Part 10

First, it reveals to us, if I mistake not, a contention between spiritual powers (the Son of GOD on the one side, the Devil on the other), followed by a victory of the good, and a conspicuous defeat of the evil. That was no accidental raging of wind and waves, that was no operation of the GOD of providence using the elements to accomplish good purposes which was rebuked by the voice of the Son of GOD. Rebuke would be meaningless addressed to mere wind and wave: it would be blasphemous addressed to GOD. It is only when speaking to the Devil, to fevers and distempers, the effects of demoniacal possession, to Peter or others, prompted by Satan, speaking his words, doing his work, that CHRIST uses rebuke. Here then, surely, Satan was at work, and here he was confounded! The enemy of souls had never ceased to watch and seek to destroy the Saviour. He had stirred up Herod against Him in His infancy. He had personally assailed Him in the wilderness. He was now using the elements, over which much power is often allowed him, as we see in Job’s case, as his agents of evil. But with all his wisdom and perception, he knew not what was in JESUS. He thought once that he could as easily have made Him sceptical as he did Eve, “hath GOD said,” “If Thou be the Son of Man.” He thought now that while the Son of Man slept he was unconscious and powerless. And so in his folly he sought to wreck the vessel, and overwhelm Him whom it carried in the depths of the sea. Attempting this, he did but give occasion for an additional manifestation of CHRIST’S mission and power to destroy him and his works. On the shore, before He started, CHRIST had cast out devils. On the shore for which He was making He would again cast them out. On the sea He now meets them, and confounds them. O what a mighty, what a galling conquest! Satan had let loose all the powers of the winds, he had lashed the waves into utmost fury, the disciples were dismayed, the Saviour was asleep, the ship was sinking. “Only a few moments,” doubtless, he exultingly thought, “and there shall be a second destruction of man, the kingdom shall surely become mine, for there will be none to dispute it”—when, lo! the LORD arose, and, with a word, made him undo the work he had done. “Peace be still;” and the wind ceased, and there was a great calm! O signal defeat! O earnest of the promise that the head of the serpent shall be bruised, that Satan himself shall be bound and trodden under foot, and cast into the lake of fire, and shall deceive and vex no more. Surely, this is one of the chief scenes, one of the most mysterious and important events, one of the most glorious manifestations of CHRIST’S life on earth.

But this is not all its significance. The miracles of our LORD were acted parables—types of spiritual things—rather outward signs, not themselves to be given up, but thereafter to be accompanied by inward grace.

The ship on the sea of Galilee represents the Christian Church, or the individual member of it. The sea is the world; the storm, with its adverse wind and difficult waves, figures the trials, the buffetings, the persecutions, the fears of this mortal life; the disciples are the types of weak yet willing human nature—both our warnings and our examples; and CHRIST is Himself, yet, so to speak, but a figure of the true, dwelling in His Church in each faithful member, often apparently unheeding, unconscious, yet always our sure defence and deliverer, prompt to hear when called upon, able to comfort, mighty to save.

That entry into the ship, and sailing forth into the sea, represents our first journey, and each renewed journey to CHRIST, in Baptism, in Confirmation, in Holy Communion, in every fresh repentance, every vow, every act of worship. Forth we go with Him. All is calm and hopeful. We seem to have to journey over quiet waters. The shore of Heaven is straight before us, and we are making for it. But, as soon as we set out, our envious, deadly enemy, hating our LORD, and hating us, plots our destruction, and assays its accomplishment. Soon trouble takes the place of peace, winds of adversity toss and try us, hope begins to pale, terror to dismay, the waters go even over our soul, and He who should calm us, and sustain and cheer us, seems to have fallen asleep, to help us not, to take no notice of us. It is the hour of GOD’S trial, of the Devil’s temptation! What shall we do? If we are wise sailors, like as I have supposed the disciples to have done, we shall meet the occasion with well-directed energy; we shall keep the vessel away from the quicksands of pleasure, the shallows of pride, the rocks of offence, and the whirlpools of sin. We shall cast out the weight that drags us down, sloth, indifference, besetting sin. We shall bear up against the boisterous winds of adversity. We shall resolutely and perseveringly pursue the straight course through the waters, making for, looking for the shore. Unless we do all this, we have no right to hope. But we must take care, lest in, ay, even by doing it, we lose our hope. Satan destroys many because they make no effort to save themselves; but he destroys quite as many because they rely on their own efforts. It is a fact that we can do nothing by ourselves; that human wisdom, self-reliant, is sure to be confounded, and human effort, independent, to be paralysed. But even if for the time we see what is right, and are successful in doing it, he will enshroud us in such horrible darkness, he will fill our ears with such dismal sounds, he will so toss and bewilder and overwhelm us, that presently weariness, perplexity, and despair will cause us to give up, to consent to our own destruction. The disciples in that storm-tossed ship seem to have been bringing themselves well nigh into this ruin, first to have relied on themselves, and then to have despaired of themselves, all the while forgetting Who was with them, Who should have been their guide, Who was their sure protector, when, all at once, before it was too late, they remembered and aroused Him, and called Him to their aid. It was their bliss to find that “the saint’s extremity is GOD’S opportunity;” that it is never too late, before destruction, to call upon Him and be saved; but they were not allowed to enjoy this bliss unmixed with reproach for self-confidence and for want of confidence in Him. In all the storms and dangers which beset us on the sea of life, let us take example from the disciples to call upon Him who can save us, and let us also take warning from them, not to forget His company, or to suppose that He forgets us.

Such seems to be a sketch of the interpretation of the meaning and instruction for us of this acted parable.

And now, brethren, having learnt the general truth, let us pick out and dwell upon some of its particulars.

And first, in setting out with CHRIST, expect storms and dangers. We are too apt to suppose that the war of life is to be waged only with men, that the storms of life are only encountered in temporal things. We can well understand that it was otherwise, that it must have been otherwise, with the first founders of the Church, with confessors in the face of unbelieving Jews and heathen Romans, with the Reformers, with missionaries now: but in our own case we calculate on a smooth and safe journey over the sea of time to the shore of eternity, ay, and after many days, experience, we say, confirms our calculation. No sore temptations try us; no conflict of good and evil principles tosses and tears us; no despair threatens to drown us. We have trouble enough in the world, in earning our daily bread, in claiming and maintaining our own, in becoming rich, or powerful, or famous, in ruling those who rebel against our just authority, who would gainsay our words, and frustrate our efforts. But in spiritual things this is not the case. We find it easy (I speak that which the manifest lives and apparent feelings of what are called respectable men justify my speaking) to follow the course which we would in religion—we worship in church, we read the Bible and pray at home without opposition. It costs us no trouble to keep the letter of GOD’S chief commandments. We know nothing of spiritual wrestling, spiritual fear, spiritual despondency. Why should we? Our ways are mainly upright; our consciences not afraid, our duty plain and simple; and in CHRIST, therefore, our hope sure. I know that men think this (at least they do not think otherwise), and in their lives they act it, even if they dare not shape it into words. But, brethren, if it is so with you, look to it, for the calm is more deadly than the storm. The Devil is the inveterate enemy and the untiring assailant of CHRIST and Christians. His whole being and energy are concentrated in the aim and effort to bury the ark of CHRIST in the sea of eternal destruction. If, then, you pass over that sea, and are enshrouded by no darkness, beaten by no winds, tossed by no billows, be sure that it is because CHRIST is not in your company. That Church has had its candlestick removed, which dwells in security, peaceful and prosperous; and that individual has not CHRIST for the tenant of his heart who experiences not what the storm-tossed vessel typified. Satan is intent upon destroying every one that is CHRIST’S. If he attempts not your destruction, it is because he does not consider you CHRIST’S—and, remember, though he is not all-wise, he is as an angel, and an archangel in perception—because your vessel bears not CHRIST; because you are on no journey with CHRIST to cast out evil spirits and drive them over steep places into the sea. O, my brethren, it is an awful sign, a death-boding distinction, when Satan lets us alone in this sea of life, and deems it unnecessary to keep us by violent efforts from reaching heaven. It is the expression of his informed and deliberate judgment that we are not going thither! O ye who dwell at ease and glide smoothly along the journey of life, put back, take CHRIST on board, and joy when you find in yourselves the signs of His presence, the assaults of Satan, the warring within you of good and evil, the stirrings of conscience, the flutterings of spiritual fear. I do not mean become morbid, and delight in what is mournful and terrible; but suspect and refuse the peace which Satan offers without contest, and determine to have only that which in CHRIST’S strength you win and maintain.

Next, consider the meaning of CHRIST’S lying asleep in the storm, and interfering not to control it, till so earnestly called up.

In providence and in grace GOD delights, so to speak, to hide Himself, though He exhibits the results of His works. He is the Author of every gift, and the Ruler and Promoter of its use; but He puts it into our hands as His agents, and bids us with it accomplish His will. As the heart is the fountain of the blood which flows through our members, as it is bone and muscle that give strength to the arm, so is GOD the Source of grace to the soul, and the prevailing Power of our efforts. Still, it is not Himself prominently and foremost that does the work in the world, but we from and by Him. The explanation of this economy seems to be, first, that He would have us walk by faith—remembering Him, relying on Him, working for Him—rather than by right, constrained, whether we will or not, without feeling or desire, or dependence, to see, and admit, and feel His power. And, secondly, that He would give us an individuality, a certain dependent independence, which shall make us feel personal responsibility, and allow us to deserve (in a sense) the recompense of personal effort. Thus, He leaves the fool to say, There is no GOD, and rewards the faithful by revealing Himself to belief. Thus, while there is a GOD, while He is not far from us, while in Him we live and move and have our being, we are required and stimulated to seek Him, to feel after Him, and find Him. Besides, or more properly _therefore_, we have to call upon Him before He answers. Even when He had determined, and declared His determination, to bless the Israelites, He made the condition, “Nevertheless, for these things I will be inquired of.” He would have us live by spiritual dependence. He would have us communicate to Him our wants. He would have us draw down by prayer the supply. And this He effects by making it a law, that He will know nothing of us, at least know nothing so as to heed for our good, but what we tell Him, and will give us nothing but what we ask. I have so lately enlarged upon this subject that I will add nothing upon it now, but to bid you remember the necessity and the power of prayer.

Lastly, consider what is taught by that remonstrance, spoken in the interval between awaking and acting, “Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?” I have already said that CHRIST did not disapprove the prayer, but only the fear which had preceded it, the poverty of the faith which accompanied it. Neither did He demand of the disciples the impossibility of being undisturbed in the midst of such perturbation. It is natural—natural even to the Christian full of grace, to be affected by the circumstances which attend him. CHRIST was so affected Himself, as His prayers, and shrinkings, and watchings, and open teaching assure us. He, who wept at human misery, though He was just going to put it to flight; He, who shrank from the trial which He had deliberately and of choice encountered, has sanctioned and recommended (shall I say enforced?) by His example the same feelings in His disciples. He does not forbid us to be human, but only requires us to leaven humanity with godliness. Trials we are to have, and trials we ought to feel. To be stolid and callous is to be unchristian, for none ever felt trials as CHRIST did. But in our trials, while we feel, and weep, and shrink, we are not to be faint-hearted. We are to know in Whom we have believed. We are, therefore, to bear them, and submit to them; but we are not to be overpowered by them. We are not to allow them to exercise such an influence as to make us forget that there is One greater than the storm, Who rules it even in its wildest raging, Who will cause it to cease when it is fitting, Who will not allow it to overwhelm us if we are dependent on Him in its continuance, if we hope in Him to stay it. Terrible is the darkness of the sky, powerful is the violence of the wind, drenching are the waves, but the ship shall not sink, for CHRIST is in it. Whatever, then, the terrors and the trouble of the present, we have hope, we have confidence in the future. “Why art thou so cast down O my soul, and why art thou so disquieted within me? Hope in GOD for I shall yet praise Him, Who is the health of my countenance and my GOD.”

Such is the teaching of CHRIST’S remonstrance. And the time of its utterance, the delay to assuage the storm, teaches this further lesson, that in this life CHRIST will give us comfort in trouble, but not necessarily deliverance out of trouble. By and by He will indeed deliver us. But the best blessing here is not immunity, but trust and support. There is a peace in war, a joy in sorrow, a strength in weakness, with which the world and the Devil cannot intermeddle. Seek we this, and be sure we are wanting in what CHRIST delights to afford, if we have it not. But having it, bear we patiently, thankfully, all outward commotion, faithfully expecting the time, when openly, as already inwardly, CHRIST shall arise and command “Peace be still,” and there shall be a great and abiding calm.

SERMON XII. UNITY WITH PEACE.

EPHESIANS, IV., 1, 2, 3.

_I_, _therefore_, _the prisoner of the_ LORD, _beseech you that ye walk worthy of the calling wherewith ye are called_, _With all lowliness and meekness_, _with longsuffering_, _forbearing one another in love_; _Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace_.

IT was the prayer of our Blessed LORD—what an earnest prayer it was, delivered in what solemn and affecting circumstances—that all His disciples might be one, even as He and the Father were one. He had laboured to secure this oneness, by teaching them that there was the same truth for all to receive, and the same work for all to do. Individual fancies and theories were not to be indulged, where the whole teaching was of GOD; pride was not to exercise itself where everything was received, and nothing earned; ambition was checked, by being told that, by seeking, it should lose, that he who would be first should be last. All were equal in position, all equal in privileges. In serving one another, in preferring one another—by this alone could they please GOD; in this way only could they reach unto eminence. Devoted to a common LORD, directed by a common revelation, enabled by a common grace, exercised in a common work, cheered by a common hope, surrounded with common trials and difficulties—what could there be within, without, past, present, or future, which should prevent them from all thinking the same thoughts and doing the same works, sinking the individual in the company, clinging to one another, labouring together, knit together in a holy bond—“One LORD, one faith, one baptism, one GOD and Father of all, Who is above all, and through all, and in all.” To think for oneself, what was it but to reject GOD’S truth; to act independently, but to forsake their appointed work; not to serve and love the brethren, not to serve and love the LORD; to separate from the Christian company, to go away from CHRIST?

Even if the Spirit had not been given to effect this unity, if the Gospel had not enforced it by the plainest denunciation of heresies and schisms—crimes classed by it with the worst and lowest, and most certain to exclude from heaven; even if CHRIST had never prayed for their union, nor taught them that they were to be united, still, if the disciples of religion were like the followers of any other cause, it might have been expected—it would have seemed morally impossible that it should be otherwise—that the remembrance and love of their Master, the cause which they had taken up, the knowledge of the way in which alone it could be furthered, their common relationship, and interests, and aims, and hopes, would have kept them in one body, would have bound them fast to each other in the bonds of peace. And, doubtless, it would have been so, but for the influence and machinations of the evil one. There could have been no other fruit from such seed, but that the enemy sowed tares in the same field. In CHRIST, self had been denied and destroyed. His Church was to be the embodiment and propagator of self-denial, self-submission, self-devotion. Such a Church threatened antichrist with certain destruction: for antichrist is the spirit of self—and selfishness destroyed, where would be sin? Therefore, the Devil sought to break up or mar and impair the Church; and, to accomplish his object, infused into as many of its members as he could, the very spirit of self, which it was commissioned to destroy. Alas! he was too successful in his fell work. Soon self began to ask, “Why should I not choose what to believe—what to do? Why should I not make to myself a name, and claim for myself authority, and power, and reverence? Why should I not have private views, and seek private ends? Why should I suffer, and forbear, and seek another’s good, rather than my own?” The selfish question was father to the selfish determination; and so, even in the Apostles’ time, the faith was mutilated here and denied there—there were heresies, and schisms, and strifes, and boastings of spiritual gifts, and withholding of temporal substance from GOD, and indulgence of lusts, and hatings, and revengings, and backbitings, and fightings, and denying of one another, among those who were all called with one calling, enlightened and sanctified by one Spirit, appointed to “keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” And so it has continued to the present time. There is no such reasoning, and questioning, and quibbling, and deciding for oneself what to believe, about any other subject, as about the truth, which GOD has plainly taught and has clearly defined. There are no other divisions so numerous, so lamentable, so strife-begotten, and strife-engendering, as in the one body of CHRIST. Pride, and ambition, and self-seeking, in all its worst forms; evil suspicions, revilings, hatred, persecutions, have abounded, and do abound, and boldly manifest themselves in that very community whence self was to be expelled! Many antichrists are in the world, but as many in the Church. The very heathen repel our attempts to convert them, by bidding us first agree what to believe ourselves. The worst of men say they have a right to despise us for our bitter jealousies and disliking of one another; and the taunt is common, and has been in some measure provoked, that religion is only a mask, a cloak to hide men’s basest passions and worst deeds.

It may be urged—it ought to be urged—that this is not altogether the fault of Christians. It was the will of GOD that the goats should be allowed to mingle with the sheep, that the tares should not be rooted out from among the wheat, that the net should contain small as well as great, worthless as well as good fishes. Hence they are “not all Israel, who are of Israel.” And so the bad feelings and deeds, the things which are an offence and a reproach in Christendom, are to be charged not altogether to CHRIST’S true followers, but to those who only in name are Christians—to the world, in fact, intruding into, and mixing itself up with, the Church.

Yes; this is so. The world has sought and found scope in the Church for the wild exercise of its reason, for profane speculations, and whimsical fancies; for self-indulgence, too, in all its forms; for lusts, and strifes, and false accusations, and enmities, and wickedness, of every hue and measure. The worst heretics and schismatics, the fiercest persecutors, the bitterest accusers of the brethren, are evidently not true followers, even in intention, of CHRIST; they are not rebels and traitors, “they are not of us,” they belong to the enemy, and have stolen into our camp; and are now mixing themselves with us, and confounding, and harassing, and misguiding us, as part of the subtle warfare which is being waged by Satan against us. But still, alas! we are not clear. Too many who deserve to be called something better than nominal Christians, too many—ay, even of the best of us—make no endeavour—that is worthy of the name—to keep the unity of the Spirit; or, if they strive for unity, forget the bond of peace.