherwise. Holiness cannot tolerate near
unholiness: like Satan from heaven, like Adam and Eve from paradise, it
must be cast out. Justice cannot acquit the guilty. Truth can never
say, “Thou shalt not die,” to him to whom it has already said, “Thou
shalt die.” There is no such forgiveness. If you transgress, you are a
sinner; if you sin, you are condemned; if you are condemned, you must
die. GOD has said it, and there is no variableness, or shadow of
turning, in Him.
We are wont to think otherwise. We fancy that sin, though wrong, is not
destructive: we wrap ourselves in false security, and flatter and mislead
others, by a perverse assurance that GOD will not be extreme to mark what
is done amiss. Yea, we think we have Scripture warrant for so doing. We
read of Divine promises which were never realised, and Divine threats
which were never executed; and we gather from them that, like our poor
fickle selves, GOD easily goes back from His resolution of favour or
wrath.
But let us look again at those promises and threats, and we shall see
that, if they were not fulfilled, it was not because GOD changed, but
because the objects changed on whom He had resolved to operate, for good
or evil. Jerusalem (bound to GOD by a covenant of allegiance) was
promised perpetual preservation. Jerusalem forsook the allegiance, and
therefore was destroyed. Nineveh’s cry of wickedness provoked the LORD
to threaten it with destruction within forty days; but when those forty
days were expired there was no cry of _wickedness_ to be answered; but a
cry of repentance, a pledge of amendment, a nation’s voice and posture of
worship. GOD did not change, but Nineveh did. The judgment was ready to
fall; but there was no object for it to fall upon, and so it fell not.
If the righteous ceases to be righteous, the promises made to his
righteousness cannot be fulfilled; if the sinner becomes sinless, the
sentence of sin cannot be executed upon him. “At what instant,” says
GOD, by Jeremiah, “I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a
kingdom, to pluck up, to pull down, and to destroy it; If that nation,
against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of
the evil that I thought to do unto them. And at what instant I shall
speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to
plant it; If it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then I
will repent of the good, wherewith I said I would benefit them.” {90}
And the like is elsewhere declared of individuals.
Thus only does GOD change His word; thus only is there forgiveness with
Him. The sinner must change his sin, for sinlessness; and then for wrath
he shall have favour. But this change he cannot make. He cannot wipe
out or undo the past; he cannot bring a clean thing out of an unclean; he
cannot repair the breaches in his soul; he cannot strengthen the things
that are ready to perish. Vain, then, is his idle trust in the
non-fulfilment of a published threat; and vain are all his efforts to
avert that threat. While he is a sinner, GOD will not forgive him; and a
sinner he can never cease to be.
But, what man cannot do himself, Christ has done for him. Having in His
own person satisfied the Divine law, and stood sinless and accepted
before the Father, He has made Himself the human source of faculties and
graces, by which other men, joined to Him, may partake of the infinite
merits of His atonement, His tasting of death for every man; and may also
be cleansed, and restored, and strengthened, and become again sinless;
escaping the guilt, and putting away the corruption of sin. There is
_such_ forgiveness. Mark, it is not an indulgent Father’s concession to
the mere request of His loved Son. It is not, again, such a substitution
of the innocent for the guilty, that no more account of sinners is taken;
nor is it a compromise by which _one_ death is accepted instead of
_many_. It is a merited power, vested in the GOD-MAN, to be the source
of absolution and sanctification. It is a purchased right to apply that
power to all who will observe prescribed conditions. Christ holds and
exercises that power. It is in Him to save whom He will; it is in Him to
desire to save all.
But still, He has not handed over the forgiveness to all. Nay, let it be
said with all reverence, He _cannot_ so hand it over. Men must come to
Him for it; they must be joined to Him to derive it; they must become
like Him to be saved by Him. On conditions He received the power of
salvation, and on conditions He imparts it. Those who do not observe
these conditions, so far from escaping condemnation through what He has
done, and what He has attained unto, do thereby become subject to surer
and worse condemnation. The same work, the same authority, which made
Him the Saviour of all men, made Him also the Judge of all; and imposed
the inflexible law, that every one that would not be saved by Him must be
destroyed by Him.
Now, in this day of grace, He is labouring to save: and He will save to
the uttermost all who seek His salvation. But, by and by, He must come
to judge; and then, whosoever has not been already saved, must be utterly
destroyed. Are you forgiven? Christ has forgiven you. Are you seeking
forgiveness? If you seek it aright, Christ will bestow it. Are you not
forgiven? Will you not seek forgiveness? Then, rely upon it, you must
be condemned; and that not only or chiefly by the law, but by the Gospel,
the dispensation on the one hand of unspeakable goodness, on the other of
unpardonable severity. If Christ is not made your Saviour, He will be
your destroyer. There is forgiveness with Him. There is no forgiveness
elsewhere.
Let me press this upon you, dear brethren, even though in so doing I
repeat what I have already said. There is no forgiveness with GOD, the
Father, apart from Christ, the Saviour. There is no forgiveness, for the
Saviour’s sake, to those who do not belong to the Saviour. You must not
go to the Father and plead, while you continue in your sin, that, since
One has died for sins, there is no longer any such thing as sin. You
must not suppose that holiness, and justice, and truth are set at nought
in all other cases, because they have been maintained in one. You must
not expect that He who once refused forgiveness, now freely grants it to
the same persons in the same state; that He is changed, and, therefore,
you need not be. No! to find any comfort in the assurance, “There is
forgiveness with Thee,” and to verify it in your own case, you must have
observed, and be still observing, the prescribed conditions. You must
have become Christ’s, and Christ have become yours. You must have
obtained the pardon from Him, and you must hold it through Him; and He
must testify thereof, and plead for you, ere the Father will pronounce
His absolution: “The LORD hath put away thy sins: thou shalt not die.”
But how is all this to be done? Not by idly assenting to the truth, that
it ought to be done. Not by mere thinking and talking of Christ. Not by
working upon your feelings, and warming your affections, by the
contemplation of Him as a historical character; not even by making
mention of Him in your prayers, and pleading His merits, and asking to be
wrapped in His imputed righteousness; but by intelligently, and heartily,
and actively observing the conditions and using the means of salvation,
which Christ has proposed to you, and put within your reach.
As soon as Christ had accomplished His work on earth, and had been
exalted to be the new head of the human race, the source of pardon and
grace, calling in the powers of His Godhead, He established supernatural
means whereby other men might be actually joined, and kept joined, to
Him, and might derive from Him the properties and privileges of a renewed
and perfected nature. The Holy Spirit, the third Person of the blessed
Trinity, became the wonderful agent to effect and maintain this union and
communication, providing mysteriously for the gradual subjugation and
destruction of the old nature, with its guilt and proneness to sin, and
for the development and establishment of spiritual excellence in all
those who become objects of His operations. To become such objects, it
is necessary that men should be prequalified (and He gives them the
power, if they ask it), by realising the misery and condemnation of their
natural state, by sorrowing over and renouncing their sins, by desiring
pardon and grace, and by believing that Christ had them to bestow; and,
then, after becoming thus prequalified, it is further necessary, that
they should make appointed use of certain outward ordinances, in the due
observance of which He pledges Himself to meet them, and to apply to them
the merits and the graces, in the possession of which they shall be
accounted dead with Christ unto sin, and alive with Him unto
righteousness. On none but those thus qualified will the Spirit operate;
and on these only, when they come to Him and invite His operation in
appointed ways. Such, my brethren, is the doctrine of forgiveness; such
is the law of its bestowal. There is forgiveness with God of this kind,
and on these terms; but there is no other forgiveness.
It is because we are not fully persuaded of this truth, that we are so
indifferent, so apathetic, so unthankful, so unrighteous. We do not
appreciate forgiveness, through not understanding it; we do not duly seek
it, through not considering how only it is to be obtained.
Dear brethren, let us strive to be wiser and better. First, let us
qualify ourselves for the application to us of forgiveness, by realising
the guilt and condemnation of sin; by convincing ourselves that we are
sinners, and by ascertaining in what we sin; by sorrowing for sin,
loathing it, and desiring to get free of it; by giving up its work,
forsaking its haunts, and restoring, as far as may be, its plunder
(_i.e._, by labouring to undo what we have done amiss). Then let us
meditate on pardon, and holiness; on the happy freedom and glorious
privileges of those who are forgiven and sanctified in Christ, till our
reason and affections unite in demanding that our lips and lives should
seek forgiveness and sanctification. We have already learned _where_ and
_how_ to seek. Let us hasten to use our knowledge. Let us seek the
Spirit where He is to be found; let us submit ourselves to Him, and ask
His blessing in the prescribed ways; the ways revealed to us in the
Bible, and made accessible to us through the Church of Christ: baptism
once, for death and burial with Christ unto sin, and new birth unto
righteousness; holy communion frequently, for the sustenance of the new
life, the meat and drink of the Spirit; and the ministry of
reconciliation ever, as the constant salve for the soul’s constant
wounds.
Commending to your full and serious consideration the great importance of
all the Gospel-ordinances, and bidding you remember (and profit by the
remembrance) the sin and danger of neglecting any one of them, let me now
confine your attention, for a few minutes, to the application of
forgiveness by the authorised ministers of reconciliation, in what is
called ministerial absolution. Whenever you draw near to GOD in the
sanctuary, and make a public confession of your sins, whether in the
ordinary daily service, or in the office for the holy communion,
immediately after such confession, the priest is directed to stand up and
pronounce what is called an absolution; in the one case declaring, that
“GOD pardoneth and absolveth,” in the other, praying that He may do so.
Whenever private scruples and peculiar spiritual difficulties keep you
from the holy communion, you are exhorted to go to some discreet and
learned minister, that you may receive the benefit of absolution; and
whenever you are laid on a bed of sickness, and the clergyman is summoned
to your side, he is directed to move you to a special confession, if you
feel your conscience troubled by any weighty matter, and if you humbly
and heartily desire it, to absolve you from all your sins, in the name of
the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. All of you know that
such things are to be found in the Prayer-Book. Some of you treat them
with perfect indifference, caring not that they are there, neither
assenting to them or opposing them. Others accept the poor explanation,
that they are mere kind, comfortable delusions for weak minds. Others
kick against them, and denounce them as relics of Popery and instruments
of priestcraft, indignantly repelling the notion, that there is any such
forgiveness promised or allowed by the Word of GOD.
Hear me dispassionately, dear brethren, while in few words (and, GOD
knows, without any party bias) I endeavour to vindicate the Church’s
teaching; and to guard it against both superstitious misuse and profane
contempt. You know, of course, that Christ, in His life-time on earth,
before His passion, commissioned certain disciples to go before Him into
every city whither He Himself would come, and when they entered into any
house, to pronounce peace upon its tenants, with the assurance that His
peace should, in such case, always rest upon them, if they were worthy.
You know, too, that just before His ascension, He invested the apostles
with the power of remitting and retaining sins; and that they both
exercised that power themselves, by absolving and excommunicating, and
also handed it on to others—so that St. Paul tells the Corinthian
presbyters, that to whomsoever they forgive anything, He forgives also,
and that his forgiveness is the forgiveness of Christ. And you likewise
know (if you are conversant with Church history) that the doctrine of
ministerial absolution, and the practice of administering it, have been
steadily maintained in all parts of the Church, from the apostolic age to
the present.
In one place, or time, the doctrine has been distorted; in another, the
practice has been abused: but everywhere, and at all times, by Greeks and
Romanists, by high-Churchmen, and by not a few low-Churchmen, it has
been, and is asserted, that Christ gave by commission, and continues by
His promise to be always present with His Church, power and command to
use ministerial absolution. The Church of England claims that delegated
power, and obeys that positive command. She does not blasphemously exalt
her clergy, and plant them on the throne of GOD, to usurp His
prerogative—to be judges between good and evil, and awarders of favour or
wrath; nor, on the other hand, does she degrade them to mere voluntary
reporters, such as any of yourselves might be, of statements contained in
a published revelation: she sends them forth to minister, as in other
respects, so in this, the grace which Christ would communicate through
them for the good of the fold, whereof they are under-shepherds. It is
nothing of their own that they minister; they can claim no honour, nor
thanks, for ministering it, and woe to them if they withhold it when
rightly sought; but to them it is intrusted to minister, and through
their ministry it is to be sought. GOD, the Father, the primary Giver of
every good thing, is nowhere directly approachable. Christ, the second
Adam, to Whom all that pertains to man’s salvation is committed, sits at
the right hand of GOD, the Father, and operates upon man only through the
agency of the Holy Spirit. GOD, the Holy Spirit, does not convey Himself
spontaneously and independently of means into every heart, but connects
the gifts of His presence and working power, with certain outward
ordinances, administered by appointed agents, and promised to be
efficacious in all faithful recipients. We sprinkle with water in
baptism, and, if there be no unworthiness in the person we sprinkle, the
Holy Spirit then and there regenerates. We administer blessed bread and
wine, and, on like conditions, GOD’S Spirit conveys into the recipient’s
heart the spiritual food of Christ’s body and blood. We say to those who
have confessed their sins, “He pardoneth and absolveth;” or, “Almighty
GOD pardon and deliver you from all your sins;” or, “By virtue of His
authority, I absolve thee from all thy sins:” and in the case of every
real penitent, there is then, there, and thereby forgiveness from GOD.
We do not bid you look to us for pardon; we tell you plainly that we
cannot pardon you; but we distinctly maintain, that if you want pardon,
you must seek it in appointed ways; that this is an appointed way; that
none have due recourse to it, and fail of spiritual blessing; that those
who despise it despise not men, but GOD.
Brethren, thus soberly and scripturally regard the Church’s ordinance of
absolution. On the one hand, do not superstitiously look upon it as an
inherent power, which any priest can give to whom he will, and withhold
from whom he will; or as an indemnity, to be bestowed without conditions,
to operate as a charm in absolving those who have not desired, nor
prepared themselves for forgiveness; and, on the other hand, do not make
light of its true exercise, and forego opportunities of having it applied
to yourselves, according to Christ’s appointment, and your several needs.
Prepare yourselves duly for it, and heartily accept the ministry of it,
and give GOD the glory. Yes! be sure you give GOD the glory. Use the
means, and reverence them, because GOD has instituted them; but let the
gift be more thought of, and let the Giver be adored. When, with
penitent hearts and humble lips, you have made your open confession, and
the herald’s consequent proclamation of pardon is ringing in your ears,
bethink you that it is GOD’S forgiveness which is being offered to your
acceptance. Bless Him for the ordinance; but look through it to the
Spirit who is present in it, to the Saviour who sent the Spirit, to the
Father who provided the Saviour, and let the vision both convince you of
the sinfulness and condemnation of sin (which could only be put away by
such a wonderful contrivance, and such continued operation of the Blessed
Trinity), and also prompt you to value the forgiveness which GOD has so
much at heart, and so labours to bestow. “There is forgiveness with
thee.” Take to yourselves the unspeakable comfort of so sweet an
assurance when it is offered; but be sure that you always respond to it,
out of grateful and resolute hearts: “Therefore, O GOD, shalt Thou be
feared, and served, and loved.”
SERMON VIII.
THE PRINCIPLE OF OFFERINGS TO GOD.
II. SAMUEL, XXIV., 24.
“Neither will I offer . . . unto the LORD my GOD of that which doth
cost me nothing.”
IT was a thrice enforced precept of the law that none should appear
before GOD empty; that when men drew near to Him to celebrate His past
mercies and deliverances, to ask for blessings, to deprecate wrath, to
render thanks, to acknowledge dependence on His providence, they should
at the same time present unto Him some offering of their substance. And
this, be it observed, was not a mere temporary ordinance. It was not,
like the sacrifices of bulls and goats, a ceremonious shadowing forth and
pleading of the one sacrifice by which alone GOD could be approached and
propitiated. It was a free-will offering, an acknowledgment that all
things come of GOD, and that all things, though intrusted to them,
belonged still to GOD. It was a confession of His Lordship, an act of
homage, an exhibition of gratitude, a pledge of readiness to yield all
that He might require. As such, it was to be offered whenever man
perceived GOD to be operating upon, or for him, or whenever he would have
GOD to be thus operating; it was to be presented at prescribed places,
and under prescribed circumstances, which rendered pains and exertion
necessary in the offerer; and it was to be of a kind and in a measure
which should make it a real sacrifice—the giving up of something valuable
and valued. “Every man shall give as he is able,” says Moses. “I will
not offer unto the LORD my GOD,” exclaims David, “of that which doth cost
me nothing.”
Under the Gospel, this duty is not only continued, but, like all the
other moral sanctions of the law, enlarged and spiritualised. We
Christians are to present ourselves, our souls and bodies, continually,
as a reasonable sacrifice unto GOD. We are to give up our wills, our
powers, our affections, our time, our substance, our lives to Him. Our
prayer is to be instant; our praise continual; our sacrifice perpetual;
our offering all that we are and have. He who withholds anything from
GOD, gives Him nothing. He who does not deny himself, denies GOD; he who
loves any one or anything more than GOD, hates GOD; he who bestows more
thought and pains, and spends more of his substance on any other object
than on religion, takes no thought, bestows no pains, spends none of his
substance on GOD. Lip-service, stinted service, careless or partial
service is no service; easy religion, cheap religion, intermittent
religion is no religion. Religion, to be worthy of the name, must cost
something; yea, and much—much thought, much feeling, much affection, much
labour, much self-denial, much submission, much renunciation, much
cheerful sacrifice of self and substance. The only limit to our offering
is to be our capability; the only time when we may forbear to offer it,
is when GOD gives us no opportunity. Hence it was, that the young man
who would not sell all that he had, and give to the poor, and follow
Christ whithersoever He went, could not be His disciple. Hence it is,
that selfishness, and worldliness, and pride, and self-glorying, and
covetousness, are such grievous sins. Hence it is, that life must not be
counted dear, when to be faithful to religion would endanger it. Hence
it is, that not only _directly_ spiritual acts are to be frequent, and
spiritual offerings to be many and large, but that everything we have is
to be held for religion, and everything we do, to be done for religion;
our daily tasks, our rest and labour, our very eating and drinking.
Christ has purchased us entirely soul and body, talents and possessions,
to glorify Him by perpetually offering to Him the sacrifice of love; and
there is no love in that offering which is formal, indolent, unwilling,
self-saving; which is restrained from thought, and effort, and hazard,
and bountifulness, by the consideration, how much it will cost. “I will
not offer unto the LORD my GOD,” and the LORD my GOD will not accept “of
that which doth cost me nothing.’”
This is the principle and measure of Christian offering to GOD. Would we
offer affection? it must be all affection. “My Son, give me Thy heart.”
Submission? Deny Thyself in all things. Time? Let it be all
time—instant, continual, day and night. Substance? Be ready to part
with all that thou hast. Work? It must be all work; every labour, and
every occupation. Whatsoever thou doest, do all to the glory of GOD,
that GOD in all things may be glorified through JESUS CHRIST. We, and
all that we are and have, are claimed as whole sacrifices to GOD. The
duration of the offering is to be the length of our life. The altars
upon which we are to be offered, are all the places and all the
circumstances in which GOD puts us, or we put ourselves; and we are to be
continually laying ourselves upon these altars, without fear or grudging
of the cost, yea, rather with cheerful incurring of it.
It is a great and difficult service. The very best of our fallen race,
the Abrahams and the Pauls, who have most realised this service, and
loved it, and laid themselves out to render it, have yet fallen short,
very far short of the perfect offering. Many a time have they
reluctantly laid the costly sacrifice on the altar; many a time, alas!
have they substituted the lame, the halt, the lean, the blemished, for
the firstling of the flock; many a due sacred journey has not been
undertaken; many a holy service has been unperformed, or performed amiss;
many an altar has been bare, without an offering. Yes, the most godly,
the saints that excel, have fallen far short of GOD’S standard, and have
withheld or offered amiss what GOD required. But yet through infirmity,
not through wilfulness or selfishness, have they done it, and speedily
and deeply have they repented of it, and then have they straightway laid
upon the nearest altar the sacrifice of a broken and a contrite heart, in
whose fragrance the ill savour of the other has been lost, with whose
costliness GOD has been well pleased. Such a sacrifice He never
despises. Those who offer it shall be forgiven all that is past. They
shall be dealt with by the after, not the former life. But, my brethren,
if such as these fall short of GOD’S standard, what of us, who, alas! can
lay no claim to attempted perfection, or to grief and contrition for
shortcomings? What of our service of GOD? What do _we_ offer Him? What
does religion cost us?
It should cost us much thought—more thought than anything else. Does it?
Is it the most frequent and most encouraged employment of our minds to
meditate on GOD, our Creator and Preserver, our Redeemer, our Sanctifier,
our Lord and Judge, on heaven, on holiness, on trial and reward, duties
and hopes? We all of us have some favourite subject of thought and
meditation, something which we ponder chiefly, and lay most plans about,
and zealously occupy our mental faculties upon. Is it religion? Does
that cost us more thought than anything else? or does business or
pleasure, or politics or philosophy, or worldly prospects or cares? If
so—no matter how innocent the object, how laudable in some respects its
concern—in making it a chief consideration, we leave nought to offer GOD
but that which costs us nothing, and which is therefore nothing accounted
of, yea, rather is rejected by Him.
Again, religion should cost us much affection. Our affections should be
chiefly set on it, and only on other things when they can be lawfully
considered the adjuncts of religion. Is it so? Do we love GOD more than
anything else? Do we desire heaven’s treasures more than earth’s;
eternal glories more than temporal? Do we delight above all things in
spiritual pursuits? If any other person, any other thing presents itself
as a candidate for our best affections, is it rejected because the place
is already filled? Is it disliked, if opposed to religion? Is it but
moderately esteemed and distantly entertained, when though not opposed to
it, is not religion itself? If otherwise, then religion costs us not our
best affections, and so of our hearts we offer unto GOD of that which
doth cost us nothing.
Again, religion should cost us much labour, much self-denial, much zeal
and patience, more than anything else. Does it? Is there nothing for
which we toil more, and endure more, and encounter more; nothing which we
pursue more constantly and zealously? Do we take more pains to please
GOD than man? Do we make more strenuous endeavours to become good
Christians than to become apt scholars, profound philosophers, able and
respected politicians, successful tradesmen, accomplished members of
society? Would we, and do we rather rise early, and late take rest, go
without our usual meals, undertake fatiguing journeys, contend with
difficulties, suffer reproaches for religion than for anything else? Do
we bear the inconvenience of a warm church more cheerfully than that of a
close shop, a crowded hall of business or pleasure? Do we venture forth
on religious errands, in cold, and wet, and forbidding weather, more
readily than we do for anything else? In what do we wear out our
strength and energies, run our greatest risks, and consume our time? Is
it, directly or indirectly, in religion; or is it in business or in
pleasure? For what do we renounce all needless occupations, for what do
we get through as speedily as may be our necessary work? Is it to have
time and strength for religion, or for what? The answer, my brethren,
which your consciences honestly give to these questions, and many like
them that might be asked, will help to determine what religion costs you
in this respect, and whether or no, you offer unto GOD only of that which
doth cost you nothing.
Again, religion should cost much of our substance. In one sense, it
should cost us all our substance, _i.e._ we should never spend one mite
on a sinful or doubtful pleasure or business, or in contributing to an
unhallowed end. Much, indeed, we must lay out in the sustenance of our
natural life, in the prosecution of our worldly calling, in the support
and advancement of our families, in the maintenance of our social
position. Something, too, we are allowed to spend on our innocent
recreations and those of others. But that which is to cost us most, on
which we are to spend all that we can, and to yearn to be able to spend
more, is on GOD; directly, by spreading the knowledge of His name, by
promoting His service, by building fit temples for His worship, and
adorning them suitably to our devotion and His glory; indirectly, by
ministering to His representatives, the poor, and afflicted, and
helpless, and ignorant.
What, my brethren, let me ask in all plainness, for I speak for GOD, and
GOD’S representatives—the poor—what does religion cost you in this
respect? Are you sure that you have left no Lazaruses to perish of
hunger? no pining sick to die for want of the nutriment or attention
which you could have afforded? no children to grow up in ignorance and
blasphemy whom you could have maintained at school, and helped to make
enlightened, serious, holy men and women? Have you looked to these
things, yourselves? or have you ungrudgingly, liberally supported those
who do? Have you ascertained that the sick and visiting funds of your
parish are able to meet the many demands upon them? that there is no
difficulty in maintaining the necessary staff of the poor’s best
guardians, the clergy? that the alms-boxes will hold no more, or that
there is no demand on their contents? Have you done all this before you
have laden your tables with rich viands and costly wines, and bought
expensive toys and ornaments, and gone on unnecessary excursions, and
paid much for amusements? Or have you consulted self first, and fed, and
decked, and petted, and amused self, and then been ready (not, perhaps,
even then, _forward_, but waiting to be asked) to give up something of
what self could conveniently spare, for crying, grievous
necessities—sparing GOD your leavings, that which you did not want, or,
at least, could easily do without? Remember, brethren, I lay no charge
against any one of you. I only, in faithfulness, put to you plain
questions, which it is your duty to consider; and bid you speedily
discover, from their consideration, what your religion costs you;
whether, in your succour, temporal and spiritual, of those worse off than
yourselves, you deny and inconvenience yourselves, giving what you cannot
part with without feeling its loss and curtailing from other things on
account of it (as you all ought to do); or whether you offer unto GOD, in
this way, of that which doth cost you nothing.
Once more, religion should cost you much in the direct service of GOD; in
providing amply for His wide and becoming worship. I pass by now, as
duties which there are other opportunities of enforcing, the maintenance
of missions, at home and abroad; the building and endowing of schools and
churches, and many like things, that I may dwell for a few moments upon
the costliness of the materials of our churches, and their furniture,
and, let me add, their ornaments; for all which, if I understand the
Bible, we Christians are bound to provide. In the descriptions given us
in the Bible, of heaven and heavenly things, there is frequent mention
and great display, as it were, of gold, and precious stones, and musical
instruments, and beautiful robes, and the like. There are some who
understand these descriptions literally, and who suppose that, being
raised in material, though glorified bodies, the redeemed will inhabit a
material heaven—either this earth transformed, or some other planet—and
will be surrounded with glorious material objects, the most beautiful and
precious of nature’s productions, fashioned like to art’s best
accomplishments. If this is to be so, then it is urged, earth’s
tabernacles, as the type of heaven, should be as nearly assimilated to
heaven as possible; we should improve and furnish our plainer and barer
churches as much as we can; we should build our new churches in the best,
the handsomest style of art; and decorate and furnish them in the most
substantially costly manner.
Without subscribing to this view (though there is really much to be said
for it), I would humbly suggest that, since GOD, when He designed an
earthly tabernacle, prescribed that it, and all in it, should be costly
and ornamental; and that when He speaks of heaven He does so under the
image of all that is accounted splendid and costly on earth, He either
must have meant to require that we should erect and adorn our churches
after this description, or He must have taken for granted that we should
best understand spiritual beauties and excellencies by their comparison
with what we account earthly beauties and excellencies, and that we
should naturally honour and worship Him with the best of these within our
reach. It seems, then, to be our duty, nay, to be natural to us, if we
are in earnest, whichever view we take, to make our churches and their
contents beauteous and costly, either as images of the future church in
heaven, or as the nearest representations to it which we can furnish, and
the best copies of GOD’S own pattern.
To this it has been objected, firstly, that the primitive Christians
afford us no such example; and, secondly, that it seems unfitting,
trifling, unseemly, to decorate the spiritual palace as we would an
earthly mansion. The first objection falls to the ground, when we
remember, that the early Christians were very poor, and, moreover, were
obliged to hide themselves, and, therefore, to refrain from all that
would attract attention; and that, as soon as they had the means and
liberty, they made their churches very splendid, and furnished them very
gorgeously. And the second objection is as soon disposed of. What is
unfitting, trifling, unseemly, for the Master, is surely as much, and
more so, for the disciple. If GOD is to dwell in tents, we ought not to
dwell in ceiled houses; if gold, and precious stones, and beautiful arts
are unfit for Him, then they are pre-eminently unfit for us. If we may
not furnish His house with rich furniture, and put into it, for instance,
the best musical instrument, we must not do so in our own houses. It is
enough for us, that we should be as our LORD. We must not be above Him,
or different from Him. We must not glory in what is unfit for Him. Be
then our own abodes rude; let everything in them be homely, unadorned,
inferior; banish from them all traces of the artist’s skill; or give all,
and use all, more exceedingly upon and in the house of GOD.
One more argument for adorning and furnishing to the utmost, the house of
GOD:—We must not offer unto GOD of that which doth cost us nothing of our
substance. Now, all that we offer indirectly, no matter how much, how
frequently, may yet cost us nothing—that is, it may be only the laying
out of that for which we get an immediate equivalent. When you relieve
the sick, rescue the tempted, raise the fallen, by the contribution of
your substance, if you have not the reward of their gratitude, there is
at least the felt human satisfaction of the act; and that would and has
remunerated many an infidel. The sacrifice, therefore, in this case,
ceases to be a sacrifice; it is a laying out for those who pay you again.
But when you expend your substance largely on the direct service of GOD,
hoping for nothing again, perhaps getting nothing, then you offer of that
which costs you something; something for which you do not expect an
equivalent. The exercise is a good one, and the duty is imperative. If
you got your money’s worth, and your human satisfaction, for its outlay,
then you would be offering to GOD of that which doth cost you nothing.
Let this consideration urge you, then, first, indeed to provide what is
_necessary_ for the service of GOD by yourselves; afterwards, what may
help others in like manner to serve Him; and then, not by mulcting them,
but by denying yourselves, to give some true gift, some free-will
offering, which is costly in itself, and promises no present equivalent.
Thus shall you overcome selfish and mere human feelings, and render
dutiful, and grateful, and costly sacrifice unto the LORD your GOD.
My brethren, depart not with the notion that you have heard nothing of
Christ this morning. It is a deep-rooted error that, under the law men
were commanded to do, but under the Gospel they are forbidden; that
_then_ salvation was a work, but _now_ it is only a contemplation. The
contrary is the truth. Men might contemplate and wait idly and dreamily
before their Redeemer came; they must be up and doing now that He has
laid His hand upon them, and given them a lifelong, arduous,
self-sacrificing work to do.
It is because Christ has purchased you wholly, body, and soul, and
spirit, thoughts, words, and deeds, talents and substance, to be an
entire and constant sacrifice unto Him; it is because He is watching over
you, and working for and in you, to make you that sacrifice; it is
because presently He will judge and deal with you, according as you have
been, or have not been what He required, that I have enforced on you the
pre-eminently Christian lesson of taking solemn, anxious heed, that you
offer not unto the LORD your GOD of that which doth cost you nothing.
SERMON IX.
SPIRITUAL PROGRESS.
PHILIPPIANS, III., 13, 14.
“Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing
I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth
unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the
prize of the high calling of GOD in Christ JESUS.”
TO have apprehended; to have attained unto the perfection of the
knowledge of Christ; to have gone through the Christian’s appointed
course of discipline and duties; to have acquired the acceptable and
approved character; to have laid such a hold on salvation as could not be
shaken off—this even Paul did not claim to have done. Divinely
enlightened as he was, greatly zealous, blamelessly righteous, the chosen
vessel of the LORD, he could not be satisfied with the past, he could not
rest in the present, he could not calculate on the future. “If by any
means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead”—be made one of
those who shall be raised in Christ to glory—“not as though I had already
attained, either were already perfect. . . . I count not myself to have
apprehended.”
Brethren, if Paul, with all his light, all his labours, all his holiness,
all his love, felt that heaven, was, after all, not his sure inheritance,
how can any among us count themselves to have secured it, to have become
perfect? And yet, not a few do! I am not alluding now to those who are
called Calvinists, to those who believe that salvation will infallibly be
conferred on a few, chosen without regard to their former, or care for
their after life; and that they who believe this doctrine are certainly
of the chosen few (every Calvinist, according to his own creed, is sure
of salvation)—to those who fancy that a peculiar flutter of strange
feelings in the breast which they felt at a certain moment of some day or
night, perhaps long past, was the impression of GOD’S seal upon them; a
seal which cannot be broken, which has marked them GOD’S for ever; and
that all they have to do in anticipation, in preparation for glory, is to
talk and think about man’s depravity, and GOD’S electing grace. No! I
am alluding to such as are most of you, brethren; who have probably never
concerned yourselves about supposed absolute decrees, and irresistible
grace, and final perseverance; who do not claim to be objects of any
signal conversion; who have felt, and feel no ecstacy and rapture which
betoken sure acceptance; and of you, I say, that many of you count
yourselves to have apprehended, to know as much, to have done as much, to
feel as much, to be as perfect, as you need, and to have a sure hope of
salvation. None of you have a definite theory of this kind; none of you,
if I took you apart and said, “Are you sure of heaven?” would dare to
answer, “yes,” or to feel that you might answer, “yes;” but many of you,
nevertheless, do persuade yourselves, that it is even so; many of you so
spend your lives as though you had already apprehended, as though there
were nothing which you had yet to attain.
Listen! You believe that there is another life after this. You believe
that it may be one of glory, or one of shame and destruction. You
believe that there are necessary qualifications for glory, without which
it will not be conferred. You hope and expect to partake of the glory.
You all know that the change from this life to the next may come at any
moment, to any one of you. Still, the greater part of you make no effort
to prepare farther for that change; but go on, day after day, year after
year, doing the same deeds, thinking the same thoughts, feeling the same
feelings, in the same way and measure as heretofore. Is it not so? And
if it is, do you not justify yourselves—do you not at least compose
yourselves in your present state—by asserting, or at any rate by not
actively denying, that you have attained as much faith, and holiness and
love, as you need to fit you for heaven. You have apprehended: at least
you think so. Otherwise, how could you be contented? Believing in your
heart of hearts that there is a heaven, how could you be satisfied if you
did not think you would go to it; if you conceived it possible that the
want of something which you have not yet, might shut you out from glory?
As I speak to you thus, you feel disposed to protest against my words.
You know you are not perfect. You frequently sigh over your lamentable
imperfections. You feel that it is only unspeakable mercy which can make
any allowance for you. You are not fit for heaven. You are not
satisfied with yourselves. You have not attained. You have much to do.
You intend to do much. Yes! this is your protest, and it is an honest
one; you mean it, you feel it. But, brethren, I am not talking of what
you mean and feel _now_; of the momentary stir of right feeling which
takes place occasionally, in church when the minister of Christ rouses
you; or at home or abroad, when GOD calls loudly to you by some unusual
act of Providence; or on a sick bed, when physicians speak doubtfully,
and friends wear ominously troubled looks; or at the grave-side, when one
of your own age and circumstances of life, and like constitution, is
being hidden out of sight. No! I am speaking of your usual feelings,
and your every-day life; and I say, on their clear testimony, that many
of you count yourselves to have apprehended.
You are at ease about heaven; you do not strive, you do not press forward
as though it were yet to gain; you do not imagine that any striving, any
pressing forward, is needed. What are the religious exercises of the
many? A few words of private prayer, morning and evening; an attendance
_once_ on the LORD’S day at church; and now and then, perhaps, a
participation of the holy communion. These are the chief, often the
only, efforts for grace to attain and apprehend. No perpetual upraising
of the soul in prayer; no delight in public worship; no frequent yearning
for the communication of Christ through His appointed ordinances; no
eager searching of His Word for light, and guidance, and comfort, and
encouragement! What, again, are the strivings of the many to attain a
heavenly character; to do the work which GOD has given them to do; to put
aside the old man, with his affections and lusts; to walk in holy
obedience? Alas! they are merely negative; forbearing to offend against
the letter of the great commandments. No literal idolatry, no profane
swearing, no Sabbath-breaking, no stealing, no deed of lust, no
deliberate slander. This is their righteousness; and if, besides, they
occasionally sigh, or utter a self-condemnation, on account of the
frequently reiterated, uncurbed outbreaks and indulgences of what they
call “infirmities,” they seem to themselves to have attained to exemplary
excellence. No matter that all their usual feelings are earth-born, and
earth-directed; that their affections are set on worldly things; that
they continue, year after year, every whit as spiritually indolent,
impatient, bad-tempered, sensual in thought, jealous, faithless,
unloving, unholy. They might, indeed, be better in these respects;
perhaps they ought to be; but it is not actually necessary. They have
already attained what is absolutely needed. If not quite perfect (no man
is) they are perfect enough; better than many others; as good as GOD will
require.
Oh, if men do not _think_ this, do they not _act_ it and testify it in
their lives? Does not their religion seem to be a mere occasional
pastime? something to be taken up only in the intervals of life’s earnest
work; a matter of no real moment; which does not demand more than
ceremonious observance, leaving the thoughts, the affections, the energy
free; offering nothing (worth the while) to be pursued with zeal, and
industry, and self-denial; to progress and grow perfect in; having no
claims upon us which are not sufficiently discharged in the way of mere
routine?
I should wrong many of you, dear brethren, if I meant this charge to be
universal. Of not a few of you, “we are persuaded better things, and
things that accompany salvation, though we thus speak.” But, in a
degree, even _you_ answer to this description, or part of it; coming
nearer, now and then, to contentment about your spiritual state than you
should; forbearing, frequently, to press forward enough for what is not
yet attained.
Well, then, we are all reproved by the apostle’s lowly estimation of his
own past and present: “I count not myself to have apprehended.” Let us
now seek to be instructed by his proposals for the future: “Forgetting
the things that are behind, I reach forth.” First, then, we are to
forget the things that are behind. In the figure which the apostle uses,
that of a runner in a race, to forget what is behind is, not to pride
ourselves upon, not to think of the progress we have already made.
Paradox though it seem, the Christian religion often bids us both
remember and forget the same thing; and it does so in this case. We are
to remember the success which has attended us hitherto in the attempt to
serve GOD, both to prompt our gratitude for the past, and to encourage us
to persevere, as having hope that we may prevail. We are to forget it,
so as not to presume on our goodness; not to rest satisfied with aught we
have done, or to count ourselves as having in any measure attained to
what GOD requires of us. There is much temptation to such
self-satisfaction, and there is much danger in it. Few, if any of us,
who have been earnestly endeavouring to work out our salvation, can fail
to observe that we have accomplished something. We have come to feel an
interest in spiritual things. Prayer, instead of being altogether a
wearisome task, or a mere matter of routine, has begun to be an enjoyable
exercise. The pursuit of godliness, instead of being altogether a hard
task, requiring us to forego all that is pleasant, to encounter much that
is trying, to do that for which we have no taste, has begun to bestow on
us its reward, in fulfilling its promise of making glad the life that now
is, in elevating us, though, perhaps, but little, towards the hope of the
life which is to come. We like now (that is, we dislike less) the
exercises of devotion. We more readily give up what once we clung to as
the chiefest good. We begin to realise, that there is something worth
striving for beyond; and we make efforts, though they may be feeble, to
reach it, and lay hold on it. But, perceiving this change, this
improvement in ourselves, we run the risk of coming to think, that we are
not like other men; that we have come out, and are separate; that we are
in the right way; that GOD approves us. And the natural effect of this
perception, or rather the effect which Satan causes it to produce, is
spiritual pride and spiritual indolence. “I love prayer, I cultivate
holiness: what lack I yet? I have attained; I have apprehended Christ;
knowing and loving Him, and laying fast hold on His salvation.”
Such a feeling once harboured in the breast, and thus interpreted, soon
begins to deaden our spiritual energies. We cease to be holy as soon as
we fancy ourselves holy. We relinquish effort as soon as we find that we
have been using it. In the remembrance of the past, in the spiritual
pride which it produces, we forget the future and unlearn humility.
Therefore we are to forget the past of progress.
But, besides this, we are to forget what is behind of failure and trial,
and former superiority. There is nothing so apt to beget despondency, to
discourage further effort, as the review of unsuccess: “I have tried this
before, and failed; it is of no use to try it again. Destiny, or innate
corruption seems to thwart me and bind me down; it is vain to contend
against it.” Thus it is that men persuade themselves to yield
unresistingly to evil. When bidden to forsake it, when desiring to
forsake it, instead of making the effort as though it were a first one,
the beginning of a right course, in which, if they persevere, they may
hope by GOD’S grace to do well, they recall to memory how they have
failed before, and persuade themselves, from their remembrance, that in
like manner they should surely fail again: and so they refuse to try.
And so, too, the remembrance of former superiority discourages. “How
pure, how temperate, how steady, how comparatively good was I once.
Alas! that cannot be again. I cannot undo what I have done. I cannot
recover what is lost. The past can never be the present.” No, it
cannot, brethren, and therefore forget it. Do not seek to undo, to
recover. Since that cannot be, aim at something else; and, that you may
aim the more steadily, do not let your eye wander elsewhere. If you have
left your father’s house, and wasted your substance in riotous living, it
is too late to prevent you from being a prodigal; but it is not too late
to become a returning prodigal. Forget your former independence; forget
the going away into the far country. Remember, that your Father still
lives; that He is a merciful, a pardoning Father; that His arms are
spread out to enfold you; that there is still room, and welcome room, for
you in His house. Forget what you have abandoned, and seek what you may
yet have: not former innocence, not the inheritance of uninterrupted
dutifulness, but reformed life, and fresh favour, a new place as a new
character.
Once more, forget the things that are behind, as you start, as you run
along the course from the world to heaven. Do not delay in considering
what you have to give up; do not grudge the effort; do not turn aside
your eyes to behold what you are leaving behind, what you are passing by
the way. Temporal things, though so infinitely inferior to eternal, are
near and palpable; while the spiritual are distant and indistinctly seen.
If you ponder and weigh, if you count over too frequently the cost, your
own carnal judgment, and Satan’s blinding influence, will check you at
starting, or lure you aside. To look back, to gaze about you, to stand
still for a moment, is perhaps to lose the race. “See,” says Satan,
“what you are leaving, what you are passing. Here are riches, honour,
friends, pleasure, ease.” You look, and the look leads you back, or
makes you stumble, perhaps fall. “Onward, onward!” be this your cry;
this your aim. Stay not in all the plain; look not behind you; look on;
behold the goal; remember the prize. Think not of the past; regard not
the present; aim at the future. Forgetting the things that are behind,
reach forth unto those that are before.
I have anticipated the other lesson of wisdom; that of reaching forth; of
concentrating all your thoughts, and all your energies, on what is held
out to you by GOD in Christ. You are not to measure the distance you
have come; you are not to brood over stumblings, and falls, and past
slowness; you are not to recall the things that you have left, nor to
look at those you are passing. You are to run on, as if the race were
all before you; as if the course were an untrodden one; as if there were
good hope of reaching the goal. And you are to look steadfastly at the
goal, and run eagerly towards it. This is your position; this your
course; these your hopes.
Gird up your loins then, lay aside every weight, the weight of worldly
temptation, the weight of experienced failure, the weight of difficulties
and troubles. Assured that the race may be run, assay to run it.
Knowing that the prize is still proffered, attempt to gain it. Gather
experience from the past, what to do, what to avoid. Redouble your
efforts, quicken your pace, because the time is short, and much of it has
been trifled away. Take hope from the future, because the lists are
still open, because you are accepted candidates for the prize, because
the king waits to crown you.
What does all this mean in plain language? Sinners! repent, cry for
mercy, pray for grace, aim at godliness. Lovers of the world! unloose
your affections from what is worthless and perishable; fix them upon what
is above value and everlasting; let go what you have, cast it behind you,
and seek what you have not. Loiterers! move on. Crawlers! rise upon
your feet and run. There is no time for delay, for tardy pace. The LORD
waits to crown you, but He will not wait long. Racers! race on, faster,
more intent. Let your desires outstrip your feet. Quicken your feet, to
come up to your desires. But a little, and the trial of your speed will
be over, and the conquerors will be crowned, and all others be rejected.
Brethren, one and all, consider the prize of your high calling of GOD in
Christ JESUS. Enlist heartily in its pursuit; shake off everything that
hinders; shut your eyes against all that allures; seek guidance,
strength, and perseverance, in prayer, study of GOD’S Word, and other
holy ordinances. Use those graces in daily instant increasing efforts;
animate yourselves more and more by anticipations of what is held out, by
nearer and more constant beholding of it. Stay not, and pause not till
the arms of acceptance enfold you, the Voice of approval greets you,
“Well done,” and grateful, realised joy enables you to exclaim, “I have
fought the good fight, I have finished my course, henceforth there is
laid up for me the crown of righteousness.”
SERMON X.
SPIRITUAL THINGS NOT REVEALED TO THE NATURAL MAN.
1 CORINTHIANS, II., 14.
“The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of GOD: for
they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they
are spiritually discerned.”
ALL of you, my brethren, to some extent profess, and to some extent
desire, to be religious. All of you assent to the truth, that religion
is the “one thing needful,” and yet many of you, if you knew your hearts,
and examined your ways, would be constrained to admit that religion is
not the ruling power of your life. You are indeed religious according to
the standard of the age, _i.e._, you come to church on Sunday, perhaps
occasionally to holy communion, you say your prayers morning and evening,
you read the Bible now and then, you do not grossly offend against any
one of the ten commandments, you sigh over your frailties and
infirmities, you give _something_ to the poor. All this entitles you, in
the estimation of others, to be classed among what are called religious
people; and suggests to yourselves the comfortable thought, that, at
least, you are not worse than other men; that, in fact, you are much
better than many. Still, if you are careful readers of your Bible, if
you are observant of the world within and around you, if you are given to
self-searching, you must often feel that your religion is but a sorry
counterfeit of what GOD has taught and saints have reflected; that you
are scarcely half in earnest about it; that you experience very little
advantage from it; that you render very empty homage to it. For
instance, you read the Sermon on the Mount, or the reiteration of many
parts of it here and there, in the epistles; you put together the several
characteristics of true religion there displayed; and then, turning an
eye upon yourselves, looking back upon the path you have trodden,
surveying the ground upon which you now stand, testing your practice,
scanning your motives, asking yourselves, “By what am I mainly
influenced? whither tend my chief desires? what are my feelings?”
“Alas!” you exclaim, “where, in all these, are the influences and
operations of the religion taught by Christ and His apostles?”
Or, again, you read of Joseph, stoutly refusing the safe indulgence of a
forbidden pleasure, under a heartfelt conviction of required sanctity,
and present accountability, which found its vent in those memorable
words, “How can I do this great wickedness and sin against GOD?” And
then you find him, after shining thus brilliantly as a saint, patiently,
religiously bearing the treatment of a sinner. Or you read of Abraham,
giving up at a word’s bidding the comforts of home, the ties of kindred,
and the means of support; wandering henceforth throughout his life in a
strange land, apparently coming no nearer to the promised rest and
blessedness, yet cheerfully, hopefully, thankfully, admitting and feeling
that all was, and would be right and well for him. Or you read of Moses,
refusing the honours, the pleasures, the riches of a court life, and
choosing to be a wanderer, to endure all kinds of hardships and
reproaches, that he might avoid sin and serve GOD. Or you read of Job,
subjected to concentrated miseries and undeserved chastisements and
rebukes, and blessing the Hand which had imposed them, or at least had
not interfered to ward them off. Or you read of David, weeping over a
forgiven sin, setting it always before him, making frequent mention of it
in his prayers, accepting often reverses as the due chastisement of it,
and thanking GOD for them. Or you read of Stephen, cruelly maligned,
savagely beaten to death, and yet spending his dying breath, not in
protesting, not in invoking vengeance, but in praying, “LORD, lay not
this sin to their charge.” Or, once more, you read of Paul, testifying
that to die is gain, and, in the least adverse circumstances of his
converted life, coveting to depart.
You read, I say, of these things; you consider under what feelings and
hopes they were borne and encountered, and you sadly exclaim, “Where, in
me, in deed or feeling, in aim or restraint, in perseverance or patience,
is the religion of Joseph, of Abraham, of Moses, of Job, of David, of
Stephen, of Paul? Do I thus resist temptations to unlawful pleasures?
Do I set loose my natural affections, give up my worldly goods, go forth
into unknown and unguessed-at circumstances at Divine bidding? Do I
refuse proffered honours, riches, pleasures, not because they are in
themselves sinful, but because they _may_ possibly lead me into sin? Do
I patiently and thankfully endure even merited chastisements? Do I
struggle with myself and with GOD to prevent past sins from escaping out
of my remembrance? Do I seek to bless those who revile or injure me? Do
I feel that to die is gain; and do I covet to depart?”
If not, why not? It is so that GOD willed men to do; it is so they have
in many cases done; and it is so that many still do. Yes, there are
still such saints; men and women who steadfastly resist wrong pleasures,
under the heart-conviction of required sanctity, and of accountability to
a present GOD; who give up, even while they hold them, all worldly
possessions, and go forth, in feeling, in desire, in deed if need be,
without distrust, with happy, thankful, confidence, when and
whithersoever GOD bids them; who forego proffered advantages, and content
themselves with a low seat when they might, perhaps, have the highest,
because it is _safer_ for them as servants of GOD; who weep and abhor
themselves, and desire to be chastened for their sins; who love to do
good to their enemies; who holily yearn to die. There are men and women
who do make religion the one thing needful; who hold themselves in check
by its restraints; who urge themselves on by its promises; who bask in
its sunshine, and reflect its glorious image in their lives. There are
men and women whose business is religion; who kneel long and often in
prayer; who meditate day and night on the Bible; whose hearts ever leap
to GOD; who grieve to forego an opportunity of holy communion; who never
stop away from church because there are only prayers, or because their
favourite preacher will not be in the pulpit, or because it is hot or
cold. Good citizens they are, attentive to their callings, provident
parents, dutiful children, affectionate husbands and wives, cheerful
companions, most useful in their generation, and yet truly religious,
bent upon religion; regarding this life as an apprenticeship to it, and
striving so to use their apprenticeship as to be perfect in their
calling, ere they are summoned to exercise it (their ardent expectation)
as partners with angels, and patriarchs, and apostles, and perfected
saints, under the rule of the LORD of Glory, in the city of the New
Jerusalem.
My brethren, if GOD has prescribed such religion as this; if saints of
old, ay, and men and women of our own times too, have been thus
religious; it must be important, and, I would fain hope, acceptable, for
you who profess and desire to be religious, but are not, to learn wherein
you differ, why you fail. The text tells you: “The natural man receiveth
not the things of the Spirit of GOD: for they are foolishness unto him:
neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” “The
things of the Spirit of GOD” (the matters, that is, of revelation) are
foolishness to the natural man, and he cannot know or appreciate them.
My brethren, are the things of the Spirit of GOD ever regarded by you as
foolishness? Start not, nor be offended at the question. You would,
doubtless, deem it very blasphemy to say, “it is folly,” of anything GOD
has revealed. You would rush from the bare thought. Still, you may
practically allow what you thus shudder at when exhibited in its
plainness. Let us see. Do you ever deliberately do what religion
forbids? Do you ever deliberately omit what religion requires? Do you
never weigh the things of the world against the things of the Spirit, and
then choose the former? Do you never prefer pleasure to duty? staying
away from church, or curtailing your religious worship, to take your
leisure, to enjoy a friend’s company, to go for a pleasant walk, to read
an interesting book, to see some unusual sight, to frequent some place of
secular entertainment, to forward some worldly end? Do you not, at
least, excuse yourselves from acts of religion, by pleas that you would
not admit in these other cases? Do you not find time for earthly things,
that you do not find for spiritual? Do you not make exertions for
worldly ends, that you do not make for heavenly? Do you not curb, and
restrain, and deny yourselves, in the one case, and use no such
discipline in the other? Well, of course you do this through some
appreciation of the thing sought; because it interests you, is pleasant,
or expedient, or profitable. You do not deliberately choose “folly,” you
pursue it as the wise course, _i.e._, you treat the opposite as though it
were unwise, not realising it to be wisdom, you put it aside as
foolishness. Then, again, of restraints, and sanctions, and hopes.
Would you not forbear to do in the presence of a fellow-being what you
unhesitatingly do under the eye of GOD? Do you not fear a parent, a
husband, a wife, a master, a friend, a customer, more than GOD? Does the
thought of eternal punishment concern you as much as the prospect of
chastisement at the hand of man? of failure in business? of serious
illness? of bodily disfigurement? Do you act chiefly with regard to the
praise of GOD, or the admiration of your fellow-beings? Do you _feast_
on the expectation of heaven, or on that of some worldly joy or honour?
Do you like, above all things, the thought of dwelling for ever where
there will be no money-getting, no earthly indulgences, no flattery, no
vain glory, no frivolity, no unseemliness, no rest from the praising of
GOD, and the company of saints? If a message came to you now, that
within an hour you should be removed to paradise, would you not shrink
from the announcement? would you not cling to earth? would you not wish
your removal to be deferred? Then do you not appreciate something more
than the things of the Spirit of GOD? Do not your desires, and hopes,
and fears, deal with them as though they were comparatively foolishness?
Remember, brethren, I am not now inveighing against sin; I am not
attempting to make a catalogue of your offences, that I may reproach you
on account of its length. My object is simply to lead you to ascertain
how you regard the things of the Spirit of GOD; and so to help you to
answer for yourselves the important questions, why you are not more truly
religious, why religion is not with you the one thing needful. Murmur
not, then, at home-thrusts. Plead not excuses for what is felt to be
amiss. Simply answer to yourselves whether or no your life approves the
things of the Spirit as _wisdom_; and, if not, be anxious to learn (that
you may profit by the knowledge) _why_ it treats them as foolishness.
Now, St. Paul tells us, that it is the natural man to whom these things
are foolishness; and the spiritual by whom they are discerned to be
wisdom. In proportion, then, as you receive them not, or undervalue
them, you are natural in contradistinction to spiritual. And what is it
to be thus natural? It is to regard the things of religion as one doth
other things, from a mere human point of view; and with the faculties and
feelings that belong to our human nature, independently of the operation
on it of the enlightening and persuading and strengthening influences of
the Holy Spirit. It is to attempt to acquaint ourselves with them by
natural observation and scrutiny; to expect to understand them through
natural instruction received into natural ears; to try to picture them by
the exercise of natural imagination. This is to be natural; and this is
what we too frequently are. We get our religious notions as we do our
acquaintance with natural science, or with secular history: from
observation, or reading, or hearing. We strive to be religious (simply
mechanically) by obeying certain laws, and following certain prescribed
courses, just as we become peaceful subjects or approved servants; aiming
to do what is bidden, to avoid what is prohibited: not from appreciating
the sanction or restriction; not from loving what is ordered; but simply
from following it as appointed and obligatory obedience. And we get our
conception of heaven, of eternal bliss, of GOD Himself (just as we form
ideas about countries afar off, or men who lived before us), by putting
together for ourselves, and making to assume a shape of fancy, what we
have read or heard about them. It is the mere man—the brain, the mind,
the human soul, the natural affections, the unassisted innate
energy—which conceives and aims at the observance of the things of the
Spirit of GOD. Hence the failure. The natural powers, which alone we
use, cannot grasp spiritual things. “_Eye_ hath not seen, nor _ear_
heard, neither have entered into the _mind_ of man to conceive the things
which GOD hath prepared for them that love Him:” and yet it is the eye,
the ear, or the mind, which alone we use to discern them. We have indeed
a _theory_ which contradicts our practice. We know of an external
power—the Holy Spirit, which alone can take of the things of GOD and show
them unto us, and influence us to love, and enable us to follow them. We
know how that power is to be appropriated, and sustained, and made
effectual. We talk of its imparted gift, and we use certain words of
prayer for its continuance and efficacious working, but still we go on
thinking our own thoughts and doing our own deeds, as though there were
no such power; and we wonder and grieve that we are not religious; that
we do not heartily approve and follow what GOD has enjoined and promised.
Believe me, my brethren, or, rather, believe the apostle, it will never
be otherwise till you are thoroughly convinced of the utter inability of
the natural man to discern the things of the Spirit of GOD; till your
religion consists of earnest entreaties for Divine instruction and
impulse, of ready, eager use of all appointed means of securing and
vivifying within you the operation of Divine grace, of entire submission
to the Spirit’s rule, of watchfulness for His motions, of zealous
co-operation with Him. You may spend your life in trying to learn and
practise religion, and yet be irreligious after all; unless you renounce
all the independent thoughts and efforts of the natural man; unless you
give yourselves, actively and passively, in all things, to the special
illumination and direction of the Holy Spirit of GOD. Trust not to the
eye, to the ear, or to the mind: they cannot inform or influence you.
Trust not, I say, to the eye. People talk of finding out GOD from the
contemplation of His works; of looking from nature up to nature’s GOD; of
examining the evidences of religion, and becoming religious. But who
ever found out the GOD of the Bible from the works of nature; by the
traces of power, and wisdom, and skill, and adaptation, which it is true
are marked upon every part of creation; by theorising about a first
cause; by investigating Scriptural coincidences, and establishing the
authenticity of sacred history? One of the ablest naturalists that ever
lived ascribed the various forms and functions of animals to chance, to
the operations of winds and streams, to shaping in natural moulds. One
of the profoundest astronomers saw no necessity for a first cause; and
the man who penned perhaps the sublimest description of our blessed
LORD’S character and career, and the most cogent argument for accepting
Him as the Messiah, concluded all by saying: “And yet I cannot believe in
Him.”
No! brethren; nature is the _handmaid_ of religion. It will corroborate
what is already revealed; but it is no ladder to heaven; it is no
telescope, to bring near what is afar off. Look at yourselves, and at
all around you, by natural light only. You perceive Providence, but not
love; sin, but not its remedy; mortality, but not immortality. Read
history, ponder probabilities, accredit testimony. Your mind will be
instructed; your heart, perhaps, touched; but your spirit will not be
quickened.
It is for this reason that the advocates of religion protest so stoutly
against harmless, intellectual recreation as a compromise between
godliness and ungodliness; and maintain, on Scripture grounds, that
however sobered, however civilised, however naturally elevated, the man
is not one inch nearer to heaven and spiritual discernment who spends his
Sunday in a crystal palace, or a museum of nature, than he who riots in a
den of infamy. “Eye hath not seen.” The natural man receiveth not the
things of the Spirit of GOD.
Neither, again, hath _ear_ heard them. Others, that is, cannot describe
them to us. It was this which made Paul’s preaching foolishness to the
Corinthians. Judges of beauty, lovers of philosophy, fertile imaginers
they were, but they had no spiritual ear; they were not enabled by the
Holy Spirit; and so the preaching of Christianity sounded to them as some
unknown tongue would to us; as unintelligible, unmeaning jargon. Ask an
unlearned man to give you an account of some abstruse lecture he has
heard; and he will be able to tell you as much as the natural man can
tell you of the religious instruction he has received. He will have
caught certain names and definitions; he will have remembered, that
something was to be thought about _this_, and something to be done about
_that_; and, if he is enthusiastic, he will, perhaps, attempt the
thinking and the doing. But he will not have grasped the subject; he
will have no soul to receive it; for the necessary qualification is
wanting—learning, and love of learning. And so, when the Bible, or the
preacher, sets forth the things of the Spirit, the natural reader, or
hearer, receives them not, and cannot know them. When Christ was on
earth, and spoke in simplest words, the men who heard Him, even His own
disciples, knew not what He said; and if He were now to come down from
heaven and preach to us, all His instruction, all his loving
remonstrances, all His precepts and promises, all his glowing pictures of
bliss, all His threats of wrath, would be heard by the mere natural man
(by those who are not spiritually fitted for spiritual instruction)
without influence, and all but without comprehension.
It is most important, brethren, to be convinced of this. We are all of
us too apt to make our religion consist of hearing sermons; to suppose,
that if we listen patiently, and grasp the intellectual meaning, and feel
a little emotion about what is pathetic and alarming, and have a desire
to do something that the preacher recommended, or to give up something
that he denounced, then that we are receiving the things of the Spirit.
Whereas preaching cannot, under any circumstances, do the least spiritual
good, or at all enlarge spiritual comprehension, unless the hearers are
spiritually prepared. We discourse on heaven or hell: we put together
all that the Bible says or hints about it; we form a kind of natural
picture of a spiritual thing, and we bid you look at it and consider it.
Wherefore? If you are spiritual, to quicken your spirit; if you are
natural, to speak to you a kind of parable, the meaning whereof you may
be prompted to ask of Him who alone can reveal it, the Holy Spirit of
GOD. And so of all preaching; it is an important means to an end. It
talks to men of GOD, of redemption, of probation, of the Holy Spirit, of
heaven and hell: not with any hope of thereby revealing to them these
things; but only to convince their eyes, their ears, their hearts, that
there is a kind of knowledge which ought to be had, but which they cannot
take in; and so to stir them up to the inquiring how it is to be had, and
to enlist them in the right effort to obtain it. Through the ear we
arrest the natural man, as the voice of thunder did Saul on his road to
Damascus; we do not sanctify him; we do not show him the things of GOD;
we only convince him that there is something which he has not rightly
received, or taken into account, and we bid him go elsewhere, to the
Spirit, for instruction and salvation. The only possible good that a
sermon can do, is, by working on the feelings, or appealing to the
understanding, or cross-questioning the conscience, to stir men up to
say: “I will know more of this matter.” And the work of grace is only
then beginning, when the hearer of the sermon becomes a learner of the
Spirit. Ear hath not heard.
“Neither hath entered into the mind of man to conceive” spiritual things.
I need not enlarge on this. We know, indeed, that the imagination has
great powers; that it forms a very tangible idea of what neither eye nor
ear has had opportunity to discern; that sometimes it surpasses eye and
ear, and succeeds in grasping what they have but touched. Hence such
sayings as, “It is easier to imagine than describe;” and such practices
as shutting the eyes, when we want to realise an idea. But still, in
spiritual things, if actual observation and study, if faithful
descriptions by qualified persons, a prophet, an apostle, the Bible, the
Spirit, utterly fail to inform the natural man, surely he cannot expect
illumination from the fancies of his unassisted imagination. Religious
ideas come into the _mind_ through the eye and the ear; if, then, these
have all along been closed, it must, of course, be empty.
And now, dear brethren, does not all this show you why you are so little
religious? Have you not, all along, been dealing with the things of the
Spirit too much as though they were things which you could perceive by
observation, by investigating their evidence, by intellectually studying
them? Have not you tried to learn religion as you would a human
language, or a physical science? And have not your highest religious
exercises, your searchings into the deep things of GOD, been the hearing
of sermons; or the indulging of your reason, or your imagination? What
do you know of religion, which you did not in some of these ways acquire?
How much has the Spirit of GOD taught you? that Spirit who alone knows
the things of GOD, and who alone can reveal them; that Spirit which comes
not first into the eye, or the ear, or the mind of man, but into his
spirit. How often do you pray for the Holy Spirit, and strive to prepare
yourselves for Him? What dependence do you place on Him for guidance?
What means do you use to bring Him near; and how much have you Him in
mind while using them? What homage do you render Him? How do you serve
Him? When do you commune with Him? When you regard nature, is it by the
light of the Spirit? When you read the Bible, is it to learn what the
Spirit will say to you, the Spirit invoked to speak? When you hear a
sermon, do you pray the Spirit, “LORD, declare unto me, unto my spirit,
this parable?” When you meditate, is your supplication, “Open thou mine
eyes;” “Except Thy presence go with me, carry me not up hence?” Is your
life—thoughts, words, and deeds—directed by the consideration, “If any
man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of
GOD”? If not, this is why you are not really religious; and the remedy
is in seeking to be and do what I have now described.
Only use your spirit as you have hitherto used your eye, your ear, or
your mind. Only put yourselves under the tutorship of the Spirit of GOD.
Only seek to meet Him in appointed places; at public worship, at holy
communion, over the Bible, on your knees. Only seek instruction from
Him, and refer to Him for interpretations and explanations; and only ask
His help to be spiritually used; and order your life, as far as you can,
in accordance with your prayers. And soon you will be, not smatterers,
but apt scholars of Divine learning; soon you will walk as seeing Him who
is invisible; soon will you _know_ the reality of spiritual things; and,
knowing them, love them and seek for them. They will cease to be
foolishness to you. You will choose them in every circumstance, as
wisdom; you will feel religion to be the one thing needful; you will make
it the business and the pleasure of your lives. The life of a Joseph, an
Abraham, a Moses, a Job, a David, a Stephen, a Paul, will be found to be
not simply possible, but desirable; the only life worthy of the name.
Obedience will be easy; trust will expel care; love will cast out fear;
selfishness will pass away; temptations will lose their power. No matter
will it be to you, where or what you are. Prosperity, adversity, honour,
shame, power, weakness, life, and death, will be indifferent to you. If
you live, you will live to the LORD; if you die, you will die to the
LORD: living and dying, in endurance and desire, thought and deed, you
will be the LORD’S.
Brethren, this is what the Spirit of GOD would make you. That Spirit is
pledged to all of you who ask for Him; He waits to reveal to you the
things of GOD.
* * * * *
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FOOTNOTES.
{38} Hooker.
{65} Ezekiel, xxxvi., 37.
{67} Ps. xxxii., 3, 4, 5, 6.
{71} Matt., v., 23, 24.
{72a} James, v., 16.
{72b} Joshua, vii., 19.
{75} Mal., ii., 7.
{76} In theory, the penitent may reserve the confession of venial sins;
but, as he cannot rightly judge what are venial sins, in practice he has
to confess all.
{77} See next Sermon.
{80} Repentance, p. 61.
{90} Jer., xviii., 7–10.
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