dim. A religion of deep Bible knowledge, is a firm and lasting
possession. It enables a man not merely to say, "I feel hope in Christ,"--but "I know whom I have believed." (2 Tim. i. 12.)
(4) This paper may fall into the hands of some one who _reads the Bible much, and yet fancies he is no better for his reading_. This is a crafty temptation of the devil. At one stage he says, "Do not read the Bible at all." At another he says, "Your reading does you no good: give it up." Are you that man? I feel for you from the bottom of my soul. Let me try to do you good.
Do not think you are getting no good from the Bible, merely because you do not see that good day by day. The greatest effects are by no means those which make the most noise, and are most easily observed. The greatest effects are often silent, quiet, and hard to detect at the time they are being produced. Think of the influence of the moon upon the earth, and of the air upon the human lungs. Remember how silently the dew falls, and how imperceptibly the grass grows. There may be far more doing than you think in your soul by your Bible-reading.
The Word may be gradually producing deep _impressions_ on your heart, of which you are not at present aware. Often when the memory is retaining no facts, the character of a man is receiving some everlasting impression. Is sin becoming every year more hateful to you? Is Christ becoming every year more precious? Is holiness becoming every year more lovely and desirable in your eyes? If these things are so, take courage. The Bible is doing you good, though you may not be able to trace it out day by day.
The Bible may be restraining you from some sin or delusion into which you would otherwise run. It may be daily keeping you back, and hedging you up, and preventing many a false step. Ah, you might soon find this out to your cost, if you were to cease reading the Word! The very familiarity of blessings sometimes makes us insensible to their value. Resist the devil. Settle it down in your mind as an established rule, that, whether you feel it at the moment or not, you are inhaling spiritual health by reading the Bible, and insensibly becoming more strong.
(5) This paper may fall into the hands of some who _really love the Bible, live upon the Bible, and read it much_. Are you one of these? Give me your attention, and I will mention a few things which we shall do well to lay to heart for time to come.
Let us resolve to _read the Bible more and more_ every year we live. Let us try to get it rooted in our memories, and engrafted into our hearts. Let us be thoroughly well provisioned with it against the voyage of death. Who knows but we may have a very stormy passage? Sight and hearing may fail us, and we may be in deep waters. Oh, to have the Word "hid in our hearts" in such an hour as that! (Ps. cxix. 11.)
Let us resolve to be _more watchful over our Bible-reading_ every year that we live. Let us be jealously careful about the time we give to it, and the manner that time is spent. Let us beware of omitting our daily reading without sufficient cause. Let us not be gaping, and yawning, and dozing over our book, while we read. Let us read like a London merchant studying the city article in the Times,--or like a wife reading a husband's letter from a distant land. Let us be very careful that we never exalt any minister, or sermon, or book, or tract, or friend above the Word. Cursed be that book, or tract, or human counsel, which creeps in between us and the Bible, and hides the Bible from our eyes! Once more I say, let us be very watchful. The moment we open the Bible the devil sits down by our side. Oh, to read with a hungry spirit, and a simple desire for edification!
Let us resolve to _honour the Bible more in our families_. Let us read it morning and evening to our children and households, and not be ashamed to let men see that we do so. Let us not be discouraged by seeing no good arise from it. The Bible-reading in a family has kept many a one from the gaol, the workhouse, and the Gazette, if it has not kept him from hell.
Let us resolve to _meditate more on the Bible_. It is good to take with us two or three texts when we go out into the world, and to turn them over and over in our minds whenever we have a little leisure. It keeps out many vain thoughts. It clenches the nail of daily reading. It preserves our souls from stagnating and breeding corrupt things. It sanctifies and quickens our memories, and prevents them becoming like those ponds where the frogs live but the fish die.
Let us resolve to _talk more to believers about the Bible_ when we meet them. Alas, the conversation of Christians, when they do meet, is often sadly unprofitable! How many frivolous, and trifling, and uncharitable things are said! Let us bring out the Bible more, and it will help to drive the devil away, and keep our hearts in tune. Oh, that we may all strive so to walk together in this evil world, that Jesus may often draw near, and go with us, as He went with the two disciples journeying to Emmaus!
Last of all, let us resolve to _live by the Bible more and more_ every year we live. Let us frequently take account of all our opinions and practices,--of our habits and tempers,--of our behaviour in public and in private,--in the world, and by our own firesides. Let us measure all by the Bible, and resolve, by God's help, to conform to it. Oh that we may learn increasingly to "cleanse our ways" by the Word! (Ps. cxix. 9.)
I commend all these things to the serious and prayerful attention of every one into whose hands this paper may fall. I want the ministers of my beloved country to be Bible-reading ministers,--the congregations, Bible-reading congregations,--and the nation, a Bible-reading nation. To bring about this desirable end I cast in my mite into God's treasury. The Lord grant that it may prove not to have been in vain!
VI
GOING TO THE TABLE
"_Let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup._"--1 Cor. xi. 28.
The words which form the title of this paper refer to a subject of vast importance. That subject is the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper.
Perhaps no part of the Christian religion is so thoroughly misunderstood as the Lord's Supper. On no point have there been so many disputes, strifes, and controversies for almost 1800 years. On no point have mistakes done so much harm. Even at this very day the battle is still raging, and Christians seem hopelessly divided. The very ordinance which was meant for our peace and profit has become the cause of discord and the occasion of sin. These things ought not so to be!
I make no excuse for including the Lord's Supper among the leading points of _practical_ Christianity. I believe firmly that ignorant views or false doctrine about this sacrament lie at the root of half the present divisions of professing Christians. Some neglect it altogether; some completely misunderstand it; some exalt it to a position it was never meant to occupy, and turn it into an idol. If I can throw a little light on it, and clear up the doubts of some minds, I shall feel very thankful. It is hopeless, I fear, to expect that the controversy about the Lord's Supper will ever be finally closed until the Lord comes. But it is not too much to hope that the fog and mystery and obscurity with which it is surrounded in some minds, may be cleared away by plain Bible truth.
In examining the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper I shall content myself with asking four practical questions, and offering answers to them.
I. Why was the Lord's supper ordained?
II. Who ought to go to the Table and be communicants?
III. What may communicants expect from the Lord's Supper?
IV. Why do many so-called Christians never go to the Lord's Table?
I think it will be impossible to handle these four questions fairly, honestly, and impartially, without seeing the subject of this paper more clearly, and getting some distinct and practical ideas about some leading errors of our day. I say "practical" emphatically. My chief aim in this volume is to promote practical Christianity.
I. In the first place, _why was the Lord's Supper ordained_?
I answer that question in the words of the Church Catechism. I am sure I cannot mend them. It was ordained "for the continual remembrance of the sacrifice of the death of Christ, and of the benefits which we receive thereby."--The bread which in the Lord's Supper is broken, given, and eaten, is meant to remind us of Christ's body given on the cross for our sins. The wine which is poured out and received, is meant to remind us of Christ's blood shed on the cross for our sins. He that eats that bread and drinks that wine is reminded, in the most striking and forcible manner, of the benefits Christ has obtained for his soul, and of the death of Christ as the hinge and turning point on which all those benefits depend.
Now is the view here stated the doctrine of the New Testament? If it is not, for ever let it be rejected, cast aside, and refused by men. If it is, let us never be ashamed to hold it fast, profess our belief in it, pin our faith on it, and steadfastly refuse to hold any other view, no matter by whom it is taught. In subjects like this we must call no man master. It signifies little what great Bishops and learned divines have thought fit to put forth about the Lord's Supper. If they teach more than the Word of God contains they are not to be believed.
I take down my Bible and turn to the New Testament. There I find no less than four separate accounts of the first appointment of the Lord's Supper. St. Matthew, St. Mark, St. Luke, and St. Paul, all four describe it: all four agree in telling us what our Lord did on this memorable occasion.--Two only tell us the reason which our Lord assigned why His disciples were to eat the bread and drink the cup. St. Paul and St. Luke both record the remarkable words, "_Do this in remembrance of Me_."--St. Paul adds his own inspired comment: "As often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do shew (or declare or proclaim) the Lord's death till He come." (Luke xxii. 19; 1 Cor. xi. 25, 26.) When Scripture speaks so plainly, why cannot men be content with it? Why should we mystify and confuse a subject which in the New Testament is so simple? The "continual remembrance of Christ's death" was the one grand object for which the Lord's Supper was ordained. He that goes further than this is adding to God's Word, and does so to the great peril of his soul.
Now is it reasonable to suppose that our Lord would appoint an ordinance for so simple a purpose as the "_keeping His death in remembrance_"? Most certainly it is. Of all the facts in His earthly ministry none are equal in importance to that of His death. It was the great satisfaction for man's sin, which had been appointed in God's covenant from the foundation of the world. It was the great atonement of almighty power, to which every sacrifice of animals, from the fall of man, continually pointed. It was the grand end and purpose for which Messiah came into the world. It was the corner-stone and foundation of all man's hopes of pardon and peace with God. In short, Christ would have lived, and taught, and preached, and prophesied, and wrought miracles in vain, if He had not _crowned all by dying for our sins as our Substitute_! His death was our life. His death was the payment of our debt to God. Without His death we should have been of all creatures most miserable. No wonder that an ordinance was specially appointed to remind us of our Saviour's death. It is the very one thing of which poor, weak, sinful man needs to be continually reminded.
Does the New Testament warrant men in saying that the Lord's Supper was ordained to be a sacrifice, and that in it Christ's body and blood are present under the forms of bread and wine? _Most certainly not!_ When the Lord Jesus said to the disciples, "This is my Body," and "this is my Blood," He evidently meant, "This bread in my hand is an emblem of my Body, and this cup of wine in my hand contains an emblem of my Blood." The disciples were accustomed to hear Him use such language. They remembered His saying, "The field _is_ the world," "The good seed _are_ the children of the kingdom." (Matt. xiii. 38.) It never entered into their minds that He meant to say He was holding His own body and His own blood in His hands, and literally giving them His literal body and blood to eat and drink. Not one of the writers of the New Testament ever speaks of the sacrament as a sacrifice, or calls the Lord's Table an altar, or even hints that a Christian minister is a sacrificing priest. The universal doctrine of the New Testament is that after the one offering of Christ there remains no more need of sacrifice.[2]
2: If any one fancies that St. Paul's words to the Hebrews, "We have an altar," are a proof that the Lord's table is an altar, I advise him to read what Waterland, no mean theologian, says on the subject:--"Christians have an altar whereof they partake. That altar is Christ our Lord, who is Altar, Priest, and Sacrifice, all in One."--_Waterland's Works_, Vol. V., 268. Oxford edition.
Does the English Prayer-book warrant any Churchman in saying that the Lord's Supper was meant to be a sacrifice, and that Christ's body and blood are present under the forms of bread and wine? Once more I reply, _Most certainly not!_ Not once is the word _altar_ to be found in the Prayer-book: not once is the Lord's Supper called a _sacrifice_. Throughout the Communion Service the one idea of the ordinance continually pressed on our attention is that of a "remembrance" of Christ's death. As to any presence of Christ's natural body and blood under the forms of bread and wine, the rubric at the end of the Service gives the most flat and distinct contradiction to the idea. That rubric expressly asserts that "the natural body and blood of Christ are in heaven, and not here." Those many Churchmen, so-called, who delight in talking of the "altar," the "sacrifice," the "priest," and the "real presence" in the Lord's Supper, would do well to remember that they are using language which is entirely unused by the Church of England.
The point before us is one of vast importance. Let us lay hold upon it firmly, and never let it go. It is the very point on which our Reformers had their sharpest controversy with the Romanists, and went to the stake, rather than give way. Sooner than admit that the Lord's Supper was a sacrifice, they cheerfully laid down their lives. To bring back the doctrine of the "real presence," and to turn the good old English communion into the Romish "mass," is to pour contempt on our Martyrs, and to upset the first principles of the Protestant Reformation. Nay, rather, it is to ignore the plain teaching of God's Word, and do dishonour to the priestly office of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible teaches expressly that the Lord's Supper was ordained to be "a remembrance of Christ's body and blood," and not an offering. The Bible teaches that Christ's vicarious death on the cross was the one perfect sacrifice for sin, which never needs to be repeated. Let us stand fast in these two great principles of the Christian faith. A clear view of the intention of the Lord's Supper is one of the soul's best safeguards against the delusions of modern days.
II. In the second place, let me try to show _who ought to be communicants_? _What kind of persons were meant to go to the Table and receive the Lord's Supper?_
It will clear the ground if I first show who ought not to be partakers of this ordinance. The ignorance which prevails on this, as well as on every part of the subject, is vast, lamentable, and appalling. If I can contribute anything that may throw light upon it, I shall feel very thankful. The principal giants whom John Bunyan describes, in "Pilgrim's Progress," as dangerous to Christian pilgrims, were two, Pope and Pagan. If the good old Puritan had foreseen the times we live in, he would have said something about the giant Ignorance.
(_a_) It is not right to urge all baptized persons to become communicants. There is such a thing as fitness and preparedness for the ordinance. It does not work like a medicine, independently of the state of mind of those who receive it. The teaching of those who press all their congregation to come to the Lord's Table, as if the coming _must_ necessarily do every one good, is entirely without warrant of Scripture. Nay, rather, it is teaching which is calculated to do immense harm to men's souls, and to turn the reception of the sacrament into a mere form. Ignorance can never be the mother of acceptable worship, and an ignorant communicant who comes to the Lord's Table without knowing why he comes, is altogether in the wrong place.--"Let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup."--"To discern the Lord's body,"--that is to understand what the elements of bread and wine represent, and why they are appointed, and what is the particular use of remembering Christ's death,--is an essential qualification of a true communicant. God "commands all men everywhere to repent" and believe the Gospel (Acts xvii. 30); but He does not in the same way, or in the same manner, command every body to come to the Lord's Table. No: this thing is not to be taken in hand unadvisedly, lightly, or carelessly! It is a solemn ordinance, and solemnly it ought to be used.
(_b_) But this is not all. Sinners living in open sin, and determined not to give it up, ought on no account to come to the Lord's Table. To do so is a positive insult to Christ, and to pour contempt on His Gospel. It is nonsense to profess we desire to remember Christ's death, while we cling to the accursed thing which made it needful for Christ to die. The mere fact that a man is continuing in sin, is plain evidence that he does not care for Christ, and feels no gratitude for redemption. The ignorant Papist who goes to the priest's confessional and receives absolution, may think he is fit to go to the Popish mass, and after mass may return to his sins. He never reads the Bible, and knows no better! But the Englishman who habitually breaks any of God's commandments, and yet goes to the Sacrament, as if it would do him good and wipe away his sins, is very guilty indeed. So long as he chooses to continue his wicked habits he cannot receive the slightest benefit from Christ's ordinances, and is only adding sin to sin. To carry unrepented sin up to the Communion Rail, and there receive the bread and wine, knowing in our own hearts that we and wickedness are yet friends, is one of the worst things a man can do, and one of the most hardening to conscience. If a man must have his sins, and cannot give them up, let him by all means stay away from the Lord's Supper. There is such a thing as "eating and drinking unworthily," and to our own "condemnation." To no one do these words apply so thoroughly as to an open sinner.
(_c_) But I have not done yet. Self-righteous people, who think that they are to be saved by their own works, have no business to come to the Lord's Table. Strange as it may sound at first, these persons are the least qualified of all to receive the Sacrament. They may be outwardly correct, moral and respectable in their lives, but so long as they trust in their own goodness for salvation, they are entirely in the wrong place at the Lord's Supper. For what do we declare at the Lord's Supper? We publicly profess that we have no goodness, righteousness, or worthiness of our own, and that all our hope is in Christ. We publicly profess that we are guilty, sinful, and corrupt, and naturally deserve God's wrath and condemnation. We publicly profess that Christ's merit and not our's, Christ's righteousness and not our's, is the alone cause why we look for acceptance with God. Now what has a self-righteous man to do with an ordinance like this? Clearly nothing at all. One thing, at any rate, is very plain: a self-righteous man has no business to receive the sacrament in the Church of England. The Communion Service of the Church bids all communicants declare that "they do not presume to come to the Table trusting in their own righteousness, but in God's manifold and great mercies."--It tells them to say,--"We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under Thy table,"--"the remembrance of our sins is grievous unto us; the burden of them is intolerable."--How any self-righteous Churchman can ever go to the Lord's Table, and take these words into his mouth, passes my understanding! It only shows that many professing Christians use excellent "forms" of worship without taking the trouble to consider what they mean.
The plain truth is that the Lord's Supper was not meant for dead souls, but for living ones. The careless, the ignorant, the wilfully wicked, the self-righteous, are no more fit to come to the Communion rail than a dead corpse is fit to sit down at a king's feast. To enjoy a spiritual feast we must have a spiritual heart, and taste, and appetite. To suppose that Christ's ordinances can do good to an unspiritual man, is as foolish as to put bread and wine into the mouth of a dead person. The careless, the ignorant, and the wilfully wicked, so long as they continue in that state, are utterly unfit to be communicants. To urge them to attend is not to do them good but harm. The Lord's Supper is not a converting or justifying ordinance. If a man goes to the Table unconverted or unforgiven, he will come away no better at all.
But, after all, the ground having been cleared of error, the question still remains to be answered,--Who are the sort of persons who ought to be communicants? I answer that question in the words of the Church Catechism. I there find the inquiry made, "What is required of them who come to the Lord's Supper?" In reply I find it taught that people should "examine themselves whether they repent them truly of their former sins, steadfastly purposing to lead a new life;"--whether they "have a lively faith in God's mercy through Christ, with a thankful remembrance of His death;"--and whether they "are in charity with all men."--In a word, I find that a worthy communicant is one who possesses three simple marks and qualifications,--repentance, faith, and charity. Does a man truly repent of sin and hate it? Does a man put his trust in Jesus Christ as his only hope of salvation? Does a man live in charity towards others? He that can truly say to each of these questions, "I do," he is a man that is Scripturally qualified for the Lord's Supper. Let him come boldly. Let no barrier be put in his way. He comes up to the Bible standard of communicants. He may draw near with confidence, and feel assured that the great Master of the banquet is not displeased.
Such a man's repentance may be very imperfect. Never mind! Is it real? Does he truly repent at all?--His faith in Christ may be very weak. Never mind! Is it real? A penny is as truly the current coin of the realm, and as really stamped with the Queen's image as a sovereign. His charity may be very defective in quantity and degree. Never mind! Is it genuine? The grand test of a man's Christianity is not the quantity of grace he has got, but whether he has any grace at all. The first twelve communicants, when Christ Himself gave the bread and wine, were weak indeed,--weak in knowledge, weak in faith, weak in courage, weak in patience, weak in love! But eleven of them had that about them which outweighed all defects: they were real, genuine, sincere, and true.
For ever let this great principle be rooted in our minds,--the only worthy communicant is the man who is experimentally acquainted with repentance toward God, faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ, and practical love toward others. Are you that man? Then you may draw near to the table, and take the sacrament to your comfort. Lower than this I dare not pitch my standard of a communicant. I will never help to crowd a communion rail with careless, ignorant, self-righteous attendants.--Higher than this I will not pitch my standard. I will never tell any one to keep away till he is perfect, and to wait till his heart is as unruffled as an angel's. I will not do so, because I believe that neither my Master nor His Apostles would have done so. Show me a man that really feels his sins, really leans on Christ, really struggles to be holy, and I will bid him welcome in my Master's name. He may feel weak, erring, empty, feeble, doubting, wretched, and poor. What matter? St. Paul, I believe, would have received him as a right communicant, and I will do likewise.
III. In the third place, let us consider _what benefit communicants may expect to get by going to the Table and attending the Lord's Supper_. This is a point of grave importance, and one on which vast mistakes abound. On no point, perhaps, connected with this ordinance, are the views of Christians so vague and misty and undefined.
One common idea among men is that "taking the sacrament must do them good." Why, they cannot explain. What good, they cannot exactly say. But they have a loose general notion that it is the right thing to be a communicant, and that somehow or other it is of service to their souls! This is of course nothing better than ignorance. It is unreasonable to suppose that such communicants can please Christ, or receive any real benefit from what they do. If there is any principle clearly laid down in the Bible about any act of religious worship, it is this,--that it must be _intelligent_. The worshipper must at least understand something about what he is doing. Mere bodily worship, unaccompanied by mind or heart, is utterly worthless. The man who walks up to a communion rail, and eats the bread and drinks the wine, as a mere matter of form, because his minister tells him, without any clear idea of what it all means, derives no benefit. He might just as well stay at home!
Another common idea among men is that, "taking the sacrament will help them to heaven, and take away their sins." To this delusive idea you may trace up the habit in some parishes of going to the sacrament once a year, in order, as an old farmer once said, "to wipe off the year's sins." To this idea again, you may trace the too common practice of sending for a minister in time of sickness, in order to receive the sacrament before death. Alas, how many take comfort about their relatives, after they have lived a most ungodly life, for no better reason than this,--that _they took the sacrament_ when they were dying! Whether they repented and believed and had new hearts, they neither seem to know or care. All they know is that "they took the sacrament before they died." My heart sinks within me when I hear people resting on such evidence as this.
Ideas like these are mournful proofs of the ignorance that fills the minds of men about the Lord's Supper. They are ideas for which there is not the slightest warrant either in Scripture or the Prayer-book. The sooner they are cast aside and given up, the better for the Church and the world.
Let us settle it firmly in our minds that the Lord's Supper was not given to be a means either of justification or of conversion. It was never meant to give grace where there is no grace already, or to provide pardon when pardon is not already enjoyed. It cannot possibly supply the absence of repentance to God, and faith toward the Lord Jesus Christ. It is an ordinance for the penitent, not for the impenitent,--for the believing, not for the unbelieving,--for the converted, not for the unconverted. The unconverted man, who fancies that he can find a short-cut road to heaven by taking the sacrament, without treading the well-worn steps of repentance and faith, will find to his cost one day, that he is totally deceived. The Lord's Supper was meant to increase and help the grace that a man has, but not to impart the grace that he has not. It was certainly never intended to make our peace with God, to justify, or to convert.
The simplest statement of the benefit which a true-hearted communicant may expect to receive from the Lord's Supper, is that which is supplied by the Church Catechism,--"The strengthening and refreshing of our souls."--Clearer views of Christ and His atonement, clearer views of all the offices which Christ fills as our Mediator and Advocate, clearer views of the complete redemption Christ has obtained for us by His vicarious death on the cross, clearer views of our full and perfect acceptance in Christ before God, fresh reasons for deep repentance for sin, fresh reasons for lively faith,--these are among the leading returns which a believer may confidently expect to get from his attendance at the Lord's Table. He that eats the bread and drinks the wine in a right spirit, will find himself drawn into closer communion with Christ, and will feel to know Him more, and understand Him better.
(_a_) Right reception of the Lord's Supper has a _humbling_ effect on the soul. The sight of these emblems of Christ's body and blood, reminds us how sinful sin must be, if anything less than the death of God's own Son could make satisfaction for it, or redeem us from its guilt. Never surely ought we to be so "clothed with humility," as when we kneel at the Communion rail.
(_b_) Right reception of the Lord's Supper has a _cheering_ effect on the soul. The sight of the bread broken, and the wine poured out, reminds us how full, perfect, and complete is our salvation. Those lively emblems remind us what an enormous price has been paid for our redemption. They press on us the mighty truth, that believing on Christ, we have nothing to fear, because a sufficient payment has been made for our debt. The "precious blood of Christ" answers every charge that can be brought against us. God can be a "just God, and yet the justifier of every one that believeth on Jesus." (Rom. iii. 26.)
(_c_) Right reception of the Lord's Supper has a _sanctifying_ effect on the soul. The bread and wine remind us how great is our debt of gratitude to our Lord, and how thoroughly we are bound to live for Him who died for our sins. They seem to say to us, "Remember what Christ has done for you, and ask yourself whether there is anything too great to do for Him."
(_d_) Right reception of the Lord's Supper into hearts, has a _restraining_ effect on the soul. Every time a believer goes up to the Communion rail he is reminded what a serious thing it is to be a Christian, and what an obligation is laid on him to lead a consistent life. Bought with such a price as that bread and wine call to his recollection, ought he not to glorify Christ in body and spirit, which are His? The man that goes regularly and intelligently to the Lord's Table finds it increasingly hard to yield to sin and conform to the world.
Such is a brief account of the benefits which a right-hearted communicant may expect to receive from the Lord's Supper. In eating that bread and drinking that cup, such a man will have his repentance deepened, his faith increased, his knowledge enlarged, his habit of holy living strengthened. He will realize more of the "real presence" of Christ in his heart. Eating that bread by faith, he will feel closer communion with the body of Christ. Drinking that wine by faith, he will feel closer communion with the blood of Christ. He will see more clearly what Christ is to him, and what he is to Christ. He will understand more thoroughly what it is to be "one with Christ, and Christ one with him." He will feel the roots of his soul's spiritual life watered, and the work of grace in his heart stablished, built up, and carried forward. All these things may seem and sound foolishness to a natural man, but to a true Christian these things are light, and health, and life, and peace. No wonder that a true Christian finds the Lord's Supper a source of blessing!
Remember, I do not pretend to say that all Christians experience the full blessing of the Lord's Supper, which I have just attempted to describe. Nor yet do I say that the same believer will always find his soul in the same spiritual frame, and always receive the same amount of benefit from the sacrament. But this I will boldly say: you will rarely find a true believer who will not say that he reckons the Lord's Supper one of his best helps and highest privileges. He will tell you that if he were deprived of the Lord's Supper he should find the loss of it a great drawback to his soul. There are some things of which we never know the value till they are taken from us. So I believe it is with the Lord's Supper. The weakest and humblest of God's children gets a blessing from this sacrament, to an extent of which he is not aware.
IV. In the last place, I have to consider _why it is that many so-called Christians never come to the Lord's Supper_.
It is a simple matter of fact, that myriads of baptized persons never come to the Table of the Lord. They would not endure to be told that they deny the faith, and are practically not in communion with Christ. When they worship, they attend a place of Christian worship; when they hear religious teaching, it is the teaching of Christianity; when they are married, they use a Christian service; when their children are baptized, they ask for the Sacrament of Baptism. Yet all this time they never come to the Lord's Supper! They often live on in this state of mind for many years, and to all appearance are not ashamed. They often die in this condition without ever having received the sacrament, and yet profess to feel hope at the last, and their friends express a hope about them. And yet they live and die in open disobedience to a plain command of Christ! These are simple facts. Let any one look around him, and deny them if he can. I challenge any one to deny that the non-communicants in all English congregations form the majority, and the communicants the minority of the worshippers.
Now how is this? What account can we give of it? Our Lord Jesus Christ's last injunctions to His disciples are clear, plain, and unmistakable. He says to all, "Eat, drink: do this in remembrance of Me." Did He leave it to our discretion whether we would attend to His injunction or not? Did He mean that it did not signify whether His disciples did or did not keep up the ordinance He had just established? Certainly not. The very idea is absurd, and one certainly never dreamed of in apostolic times.--St. Paul evidently takes it for granted that every Christian is a communicant. A class of Christian worshippers who never came to the Table, was a class whose existence was unknown to him. What, then, are we to say of that large multitude of non-communicants which walks out of our churches every sacrament Sunday, unabashed, unhumbled, not afraid, not the least ashamed? Why is it? How is it? What does it all mean? Let us look these questions fairly in the face, and endeavour to give an answer to them.
(1) For one thing, many are not communicants because they are utterly careless and thoughtless about religion, and ignorant of the very first principles of Christianity. They go to church, as a matter of form, because other people go; but they neither know, nor care anything about what is done, at church! The faith of Christ has no place either in their hearts, or heads, or consciences, or wills, or understandings. It is a mere affair of "words and names," about which they know no more than Festus or Gallio. There were very few such Christians in St. Paul's times, if indeed there were any. There are far too many in these last days of the world, when everything seems to be wearing out and running to seed. They are the dead-weight of the Churches, and the scandal of Christianity. What such people need is light, knowledge, grace, a renewed conscience, a changed heart. In their present state they have no part or lot in Christ; and dying in this state they are unfit for heaven. Do I wish them to come to the Lord's Supper? Certainly not, till they are converted. Except a man be converted he will never enter the kingdom of God.
(2) For another thing, many are not communicants because they know they are living in the habitual practice of some sin, or in the habitual neglect of some Christian duty. Their conscience tells them that so long as they live in this state, and do not break off from their sins, they are unfit to come to the Table of the Lord. Well: they are so far quite right! I wish no man to be a communicant if he cannot give up his sins. But I warn these people not to forget that if they are unfit for the Lord's Supper they are unfit to die, and that if they die in their present condition they will be lost eternally. The same sins which disqualify them for the sacrament, most certainly disqualify them for heaven. Do I want them to come to the Lord's Supper as they are? Certainly not! But I do want them to repent and be converted, to cease to do evil, and to break off from their sins. For ever let it be remembered that the man unfit for the Lord's Supper is unfit to die.
(3) For another thing, some are not communicants because they fancy it will add to their responsibility. They are not, as many, ignorant and careless about religion. They even attend regularly on the means of grace, and like the preaching of the Gospel. But they say they dread coming forward and making a profession. They fear that they might afterwards fall away, and bring scandal on the cause of Christianity. They think it wisest to be on the safe side, and not commit themselves at all. Such people would do well to remember that if they avoid responsibility of one kind by not coming to the Lord's Table, they incur responsibility of another kind, quite as grave, and quite as injurious to the soul. They are responsible for open disobedience to a command of Christ. They are shrinking from doing that which their Master continually enjoins on His disciples,--from confessing Him before men. No doubt it is a serious step to come forward and receive the sacrament. It is a step that none should take lightly and without self-examination. But it is _no less a serious step to walk away and refuse the ordinance_, when we remember Who invites us to receive it, and for what purpose it was appointed! I warn the people I am now dealing with to take heed what they are doing. Let them not flatter themselves that it can ever be a wise, a prudent, a safe line of conduct to neglect a plain command of Christ. They may find at length, to their cost, that they have only increased their guilt and forsaken their mercies.
(4) For another thing, some are not communicants because they fancy they are not yet worthy. They wait and stand still, under the mistaken notion that no one is qualified for the Lord's Supper unless he feels within him something like perfection. They pitch their idea of a communicant so high that they despair of attaining to it. Waiting for inward perfection they live, and waiting for it too often they die. Now such persons would do well to understand that they are completely mistaken in their estimate of what "worthiness" really is. They are forgetting that the Lord's Supper was not intended for unsinning angels, but for men and women compassed with infirmity, dwelling in a world full of temptations, and needing mercy and grace every day they live. A sense of our own utter unworthiness is the best worthiness we can bring to the Communion rail. A deep feeling of our own entire indebtedness to Christ for all we have and hope for, is the best feeling we can bring with us. The people I now have in view ought to consider seriously whether the ground they have taken up is tenable, and whether they are not standing in their own light. If they are waiting till they feel in themselves perfect hearts, perfect motives, perfect feelings, perfect repentance, perfect love, perfect faith, they will wait for ever. There never were such communicants in any age,--certainly not in the days of our Lord and of the Apostles,--there never will be as long as the world stands. Nay, rather, the very thought that we feel literally worthy, is a symptom of secret self-righteousness, and proves us unfit for communion in God's sight. Sinners we are when we first come to the throne of grace,--sinners we shall be till we die; converted changed, renewed, sanctified, but sinners still. In short, no man is a really worthy communicant who does not deeply feel that he is a "miserable sinner."
(5) In the last place, some object to be communicants because they see others coming to the Lord's Table who are not worthy, and not in a right state of mind. Because others eat and drink unworthily, they refuse to eat and drink at all. Of all the grounds taken up by non-communicants to justify their own neglect of Christ's ordinance, I must plainly say, I know none which seems to me so foolish, so weak, so unreasonable, and so unscriptural as this. It is as good as saying that we will never receive the Lord's Supper at all! When shall we ever find a body of communicants on earth of which all the members are converted?--It is setting up ourselves in the most unhealthy attitude of judging others. "Who art thou that judgest another?" "What is that to thee? Follow thou Me."--It is depriving ourselves of a great privilege merely because others profane it and make a bad use of it.--It is pretending to be wiser than our Master Himself. If the words of St. Luke mean anything, Judas Iscariot was present at the first Communion, and received the bread and wine among others.--It is taking up ground for which there is no warrant in Scripture. St. Paul rebukes the Corinthians sharply for the irreverent behaviour of some of the communicants; but I cannot find him giving a single hint that when some came to the Table unworthily, others ought to draw back or stay away. Let me advise the non-communicants I have now in view to beware of being wise above that which was written. Let them study the parable of the Wheat and Tares, and mark how both were to "grow together till the harvest." (Matt. xiii. 30.) Perfect Churches, perfect congregations, perfect bodies of communicants, are all unattainable in this world of confusion and sin. Let us covet the best gifts, and do all we can to check sin in others; but let us not starve our own selves because others are ignorant sinners, and turn their meat into poison. If others are foolish enough to eat and drink unworthily, let us not turn our backs on Christ's ordinance, and refuse to eat and drink at all.
Such are the five common excuses why myriads in the present day, though professing themselves Christians, never come to the Lord's Supper. One common remark may be made about them: there is not a single reason among the five which deserves to be called "good," and which does not condemn the man who gives it. I challenge any one to deny this. I have said repeatedly that I want no one to be a communicant who is not properly qualified. But I ask those who stay away never to forget that the very reasons they assign for their conduct are their condemnation. I tell them that they stand convicted before God of either being very ignorant of what a communicant is, and what the Lord's Supper is; or else of being persons who are not living rightly, and are unfit to die. In short, to say, I am a non-communicant, is as good as saying one of three things:--"I am living in sin, and cannot come;--I know Christ commands me, but I will not obey Him;--I am an ignorant man, and do not understand what the Lord's Supper means."
I know not in what state of mind this book may find the reader of this paper, or what his opinions may be about the Lord's Supper. But I will conclude the whole subject by offering to all some warnings, which I venture to think are peculiarly required by the times.
(1) In the first place, _do not neglect_ the Lord's Supper. The man who coolly and deliberately refuses to use an ordinance which the Lord Jesus Christ appointed for his profit, may be very sure that his soul is in a very wrong state. There is a judgment yet to come; there is an account to be rendered of all our conduct on earth. How any one can look forward to that day, and expect to meet Christ with comfort and in peace, if he has refused all his life to meet Christ in His own ordinance, is a thing that I cannot understand. Does this come home to you? Mind what you are doing.
(2) In the second place, _do not receive the Lord's Supper carelessly_, irreverently, and as a matter of form. The man who walks up to the Communion rail, and eats the bread and drinks the wine, while his heart is far away, is committing a great sin, and robbing himself of a great blessing. In this, as in every other means of grace, everything depends on the state of mind in which the ordinance is used. He that draws near without repentance, faith, and love, and with a heart full of sin and the world, will certainly be nothing better, but rather worse. Does this come home to you? Mind what you are about.
(3) In the third place, _do not make an idol_ of the Lord's Supper. The man who tells you that it is the first, foremost, chief, and principal ordinance in Christianity, is telling you that which he will find it hard to prove. In the great majority of the books of the New Testament the Lord's Supper is not even named. In the letter to Timothy and Titus, about a minister's duties, the subject is not even mentioned. To repent and be converted, to believe and be holy, to be born again and have grace in our hearts,--all these things are of far more importance than to be a communicant. Without them we cannot be saved. Without the Lord's Supper we can. The penitent thief was not a communicant, and Judas Iscariot was! Are you tempted to make the Lord's Supper override and overshadow everything in Christianity, and place it above prayer and preaching? Take care. Mind what you are about.
(4) In the fourth place, _do not use the Lord's Supper irregularly_. Never be absent when this ordinance is administered. Make every sacrifice to be in your place. Regular habits are essential to the maintenance of the health of our bodies. Regular use of every means of grace is essential to the prosperity of our souls. The man who finds it a weariness to attend on every occasion when the Lord's Table is spread, may well doubt whether all is right within him, and whether he is ready for the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. If Thomas had not been absent when the Lord appeared the first time to the assembled disciples, he would not have said the foolish things he did. Absence made him miss a blessing. Does this come home to you? Mind what you are about.
(5) In the fifth place, _do not do anything to bring discredit_ on your profession as a communicant. The man who after attending the Lord's Table runs into sin, does more harm perhaps than any sinner. He is a walking sermon on behalf of the devil. He gives occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme. He helps to keep people away from Christ. Lying, drinking, adulterous, dishonest, passionate communicants are the helpers of the devil, and the worst enemies of the Gospel. Does this come home to you? Mind what you are about.
(6) In the last place, _do not despond_ and be cast down, if with all your desires you do not feel to get great good from the Lord's Supper. Very likely you are expecting too much. Very likely you are a poor judge of your own state. Your soul's roots may be strengthening and growing, while you think you are not getting on. Very likely you are forgetting that earth is not heaven, and that here we walk by sight and not by faith, and must expect nothing perfect. Lay these things to heart. Do not write bitter things against yourself without cause.
To every reader into whose hands this paper may fall, I commend the whole subject of it as deserving of serious and solemn consideration. I am nothing better than a poor fallible man myself. But if I have made up my mind on any point it is this,--that there is no truth which demands such plain speaking as truth about the Lord's Supper.
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NOTE
I ask the special attention of my readers to the following extracts from the last Charge of the late Dr. Longley, Archbishop of Canterbury.
The office held by the Archbishop, the remarkable gentleness and mildness of his character, the fact that this Charge contains his last sentiments, and that it was not made public till after his death,--all this appears to me to invest these extracts about the Lord's Supper with peculiar interest.
"It is far from my intention to impute to all those who have taken the ill-advised step of adopting the Sacrificial Vestments (in administering the Lord's Supper) any sympathy with Roman error; but I am constrained to avow that there are plain indications in some of the publications which have been issued as manifestoes of the opinions of that section of our Church, that some of its professed members, yea, even of her ministers, think themselves at liberty to hold the doctrines of the Church of Rome in relation to the Sacrifice of the Mass, and yet retain their position within the pale of the Anglican Church with the avowed purpose of eliminating from its formularies every trace of the Reformation, as regards its protest against Romish error. The language they hold with respect to it is entirely incompatible with loyalty to the Church to which they profess to belong. They call it 'a Communion deeply tainted with Protestant heresy:' 'Our duty,' they say, 'is the expulsion of the evil, not flight from it.' It is no want of charity, therefore, to declare that they remain with us in order that they may substitute the Mass for the Communion; the obvious aim of our Reformers having been to substitute the Communion for the Mass. Doubtless the Church of England admits of considerable latitude in the views that may be taken of that most mysterious of all mysteries, the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper. And so long as those solemn words of its original institution, 'This is my Body,' 'This is my Blood,' shall remain in the sentence of consecration (and they never can be erased from it), so long will there be varieties of interpretation of these words, all of which may be consistent with a true allegiance to our Church, provided these three conditions be observed:--
"1. That they be not construed to signify that the Natural Body of Christ is present in the Sacrament:
"2. Nor to admit of any adoration either of the Sacramental bread and wine there bodily received, or of any corporal presence of Christ's Natural Body and Blood:
"3. Nor to justify the belief that the Body and Blood are again offered as a satisfaction for sin; seeing that the offering of Christ once made was a perfect redemption, propitiation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world, original and actual.
"These are the limits which our Church imposes upon the liberty of interpretation of the words of our blessed Lord.
"The use of these sacrificial vestments is in the minds of many intimately connected with the idea that an essential element in the Holy Communion is the offering to God a Sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ, which abide with the elements in a mysterious manner after the act of Consecration. The minister wears the vestments at that time as a sacrificing priest. According to this view it would seem that the most important part of this Holy Sacrament is what we offer to God, not what we receive from Him.
"This view is not recognised by the Church of England in her formularies. The general definition in the XXVth Article states that Sacraments are 'certain sure witnesses and effectual signs of grace, by the which [God] doth work invisibly in us;' and it is said specifically of the Lord's Supper (Art. XXVIII.), that it 'is a Sacrament of our Redemption by Christ's death: insomuch that to such as rightly, worthily, and with faith, receive the same, the Bread which we break is a partaking of the Body of Christ; and likewise the Cup of Blessing is a partaking of the Blood of Christ.' The idea of the Sacrifice of that Body and Blood finds no place in either of these strict definitions. The Catechism speaks the same language when it defines a Sacrament to be 'an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace given unto us.' Nor will an examination of the Office of the Holy Communion itself give any countenance to the idea in question. The only distinct oblation or offering mentioned in that Office is previous to the Consecration of the elements, in the Prayer for the Church Militant, and therefore cannot be an offering or sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ; and the only sacrifice which we are spoken of as making, is the offering of 'ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and lively sacrifice.'[3] Our Church seems most studiously to have avoided any expression which could countenance the notion of a perpetual Sacrifice of Christ, while on the other hand it speaks of Christ's death upon the cross as 'His own oblation of Himself once offered as a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the whole world.' No room is left for the repetition of that sacrifice, or for the admission of any other sacrifice for sin."
* * * * *
3: See Proctor on the Common Prayer, p. 320.
"The Romish notion of a true, real, and substantial Sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ, as it is called in the Council of Trent, entailed the use of the term _altar_. But this term appears nowhere in the Book of Common Prayer, and was no doubt omitted lest any countenance should be given to the sacrificial view. The notion, therefore, of making in the material elements a perpetual offering of the Body and Blood of Christ, is as foreign to the spirit and the letter of our Service as I hold it to be to the doctrine of the early Fathers, as well as of the leading divines of our Church. This latter point also I shall endeavour to establish hereafter.
"Meanwhile it cannot be denied, on the other hand, that the doctrine of the Real Presence is, in one sense, the doctrine of the Church of England. She asserts that the Body and Blood of Christ are 'verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's Supper.' And she asserts equally that such presence is not material or corporal; but that Christ's Body 'is given, taken, and eaten, in the Supper, only after a heavenly and spiritual manner.' (Art. XXVIII.) Christ's presence is effectual for all those intents and purposes for which His Body was broken, and His Blood shed. As to a presence elsewhere than in the heart of the believer, the Church of England is silent, and the words of Hooker therefore represent her views: 'The real presence of Christ's most blessed Body and Blood is not to be sought in the Sacrament, but in the worthy receiver of the Sacrament.'"
VII
CHARITY
"_Now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity._"--1 Cor. xiii. 13.
Charity is rightly called "the Queen of Christian graces." "The end of the commandment," says St. Paul, "is charity." (1 Tim. i. 5.) It is a grace which all people profess to admire. It seems a plain practical thing which everybody can understand. It is none of "those troublesome doctrinal points" about which Christians are disagreed. Thousands, I suspect, would not be ashamed to tell you that they knew nothing about justification or regeneration, about the work of Christ or the Holy Spirit. But nobody, I believe, would like to say that he knew nothing about "charity!" If men possess nothing else in religion, they always flatter themselves that they possess "charity."
A few plain thoughts about charity may not be without use. There are false notions abroad about it which require to be dispelled. There are mistakes about it which require to be rectified. In my admiration of charity I yield to none. But I am bold to say that in many minds the whole subject seems completely misunderstood.
I. Let me show, firstly, _the place the Bible gives to charity_.
II. Let me show, secondly, _what the charity of the Bible really is_.
III. Let me show, thirdly, _whence true charity comes_.
IV. Let me show, lastly, _why charity is "the greatest" of the graces_.
I ask the best attention of my readers to the subject. My heart's desire and prayer to God is, that the growth of charity may be promoted in this sin-burdened world. In nothing does the fallen condition of man show itself so strongly as in the scarcity of Christian charity. There is little faith on earth, little hope, little knowledge of Divine things. But nothing, after all, is so scarce as real charity.
I. Let me show _the place which the Bible gives to charity_.
I begin with this point in order to establish the immense practical importance of my subject. I do not forget that there are many high-flying Christians in this present day, who almost refuse to look at anything _practical_ in Christianity. They can talk of nothing but two or three favourite doctrines. Now I want to remind my readers that the Bible contains much about practice as well as about doctrine, and that one thing to which it attaches great weight is "charity."
I turn to the New Testament, and ask men to observe what it says about charity. In all religious inquiries there is nothing like letting the Scripture speak for itself. There is no surer way of finding out truth than the old way of turning to plain texts. Texts were our Lord's weapons, both in answering Satan, and in arguing with the Jews. Texts are the guides we must never be ashamed to refer to in the present day.--"What saith the Scripture? What is written? How readest thou?"
Let us hear what St. Paul says to the Corinthians: "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing." (1 Cor. xiii. 1--3.)
Let us hear what St. Paul says to the Colossians: "Above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness." (Col. iii. 14.)
Let us hear what St. Paul says to Timothy: "The end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned." (1 Tim. i. 5.)
Let us hear what St. Peter says: "Above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins." (1 Peter iv. 8.)
Let us hear what our Lord Jesus Christ Himself says about that love, which is only another name for charity.[4] "A new commandment give I unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another." (John xiii. 34, 35.) Above all, let us read our Lord's account of the last judgment, and mark that want of love will condemn millions. (Matt. xxv. 41, 42.)
4: In the Greek language one and the same word only is used for "love" and "charity." In our English version our translators have sometimes rendered this word one way and sometimes another.
Let us hear what St. Paul says to the Romans: "Owe no man anything, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law." (Rom. xiii. 8.)
Let us hear what St. Paul says to the Ephesians: "Walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us." (Eph. v. 2.)
Let us hear what St. John says: "Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love." (1 John iv. 7, 8.)
I shall make no comment upon these texts. I think it better to place them before my readers in their naked simplicity, and to let them speak for themselves. If any one is disposed to think the subject of this paper a matter of light importance, I will only ask him to look at these texts, and to think again. He that would take down "charity" from the high and holy place which it occupies in the Bible, and treat it as a matter of secondary moment, must settle his account with God's Word. I certainly shall not waste time in arguing with him.
To my own mind the evidence of these texts appears clear, plain, and incontrovertible. They show the immense importance of charity, as one of the "things that accompany salvation." They prove that it has a right to demand the serious attention of all who call themselves Christians, and that those who despise the subject are only exposing their own ignorance of Scripture.
II. Let me show, secondly, _what the charity of the Bible really is_.
I think it of great importance to have clear views on this point. It is precisely here that mistakes about charity begin. Thousands delude themselves with the idea that they have "charity," when they have not, from downright ignorance of Scripture. Their charity is not the charity described in the Bible.
(_a_) The charity of the Bible does not consist in giving to the poor. It is a common delusion to suppose that it does. Yet St. Paul tells us plainly, that a man may "bestow all his goods to feed the poor" (1 Cor. xiii. 3), and not have charity. That a charitable man will "remember the poor," there can be no question. (Gal. ii. 10.) That he will do all he can to assist them, relieve them, and lighten their burdens, I do not for a moment deny. All I say is, that this does not make up "charity." It is easy to spend a fortune in giving away money, and soup, and wine, and bread, and coals, and blankets, and clothing, and yet to be utterly destitute of Bible charity.
(_b_) The charity of the Bible does not consist in never disapproving anybody's conduct. Here is another very common delusion! Thousands pride themselves on never condemning others, or calling them wrong, whatever they may do. They convert the precept of our Lord, "judge not," into an excuse for having no unfavourable opinion at all of anybody. They pervert His prohibition of rash and censorious judgments, into a prohibition of all judgment whatsoever. Your neighbour may be a drunkard, a liar, a Sabbath-breaker, a passionate man. Never mind! "It is not charity," they tell you, "to pronounce him, wrong." You are to believe that he has a good heart at bottom! This idea of charity is, unhappily, a very common one. It is full of mischief. To throw a veil over sin, and to refuse to call things by their right names,--to talk of "hearts" being good, when "lives" are flatly wrong,--to shut our eyes against wickedness, and say smooth things of immorality,--this is not Scriptural charity.
(_c_) The charity of the Bible does not consist in never disapproving anybody's religious opinions. Here is another most serious and growing delusion. There are many who pride themselves on never pronouncing others mistaken, whatever views they may hold. Your neighbour, forsooth, may be an Arian, or a Socinian, a Roman Catholic, or a Mormonite, a Deist, or a Sceptic, a mere Formalist, or a thorough Antinomian. But the "charity" of many says that you have no right to think Him wrong! If he is sincere, it is "uncharitable" to think unfavourably of his spiritual condition!--From such charity may I ever be delivered! At this rate the Apostles were wrong in going out to preach to the Gentiles! At this rate there is no use in missions! At this rate we had better close our Bibles, and shut up our churches! Everybody is right, and nobody is wrong! Everybody is going to heaven, and nobody is going to hell! Such charity is a monstrous caricature. To say that all are equally right in their opinions, though their opinions flatly contradict one another,--to say that all are equally in the way to heaven, though their doctrinal sentiments are as opposite as black and white,--this is not Scriptural charity. Charity like this pours contempt on the Bible, and talks as if God had not given us a written test of truth. Charity like this confuses all our notions of heaven, and would fill it with a discordant inharmonious rabble. True charity does not think everybody right in doctrine. True charity cries,--"Believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they be of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world."--"If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not." (1 John iv. 1; 2 John 10.)
I leave the negative side of the question here. I have dwelt upon it at some length because of the days in which we live and the strange notions which abound. Let me now turn to the positive side. Having shown what charity is not, let me now show what it is.
Charity is that "love," which St. Paul places first among those fruits which the Spirit causes to be brought forth in the heart of a believer. "The fruit of the Spirit is love." (Gal. v. 2.) Love to God, such as Adam had before the fall, is its first feature. He that has charity, desires to love God with heart, and soul and mind, and strength. Love to man is its second feature. He that has charity, desires to love his neighbour as himself. This is indeed that view in which the word "charity" in Scripture is more especially regarded. When I speak of a believer having "love" in his heart, I mean that he has love to both God and man. When I speak of a believer having "charity," I mean more particularly that he has love to man.
The charity of the Bible will show itself in a _believer's doings_. It will make him ready to do kind acts to every one within his reach,--both to their bodies and souls. It will not let him be content with soft words and kind wishes. It will make him diligent in doing all that lies in his power to lessen the sorrow and increase the happiness of others. Like his Master, he will care more for ministering than for being ministered to, and will look for nothing in return. Like his Master's great apostle, he will very willingly "spend and be spent" for others, even though they repay him with hatred, and not with love. True charity does not want wages. Its work is its reward.
The charity of the Bible will show itself in a believer's _readiness to bear_ evil as well as to do good. It will make him patient under provocation, forgiving when injured, meek when unjustly attacked, quiet when slandered. It will make him bear much and forbear much, put up with much and look over much, submit often and deny himself often, all for the sake of peace. It will make him put a strong bit on his temper, and a strong bridle on his tongue. True charity is not always asking,--"What are my rights? Am I treated as I deserve?" but, "How can I best promote peace? How can I do that which is most edifying to others?"
The charity of the Bible will show itself in the _general spirit and demeanour_ of a believer. It will make him kind, unselfish, good-natured, good-tempered, and considerate for others. It will make him gentle, affable, and courteous, in all the daily relations of private life, thoughtful for others' comfort, tender for others' feelings, and more anxious to give pleasure than to receive. True charity never envies others when they prosper, nor rejoices in the calamities of others when they are in trouble. At all times it will believe, and hope, and try to put a good construction on others' doings. And even at the worst, it will be full of pity, mercy, and compassion.
Would we like to know where the true Pattern of charity like this can be found? We have only to look at the life of our Lord Jesus Christ, as described in the Gospels, and we shall see it perfectly exemplified. Charity shone forth in all His doings. His daily life was an incessant "going about", doing good.--Charity shone forth in all His bearing. He was continually hated, persecuted, slandered, misrepresented. But He patiently endured it all. No angry word ever fell from His lips. No ill-temper ever appeared in His demeanour. "When He was reviled, He reviled not again: when He suffered, He threatened not." (1 Pet. ii. 23.)--Charity shone forth in all His spirit and deportment. The law of kindness was ever on His lips. Among weak and ignorant disciples, among sick and sorrowful petitioners for help and relief, among publicans and sinners, among Pharisees and Sadducees, He was always one and the same.--kind and patient to all.
And yet, be it remembered, our blessed Master never flattered sinners, or connived at sin. He never shrunk from exposing wickedness in its true colours, or from rebuking those who would cleave to it. He never hesitated to denounce false doctrine, by whomsoever it might be held, or to exhibit false practice in its true colours, and the certain end to which it tends. He called things by their right names. He spoke as freely of hell and the fire that is not quenched, as of heaven and the kingdom of glory. He has left on record an everlasting proof that perfect charity does not require us to approve everybody's life or opinions, and that it is quite possible to condemn false doctrine and wicked practice, and yet to be full of love at the same time.
I have now set before my readers the true nature of Scriptural charity. I have given a slight and very brief account of what it is not, and what it is. I cannot pass on without suggesting two practical thoughts, which press home on my mind with weighty force, and I hope may press home on others.
You have heard of charity. Think, for a moment, how deplorably little charity there is upon earth! How conspicuous is the absence of true love among Christians! I speak not of heathen now, I speak of Christians. What angry tempers, what passions, what selfishness, what bitter tongues, are to be found in private families! What strifes, what quarrels, what spitefulness, what malice, what revenge, what envy between neighbours and fellow-parishioners! What jealousies and contentions between Churchmen and Dissenters, Calvinists and Arminians, High Churchmen and Low Churchmen! "Where is charity?" we may well ask,--"Where is love? where is the mind of Christ?" when we look at the spirit which reigns in the world. No wonder that Christ's cause stands still, and infidelity abounds, when men's hearts know so little of charity! Surely, we may well say,--"When the Son of man cometh, shall He find charity upon earth?"
Think, for another thing, what a happy world this would be if there was more charity. It is the want of love which causes half the misery there is upon earth. Sickness, and death, and poverty, will not account for more than half the sorrows. The rest come from ill-temper, ill-nature, strifes, quarrels, lawsuits, malice, envy, revenge, frauds, violence, wars, and the like. It would be one great step towards doubling the happiness of mankind, and halving their sorrows, if all men and women were full of Scriptural charity.
III. Let me show, thirdly, _whence the charity of the Bible comes_.
Charity, such as I have described, is certainly not natural to man. Naturally, we are all more or less selfish, envious, ill-tempered, spiteful, ill-natured, and unkind. We have only to observe children, when left to themselves, to see the proof of this. Let boys and girls grow up without proper training and education, and you will not see one of them possessing Christian charity. Mark how some of them think first of themselves, and their own comfort and advantage! Mark how others are full of pride, passion, and evil tempers! How can we account for it? There is but one reply. The natural heart knows nothing of true charity.
The charity of the Bible will never be found except in a heart prepared by the Holy Ghost. It is a tender plant, and will never grow except in one soil. You may as well expect grapes on thorns, or figs on thistles, as look for charity when the heart is not right.
The heart in which charity grows is a heart changed, renewed, and transformed by the Holy Ghost. The image and likeness of God, which Adam lost at the fall, has been restored to it, however feeble and imperfect the restoration may appear. It is a "partaker of the Divine nature," by union with Christ and sonship to God; and one of the first features of that nature is love. (2 Pet. i. 4.)
Such a heart is deeply convinced of sin, hates it, flees from it, and fights with it from day to day. And one of the prime motions of sin which it daily labours to overcome, is selfishness and want of charity.
Such a heart is deeply sensible of its mighty debt to our Lord Jesus Christ. It feels continually that it owes to Him who died for us on the cross, all its present comfort, hope, and peace. How can it show forth its gratitude? What can it render to its Redeemer? If it can do nothing else, it strives to be like Him, to drink into His spirit, to walk in His footsteps, and, like Him, to be full of love. "The love of Christ shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Ghost" is the surest fountain of Christian charity. Love will produce love.
I ask my reader's special attention to this point. It is one of great importance in the present day. There are many who profess to admire charity, while they care nothing about vital Christianity. They like some of the fruits and results of the Gospel, but not the root from which these fruits alone can grow, or the doctrines with which they are inseparably connected.
Hundreds will praise love and charity, who hate to be told of man's corruption, of the blood of Christ, and of the inward work of the Holy Ghost. Many a parent would like his children to grow up unselfish and good tempered, who would not be much pleased if conversion, and repentance, and faith, were pressed home on their attention.
Now I desire to protest against this notion, that you can have the fruits of Christianity without the roots,--that you can produce Christian tempers without teaching Christian doctrines,--that you can have charity that will wear and endure without grace in the heart.
I grant, most freely, that every now and then one sees a person who seems very charitable and amiable, without any distinctive doctrinal religion. But such cases are so rare and remarkable, that, like exceptions, they only prove the truth of the general rule. And often, too often, it may be feared in such cases the apparent charity is only seeming, and in private completely fails. I firmly believe, as a general rule, you will not find such charity as the Bible describes, except in the soil of a heart thoroughly imbued with Bible religion. Holy practice will not flourish without sound doctrine. What God has joined together, it is useless to expect to have separate and asunder.
The delusion which I am trying to combat is helped forward to a most mischievous degree by the vast majority of novels, romances, and tales of fiction. Who does not know that the heroes and heroines of these works are constantly described as patterns of perfection? They are always doing the right thing, saying the right thing, and showing the right temper! They are always kind, and amiable, and unselfish, and forgiving! And yet you never hear a word about their religion! In short, to judge by the generality of works of fiction, it is possible to have excellent practical religion without doctrine, the fruits of the Spirit without the grace of the Spirit, and the mind of Christ without union with Christ!
Here, in short, is the great danger of reading most novels, romances, and works of fiction. The greater part of them give a false or incorrect view of human nature. They paint their model men and women as they ought to be, and not as they really are. The readers of such writings get their minds filled with wrong conceptions of what the world is. Their notions of mankind become visionary and unreal. They are constantly looking for men and women such as they never meet, and expecting what they never find.
Let me entreat my readers, once for all, to draw their ideas of human nature from the Bible, and not from novels. Settle it down in your mind, that there cannot be true charity without a heart renewed by grace. A certain degree of kindness, courtesy, amiability, good nature, may undoubtedly be seen in many who have no vital religion. But the glorious plant of Bible charity, in all its fulness and perfection, will never be found without union with Christ, and the work of the Holy Ghost. Teach this to your children, if you have any. Hold it up in schools, if you are connected with any. Lift up charity. Make much of charity. Give place to none in exalting the grace of kindness, love, good nature, unselfishness, good temper. But never, never forget, that there is but one school in which these things can be thoroughly learned, and that is the school of Christ. Real charity comes down from above. True love is the fruit of the Spirit. He that would have it must sit at Christ's feet, and learn of Him.
IV. Let me show, lastly, _why charity is called the "greatest" of the graces_.
The words of St. Paul, on this subject, are distinct and unmistakable. He winds up his wonderful chapter on charity in the following manner: "Now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three: but the greatest of these is charity." (1 Cor. xiii. 13.)
This expression is very remarkable. Of all the writers in the New Testament, none, certainly, exalts "faith" so highly as St. Paul. The Epistles to the Romans and Galatians abound in sentences showing its vast importance. By it the sinner lays hold on Christ and is saved. Through it we are justified, and have peace with God. Yet here the same St. Paul speaks of something which is even greater than faith. He puts before us the three leading Christian graces, and pronounces the following judgment on them,--"The greatest is charity." Such a sentence from such a writer demands special attention. What are we to understand when we hear of charity being greater than faith and hope?
We are not to suppose, for a moment, that charity can atone for our sins, or make our peace with God. Nothing can do that for us but the blood of Christ, and nothing can give us an interest in Christ's blood but faith. It is unscriptural ignorance not to know this. The office of justifying and joining the soul to Christ belongs to faith alone. Our charity, and all our other graces, are all more or less imperfect, and could not stand the severity of God's judgment. When we have done all, we are "unprofitable servants." (Luke xvii. 10.)
We are not to suppose that charity can exist independently of faith. St. Paul did not intend to set up one grace in rivalry to the other. He did not mean that one man might have faith, another hope, and another charity, and that the best of these was the man who had charity. The three graces are inseparably joined together. Where there is faith, there will always be love; and where there is love, there will be faith. Sun and light, fire and heat, ice and cold, are not more intimately united than faith and charity.
The reasons why charity is called the greatest of the three graces, appear to me plain and simple. Let me show what they are.
(_a_) Charity is called the greatest of graces, because it is the one in which there is _some likeness between the believer and his God_. God has no need of faith. He is dependent on no one. There is none superior to Him in whom He must trust.--God has no need of hope. To Him all things are certain, whether past, present, or to come.--But "God is love:" and the more love His people have, the more like they are to their Father in heaven.
(_b_) Charity, for another thing, is called the greatest of the graces, because _it is most useful to others_. Faith and hope, beyond doubt, however precious, have special reference to a believer's own private individual benefit. Faith unites the soul to Christ, brings peace with God, and opens the way to heaven. Hope fills the soul with cheerful expectation of things to come, and, amid the many discouragements of things seen, comforts with visions of the things unseen. But charity is pre-eminently the grace which makes a man useful. It is the spring of good works and kindnesses. It is the root of missions, schools, and hospitals. Charity made apostles spend and be spent for souls. Charity raises up workers for Christ, and keeps them working. Charity smooths quarrels, and stops strife, and in this sense "covers a multitude of sins." (1 Pet. iv. 8.) Charity adorns Christianity, and recommends it to the world. A man may have real faith, and feel it, and yet his faith may be invisible to others. But a man's charity cannot be hid.
(_c_) Charity, in the last place, is the greatest of the graces, because it is the one which _endures the longest_. In fact, it will never die. Faith will one day be swallowed up in sight, and hope in certainty. Their office will be useless in the morning of the resurrection, and, like old almanacs, they will be laid aside. But love will live on through the endless ages of eternity. Heaven will be the abode of love. The inhabitants of heaven will be full of love. One common feeling will be in all their hearts, and that will be charity.
I leave this part of my subject here, and pass on to a conclusion. On each of the three points of comparison I have just named, between charity and the other graces, it would be easy to enlarge. But time and space both forbid me to do so. If I have said enough to guard men against mistakes about the right meaning of the "greatness" of charity, I am content. Charity, be it ever remembered, cannot justify and put away our sins. It is neither Christ, nor faith. But charity makes us somewhat like God. Charity is of mighty use to the world. Charity will live and flourish when faith's work is done. Surely, in these points of view, charity well deserves the crown.
(1) And now let me ask every one into whose hands this paper may come a simple question. Let me press home on your conscience the whole subject of this paper. Do you know anything of the grace of which I have been speaking? _Have you charity?_
The strong language of the Apostle St. Paul must surely convince you that the inquiry is not one that ought to be lightly put aside. The grace, without which that holy man could say, "I am nothing," the grace which the Lord Jesus says expressly is the great mark of being His disciple,--such a grace as this demands the serious consideration of every one who is in earnest about the salvation of his soul. It should set him thinking,--"How does this affect me? Have I charity?"
You have some knowledge, it may be, of religion. You know the difference between true and false doctrine. You can, perhaps, even quote texts, and defend the opinions you hold. But, remember the knowledge which is barren of practical results in life and temper is a useless possession. The words of the Apostle are very plain: "Though I understand all knowledge, and have not charity, I am nothing." (1 Cor. xiii. 3.)
You think you have faith, perhaps. You trust you are one of God's elect, and rest in that. But surely you should remember that there is a faith of devils, which is utterly unprofitable, and that the faith of God's elect is a "faith that worketh by love." It was when St. Paul remembered the "love" of the Thessalonians, as well as their faith and hope, that he said,--"I know your election of God." (1 Thess. i. 4.)
Look at your own daily life, both at home and abroad, and consider what place the charity of Scripture has in it. What is your temper? What are your ways of behaving toward all around you in your own family? What is your manner of speaking, especially in seasons of vexation and provocation? Where is your good-nature, your courtesy, your patience, your meekness, your gentleness, your forbearance? Where are your practical actions of love in your dealing with others? What do you know of the mind of Him who "went about doing good,"--who loved all, though specially His disciples,--who returned good for evil, and kindness for hatred, and had a heart wide enough to feel for all?
What would you do in heaven, I wonder, if you got there without charity? What comfort could you have in an abode where love was the law, and selfishness and ill-nature completely shut out? Alas! I fear that heaven would be no place for an uncharitable and ill-tempered man!--What said a little boy one day? "If grandfather goes to heaven, I hope I and brother will not go there." "Why do you say that?" he was asked. He replied,--"If he sees us there, I am sure he will say, as he does now,--'What are these boys doing here? Let them get out of the way.' He does not like to see us on earth, and I suppose he would not like to see us in heaven."
Give yourself no rest till you know something by experience of real Christian charity. Go and learn of Him who is meek and lowly of heart, and ask Him to teach you how to love. Ask the Lord Jesus to put His Spirit within you, to take away the old heart, to give you a new nature, to make you know something of His mind. Cry to Him night and day for grace, and give Him no rest until you feel something of what I have been describing in this paper. Happy indeed will your life be when you really understand "walking in love."
(2) But I do not forget that I am writing to some who are not ignorant of the charity of Scripture, and who long to feel more of it every year. I will give you two simple words of exhortation. They are these,--"Practice and teach the grace of charity."
Practice charity diligently. It is one of those graces, above all, which grow by constant exercise. Strive more and more to carry it into every little detail of daily life. Watch over your own tongue and temper throughout every hour of the day,--and especially in your dealings with servants, children, and near relatives. Remember the character of the excellent woman:--"In her tongue is the law of kindness." (Prov. xxxi. 26.)--Remember the words of St. Paul: "Let ALL your things be done with charity." (1 Cor. xvi. 14.) Charity should be seen in little things as well as in great ones.--Remember, not least, the words of St. Peter: "Have fervent charity among yourselves;" not a charity which just keeps alight, but a burning shining fire, which all around can see. (1 Pet. iv. 8.) It may cost pains and trouble to keep these things in mind. There may be little encouragement from the example of others. But persevere. Charity like this brings its own reward.
Finally, teach charity to others. Press it continually on servants, if you have any. Tell them the great duty of kindness, helpfulness, and considerateness, one for another. Press it, above all, on children, it you have any. Remind them constantly that kindness, good nature, and good temper, are among the first evidences which Christ requires in children. If they cannot know much, or explain doctrines, they can understand love. A child's religion is worth very little if it only consists in repeating texts and hymns. Useful as they are, they are often learned without thought, remembered without feeling, said over without consideration of their meaning, and forgotten when childhood is gone. By all means let children be taught texts and hymns; but let not such teaching be made everything in their religion. Teach them to keep their tempers, to be kind one to another, to be unselfish, good-natured, obliging, patient, gentle, forgiving. Tell them never to forget to their dying day, if they live as long as Methuselah, that without charity, the Holy Ghost says, "we are nothing." Tell them "_above all things_ to put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness." (Colos. iii. 14.)
VIII
ZEAL
"_It is good to be zealously affected always in a good thing._"--Gal. iv. 18.
Zeal is a subject, like many others in religion, most sadly misunderstood. Many would be ashamed to be thought "zealous" Christians. Many are ready to say of zealous people what Festus said of Paul: "They are beside themselves,--they are mad." (Acts xxvi. 24)
But zeal is a subject which no reader of the Bible has any right to pass over. If we make the Bible our rule of faith and practice, we cannot turn away from it. We must look it in the face. What says the Apostle Paul to Titus? "Christ gave Himself for us that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, _zealous_ of good works." (Titus ii. 14.) What says the Lord Jesus to the Laodicean Church? "Be _zealous_ and repent." (Rev. iii. 19.)
My object in this paper is to plead the cause of zeal in religion. I believe we ought not to be afraid of it, but rather to love and admire it. I believe it to be a mighty blessing to the world, and the origin of countless benefits to mankind. I want to strike a blow at the lazy, easy, sleepy Christianity of these latter days, which can see no beauty in zeal, and only uses the word "zealot" as a word of reproach. I want to remind Christians that "Zealot" was a name given to one of our Lord Jesus Christ's Apostles, and to persuade them to be zealous men.
I ask every reader of this paper to give me his attention while I tell him something about zeal. Listen to me for your own sake,--for the sake of the world,--for the sake of the Church of Christ. Listen to me, and by God's help I will show you that to be "zealous" is to be wise.
I. Let me show, in the first place, _what is zeal in religion_.
II. Let me show, in the second place, _when a man can be called rightly zealous in religion_?
III. Let me show, in the third place, _why it is a good thing for a man to be zealous in religion_?
I. First of all, I propose to consider this question. "What is _zeal_ in religion?"
Zeal in religion is a burning desire to please God, to do His will, and to advance His glory in the world in every possible way. It is a desire which no man feels by nature,--which the Spirit puts in the heart of every believer when he is converted,--but which some believers feel so much more strongly than others that they alone deserve to be called "zealous" men.
This desire is so strong, when it really reigns in a man, that it impels him to make any sacrifice,--to go through any trouble,--to deny himself to any amount,--to suffer, to work, to labour, to toil,--to spend himself and be spent, and even to die,--if only he can please God and honour Christ.
A zealous man in religion is pre-eminently _a man of one thing_. It is not enough to say that he is earnest, hearty, uncompromising, thorough-going, whole-hearted, fervent in spirit. He only sees one thing, he cares for one thing, he lives for one thing, he is swallowed up in one thing; and that one thing is to please God. Whether he lives, or whether he dies,--whether he has health, or whether he has sickness,--whether he is rich, or whether he is poor,--whether he pleases man, or whether he gives offence,--whether he is thought wise, or whether he is thought foolish,--whether he gets blame, or whether he gets praise,--whether he gets honour, or whether he gets shame,--for all this the zealous man cares nothing at all. He burns for one thing; and that one thing is to please God, and to advance God's glory. If he is consumed in the very burning, he cares not for it,--he is content. He feels that, like a lamp, he is made to burn; and if consumed in burning, he has but done the work for which God appointed him. Such an one will always find a sphere for his zeal. If he cannot preach, and work, and give money, he will cry, and sigh, and pray. Yes: if he is only a pauper, on a perpetual bed of sickness, he will make the wheels of sin around him drive heavily, by continually interceding against it. If he cannot fight in the valley with Joshua, he will do the work of Moses, Aaron, and Hur, on the hill. (Exod. xvii. 9--13.) If he is cut off from working himself, he will give the Lord no rest till help is raised up from another quarter, and the work is done. This is what I mean when I speak of "zeal" in religion.
We all know the habit of mind that makes men great in this world,--that makes such men as Alexander the Great, or Julius Caesar, or Oliver Cromwell, or Peter the Great, or Charles XII., or Marlborough, or Napoleon, or Pitt. We know that, with all their faults, they were all men of one thing. They threw themselves into one grand pursuit. They cared for nothing else. They put every thing else aside. They counted every thing else as second-rate, and of subordinate importance, compared to the one thing that they put before their eyes every day they lived. I say that the same habit of mind applied to the service of the Lord Jesus Christ becomes religious _zeal_.
We know the habit of mind that makes men great in the sciences of this world,--that makes such men as Archimedes, or Sir Isaac Newton, or Galileo, or Ferguson the astronomer, or James Watt. All these were men of one thing. They brought the powers of their minds into one single focus. They cared for nothing else beside. And this was the secret of their success. I say that this same habit consecrated to the service of God becomes religious _zeal_.
We know the habit of mind that makes men rich,--that makes men amass mighty fortunes, and leave millions behind them. What kind of people were the bankers, and merchants, and tradesmen, who have left a name behind them, as men who acquired immense wealth and became rich from being poor? They were all men that threw themselves entirely into their business, and neglected every thing else for the sake of that business. They gave their first attention, their first thoughts, the best of their time, and the best part of their mind, to pushing forward the transactions in which they were engaged. They were men of one thing. Their hearts were not divided. They devoted themselves, body, soul, and mind to their business. They seemed to live for nothing else. I say that if you turn that habit of mind to the service of God and His Christ it makes religious _zeal_.
(_a_) Now this habit of mind,--this zeal was _the characteristic of all the Apostles_. See for example the Apostle Paul. Hear him when he speaks to the Ephesian elders for the last time: "None of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry that I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the Gospel of the grace of God." (Acts xx. 24.) Hear him again, when he writes to the Philippians: "This one thing I do; I press towards the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." (Phil. iii. 13, 14.) See him from the day of his conversion, giving up his brilliant prospects,--forsaking all for Christ's sake,--and going forth to preach that very Jesus whom he had once despised. See him going to and fro throughout the world from that time,--through persecution,--through oppression,--through opposition,--through prisons,--through bonds,--through afflictions,--through things next to death itself, up to the very day when he sealed his faith with his blood, and died at Rome, a martyr for that Gospel which he had so long proclaimed. This was true religious _zeal_.
(_b_) This again was the _characteristic of the early Christians_. They were men "every where spoken against." (Acts xxviii. 22.) They were driven to worship God in dens and caves of the earth. They often lost every thing in the world for their religion's sake. They generally gained nothing but the cross, persecution, shame, and reproach. But they seldom, very seldom, went back. If they could not dispute, at least they could suffer. If they could not convince their adversaries by argument, at any rate they could die, and prove that they themselves were in earnest. Look at Ignatius cheerfully travelling to the place where he was to be devoured by lions, and saying as he went, "Now do I begin to be a disciple of my Master, Christ." Hear old Polycarp before the Roman Governor, saying boldly, when called upon to deny Christ, "Four score and six years have I served Christ, neither hath He ever offended me in any thing, and how then can I revile my King?" This was true _zeal_.
(_c_) This again was _the characteristic of Martin Luther_. He boldly defied the most powerful hierarchy that the world has ever seen. He unveiled its corruptions with an unflinching hand. He preached the long-neglected truth of justification by faith, in spite of anathemas and excommunications, fast and thickly poured upon him. See him going to the Diet at Worms, and pleading his cause before the Emperor and the Legate, and a host of the children of this world. Hear him saying,--when men were dissuading him from going, and reminding him of the fate of John Huss, "Though there were a devil under every tile on the roofs of Worms, in the name of the Lord I shall go forward." This was true _zeal_.
(_d_) This again was _the characteristic of our own English Reformers_. You have it in our first Reformer, Wickliffe, when he rose up on his sick bed, and said to the Friars, who wanted him to retract all he had said against the Pope, "I shall not die, but live to declare the villanies of the Friars." You have it in Cranmer, dying at the stake, rather than deny Christ's Gospel, holding forth that hand to be first burned which, in a moment of weakness, had signed a recantation, and saying, as he held it in the flames, "This unworthy hand!" You have it in old father Latimer, standing boldly on his faggot, at the age of seventy years, and saying to Ridley, "Courage, brother Ridley! we shall light such a candle this day as, by God's grace, shall never be put out." This was _zeal_.
(_e_) This again has been _the characteristic of all the greatest Missionaries_. You see it in Dr. Judson, in Carey, in Morrison, in Schwartz, in Williams, in Brainerd, in Elliott. You see it in none more brightly than in Henry Martyn. Here was a man who had reached the highest academical honours that Cambridge could bestow. Whatever profession he chose to follow, he had the most dazzling prospects of success. He turned his back upon it all. He chose to preach the Gospel to poor benighted heathen. He went forth to an early grave, in a foreign land. He said when he got there and saw the condition of the people, "I could bear to be torn in pieces, if I could but hear the sobs of penitence,--if I could but see the eyes of faith directed to the Redeemer!" This was _zeal_.
(_f_) But let us look away from all earthly examples,--and remember that zeal was pre-eminently the characteristic of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ Himself. Of Him it was written hundreds of years before He came upon earth, that He was "clad with _zeal_ as with a cloak," and "the _zeal_ of thine house hath even eaten me." And His own words were "My meat is to do my Father's will, and to finish His work." (Psalm lxix. 9; Isaiah lix. 17; John iv. 34.)
Where shall we begin, if we try to give examples of His zeal? Where should we end, if we once began? Trace all the narratives of His life in the four Gospels. Read all the history of what He was from the beginning of His ministry to the end. Surely if there ever was one who was _all zeal_, it was our great Example,--our Head,--our High Priest,--the great Shepherd of our profession, the Lord Jesus Christ.
If these things are so, we should not only beware of running down zeal, but we should also beware of allowing zeal to be run down in our presence. It may be badly directed, and then it becomes a curse;--but it may be turned to the highest and best ends, and then it is a mighty blessing. Like fire, it is one of the best of servants;--but, like fire also, if not well directed, it may be the worst of masters. Listen not to those people who talk of zeal as weakness and enthusiasm. Listen not to those who see no beauty in missions, who laugh at all attempts at the conversion of souls,--who call Societies for sending the Gospel to the world useless,--and who look upon City Missions, and District Visiting, and Ragged Schools and Open Air Preaching, as nothing but foolishness and fanaticism. Beware, lest in joining a cry of that kind you condemn the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Beware lest you speak against Him who has "left us an example that we should follow His steps." (1 Pet. ii. 21.)
Alas! I fear there are many professing Christians who if they had lived in the days when our Lord and His Apostles walked upon earth would have called Him and all His followers enthusiasts and fanatics. There are many, I fear, who have more in common with Annas and Caiaphas,--with Pilate and Herod,--with Festus and Agrippa,--with Felix and Gallio,--than with St. Paul and the Lord Jesus Christ.
II. I pass on now to the second thing I proposed to speak of. _When is a man truly zealous in religion?_
There never was a grace of which Satan has not made a counterfeit. There never was a good coin issued from the mint but forgers at once have coined something very like it. It was one of Nero's cruel practices first to sew up Christians in the skins of wild beasts, and then bait them with dogs. It is one of Satan's devices to place distorted copies of the believer's graces before the eyes of men, and so to bring the true graces into contempt. No grace has suffered so much in this way as zeal. Of none perhaps are there so many shams and counterfeits abroad. We must therefore clear the ground of all rubbish on this question. We must find out when zeal in religion is really good, and true, and of God.
(1) If zeal be true, it will be a _zeal according to knowledge_. It must not be a blind, ignorant zeal. It must be a calm, reasonable, intelligent principle, which can show the warrant of Scripture for every step it takes. The unconverted Jews had zeal. Paul says, "I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, _but not according to knowledge_." (Rom. x. 2.) Saul had zeal when he was a persecuting Pharisee. He says himself, in one of his addresses to the Jews, "I was _zealous_ toward God as ye all are this day." (Acts xxii. 3.)--Manasseh had zeal in the days when he was an idolater. The man who made his own children pass through the fire,--who gave up the fruit of his body to Moloch, to atone for the sin of his soul,--that man had zeal.--James and John had zeal when they would have called down fire on a Samaritan village. But our Lord rebuked them.--Peter had zeal when he drew his sword and cut off the ear of Malchus. But he was quite wrong.--Bonner and Gardiner had zeal when they burned Latimer and Cranmer. Were they not in earnest? Let us do them justice. They were zealous, though it was for an unscriptural religion.--The members of the Inquisition in Spain had zeal when they tortured men, and put them to horrible deaths, because they would not forsake the Gospel. Yes! they marched men and women to the stake in solemn procession, and called it "An Act of Faith," and believed they were doing God service.--The Hindoos, who used to lie down before the car of Juggernaut and allow their bodies to be crushed under its wheels:--had not they zeal?--The Indian widows, who used to burn themselves on the funeral pile of their deceased husbands,--the Roman Catholics, who persecuted to death the Vaudois and Albigenses, and cast down men and women from rocks and precipices, because they were heretics;--had not they zeal?--The Saracens--the Crusaders,--the Jesuits,--the Anabaptists of Munster--the followers of Joanna Southcote,--had they not all zeal? Yes! Yes! I do not deny it. All these had zeal beyond question. They were all zealous. They were all in earnest. But their zeal was not such zeal as God approves,--it was not a "zeal according to knowledge."
(2) Furthermore, if zeal be true, it will be a zeal _from true motives_. Such is the subtlety of the heart that men will often do right things from wrong motives. Amaziah and Joash, kings of Judah, are striking proofs of this. Just so a man may have zeal about things that are good and right, but from second-rate motives, and not from a desire to please God. And such zeal is worth nothing. It is reprobate silver. It is utterly wanting when placed in the balance of God. Man looks only at the action: God looks at the motive. Man only thinks of the quantity of work done: God considers the doer's heart.
There is such a thing as zeal from _party spirit_. It is quite possible for a man to be unwearied in promoting the interests of his own Church or denomination, and yet to have no grace in his own heart,--to be ready to die for the peculiar opinions of his own section of Christians, and yet to have no real love to Christ. Such was the zeal of the Pharisees. They "compassed sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he was made, they made him two-fold more the child of hell than themselves." (Matt. xxiii. 15.) This zeal is not true.
There is such a thing as zeal from mere _selfishness_. There are times when it is men's interest to be zealous in religion. Power and patronage are sometimes given to godly men. The good things of the world are sometimes to be attained by wearing a cloak of religion. And whenever this is the case there is no lack of false zeal. Such was the zeal of Joab, when he served David. Such was the zeal of only too many Englishmen in the days of the Commonwealth, when the Puritans were in power.
There is such a thing as zeal from the _love of praise_. Such was the zeal of Jehu, when he was putting down the worship of Baal. Remember how he met Jonadab the son of Rechab, and said, "Come with me, and see my zeal for the Lord." (2 Kings x. 16.) Such is the zeal that Bunyan refers to in "Pilgrim's Progress," when he speaks of some who went "for praise" to mount Zion. Some people feed on the praise of their fellow-creatures. They would rather have it from Christians than have none at all.
It is a sad and humbling proof of man's corruption that there is no degree of self-denial and self-sacrifice to which men may not go from false motives. It does not follow that a man's religion is true because he "gives his body to be burned," or because he "gives his goods to feed the poor." The Apostle Paul tells us that a man may do this, and yet not have true charity. (1 Cor. xiii. 1, etc.) It does not follow because men go into a wilderness, and become hermits, that therefore they know what true self-denial is. It does not follow because people immure themselves in monasteries and nunneries, or become "sisters of charity," and "sisters of mercy," that therefore they know what true crucifixion of the flesh and self-sacrifice is in the sight of God. All these things people may do on wrong principles. They may do them from wrong motives,--to satisfy a secret pride and love of notoriety,--but not from the true motive of zeal for the glory of God. All such zeal, let us understand, is false. It is of earth, and not of heaven.
(3) Furthermore, if zeal be true, it will be a zeal _about things according to God's mind, and sanctioned by plain examples in God's Word_. Take, for one instance, that highest and best kind of zeal,--I mean zeal for our own growth in personal holiness. Such zeal will make a man feel incessantly that sin is the mightiest of all evils, and conformity to Christ the greatest of all blessings. It will make him feel that there is nothing which ought not to be done, in order to keep up a close walk with God. It will make him willing to cut off the right hand, or pluck out the right eye, or make any sacrifice, if only he can attain a closer communion with Jesus. Is not this just what you see in the Apostle Paul? He says, "I keep under my body and bring it into subjection, lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway."--"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." (1 Cor. ix. 27; Phil. iii. 13, 14.)
Take, for another instance, zeal for the salvation of souls. Such zeal will make a man burn with desire to enlighten the darkness which covers the souls of multitudes, and to bring every man, woman, and child he sees to the knowledge of the Gospel. Is not this what you see in the Lord Jesus? It is said that He neither gave Himself nor His disciples leisure so much as to eat. (Mark vi. 31.) Is not this what you see in the Apostle Paul? He says, "I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some." (1 Cor. ix. 22.)
Take, for another instance, zeal against evil practices. Such zeal will make a man hate everything which God hates, such as drunkenness, slavery, or infanticide, and long to sweep it from the face of the earth. It will make him jealous of God's honour and glory, and look on everything which robs him of it as an offence. Is not this what you see in Phinehas, the son of Eleazar?--or in Hezekiah and Josiah, when they put down idolatry?
Take, for another instance, zeal for maintaining the doctrines of the Gospel. Such zeal will make a man hate unscriptural teaching, just as he hates sin. It will make him regard religious error as a pestilence which must be checked, whatever may be the cost. It will make him scrupulously careful about every jot and tittle of the counsel of God, lest by some omission the whole Gospel should be spoiled. Is not this what you see in Paul at Antioch, when he withstood Peter to the face, and said he was to be blamed? (Gal. ii. 11.) These are the kind of things about which true zeal is employed. Such zeal, let us understand, is honourable before God.
(4) Furthermore, if zeal be true, it will be a zeal _tempered with charity and love_. It will not be a bitter zeal. It will not be a fierce enmity against persons. It will not be a zeal ready to take the sword, and to smite with carnal weapons. The weapons of true zeal are not carnal, but spiritual. True zeal will hate sin, and yet love the sinner. True zeal will hate heresy, and yet love the heretic. True zeal will long to break the idol, but deeply pity the idolater. True zeal will abhor every kind of wickedness, but labour to do good even to the vilest of transgressors.
True zeal will warn as St. Paul warned the Galatians, and yet feel tenderly, as a nurse or a mother over erring children. It will expose false teachers, as Jesus did the Scribes and Pharisees, and yet weep tenderly, as Jesus did over Jerusalem when He came near to it for the last time. True zeal will be decided, as a surgeon dealing with a diseased limb; but true zeal will be gentle, as one that is dressing the wounds of a brother. True zeal will speak truth boldly, like Athanasius, against the world, and not care who is offended; but true zeal will endeavour, in all its speaking, to "speak the truth in love."
(5) Furthermore, if zeal be true, _it will be joined to a deep humility_. A truly zealous man will be the last to discover the greatness of his own attainments. All that he is and does will come so immensely short of his own desires, that he will be filled with a sense of his own unprofitableness, and amazed to think that God should work by him at all. Like Moses, when he came down from the Mount, he will not know that his face shines. Like the righteous, in the twenty-fifth chapter of St. Matthew, he will not be aware of his own good works. Dr. Buchanan is one whose praise is in all the churches. He was one of the first to take up the cause of the perishing heathen. He literally spent himself, body and mind, in labouring to arouse sleeping Christians to see the importance of missions. Yet he says in one of his letters, "I do not know that I ever had what Christians call zeal." Whitefield was one of the most zealous preachers of the Gospel the world has ever seen. Fervent in spirit, instant in season and out of season, he was a burning and shining light, and turned thousands to God. Yet he says after preaching for thirty years, "Lord help me to begin to begin." M'Cheyne was one of the greatest blessings that God ever gave to the Church of Scotland. He was a minister insatiably desirous of the salvation of souls. Few men ever did so much good as he did, though he died at the age of twenty-nine. Yet he says in one of his letters, "None but God knows what an abyss of corruption is in my heart. It is perfectly wonderful that ever God could bless such a ministry." We may be very sure where there is self-conceit there is little true zeal.
I ask the readers of this paper particularly to remember the description of true zeal which I have just given. Zeal according to knowledge,--zeal from true motives,--zeal warranted by Scriptural examples,--zeal tempered with charity,--zeal accompanied by deep humility,--this is true genuine zeal,--this is the kind of zeal which God approves. Of such zeal you and I never need fear having too much.
I ask you to remember the description, because of the times in which you live. Beware of supposing that sincerity alone can ever make up true zeal,--that earnestness, however ignorant, makes a man a really zealous Christian in the sight of God. There is a generation in these days which makes an idol of what it is pleased to call "_earnestness_" in religion. These men will allow no fault to be found with an "_earnest man_." Whatever his theological opinions may be,--if he be but an earnest man, that is enough for these people, and we are to ask no more. They tell you we have nothing to do with minute points of doctrine, and with questions of "words and names," about which Christians are not agreed. Is the man an earnest man? If he is, we ought to be satisfied. "Earnestness" in their eyes covers over a multitude of sins. I warn you solemnly to beware of this specious doctrine. In the name of the Gospel, and in the name of the Bible, I enter my protest against the theory that mere earnestness can make a man a truly zealous and pious man in the sight of God.
These idolaters of earnestness would make out that God has given us no standard of truth and error, or that the true standard, the Bible, is so obscure, that no man can find out what truth is by simply going to it. They pour contempt upon the Word, the written Word, and therefore they must be wrong.
These idolaters of earnestness would make us condemn every witness for the truth, and every opponent of false teaching, from the time of the Lord Jesus down to this day. The Scribes and Pharisees were "in earnest," and yet our Lord opposed them. And shall we dare even to hint a suspicion that they ought to have been let alone?--Queen Mary, and Bonner, and Gardiner were "in earnest" in restoring Popery, and trying to put down Protestantism, and yet Ridley and Latimer opposed them to the death. And shall we dare to say that as both parties were "in earnest," both were in the right?--Devil-worshippers and idolaters at this day are in earnest, and yet our missionaries labour to expose their errors. And shall we dare to say that "earnestness" would take them to heaven, and that missionaries to heathen and Roman Catholics had better stay at home?--Are we really going to admit that the Bible does not show us what is truth? Are we really going to put a mere vague thing called "earnestness," in the place of Christ, and to maintain that no "earnest" man can be wrong? God forbid that we should give place to such doctrine! I shrink with horror from such theology. I warn men solemnly to beware of being carried away by it, for it is common and most seductive in this day. Beware of it, for it is only a new form of an old error,--that old error which says that a man "Can't be wrong whose life is in the right." Admire zeal. Seek after zeal. Encourage zeal. But see that your own zeal be true. See that the zeal which you admire in others is a zeal "according to knowledge,"--a zeal from right motives,--a zeal that can bring chapter and verse out of the Bible for its foundation. Any zeal but this is but a false fire. It is not lighted by the Holy Ghost.
III. I pass on now to the third thing I proposed to speak of. Let me show _why it is good for a man to be zealous_.
It is certain that God never gave man a commandment which it was not man's interest as well as duty to obey. He never set a grace before His believing people which His people will not find it their highest happiness to follow after. This is true of all the graces of the Christian character. Perhaps it is pre-eminently true in the case of zeal.
(_a_) Zeal is _good for a Christian's own soul_. We all know that exercise is good for the health, and that regular employment of our muscles and limbs promotes our bodily comfort, and increases our bodily vigour. Now that which exercise does for our bodies, zeal will do for our souls. It will help mightily to promote inward feelings of joy, peace, comfort, and happiness. None have so much enjoyment of Christ as those who are ever zealous for His glory,--jealous over their own walk,--tender over their own consciences,--full of anxiety about the souls of others,--and ever watching, working, labouring, striving, and toiling to extend the knowledge of Jesus Christ upon earth. Such men live in the full light of the sun, and therefore their hearts are always warm. Such men water others, and therefore they are watered themselves. Their hearts are like a garden daily refreshed by the dew of the Holy Ghost. They honour God, and so God honours them.
I would not be mistaken in saying this. I would not appear to speak slightingly of any believer. I know that "the Lord takes pleasure in all His people." (Ps. cxlix. 4.) There is not one, from the least to the greatest,--from the smallest child in the kingdom of God, to the oldest warrior in the battle against Satan,--there is not one in whom the Lord Jesus Christ does not take great pleasure. We are all His children,--and however weak and feeble some of us may be, "as a father pitieth his children, so does the Lord pity them that love and fear Him." (Ps. ciii. 13.) We are all the plants of His own planting;--and though many of us are poor, weakly exotics, scarcely keeping life together in a foreign soil,--yet as the gardener loves that which his hands have reared, so does the Lord Jesus love the poor sinners that trust in Him. But while I say this, I do also believe that the Lord takes special pleasure in those who are _zealous_ for Him,--in those who give themselves body, soul, and spirit, to extend His glory in this world. To them He reveals Himself, as he does not to others. To them He shows things that other men never see. He blesses the work of their hands. He cheers them with spiritual consolations, which others only know by the hearing of the ear. They are men after His own heart, for they are men more like Himself than others. None have such joy and peace in believing,--none have such sensible comfort in their religion,--none have so much of "heaven upon earth" (Deut. xi. 21),--none see and feel so much of the consolations of the Gospel as those who are zealous, earnest, thorough-going, devoted Christians. For the sake of our own souls, if there were no other reason, it is good to be zealous,--to be very zealous in our religion.
(_b_) As zeal is good for ourselves individually, so it is also _good for the professing Church of Christ generally_. Nothing so much keeps alive true religion as a leaven of zealous Christians scattered to and fro throughout a Church. Like salt, they prevent the whole body falling into a state of corruption. None but men of this kind can revive Churches when ready to die. It is impossible to over-estimate the debt that all Christians owe to zeal. The greatest mistake the rulers of a Church can make is to drive zealous men out of its pale. By so doing they drain out the life-blood of the system, and hasten on ecclesiastical decline and death.
Zeal is in truth that grace which God seems to delight to honour. Look through the list of Christians who have been eminent for usefulness. Who are the men that have left the deepest and most indelible marks on the Church of their day? Who are the men that God has generally honoured to build up the walls of His Zion, and turn the battle from the gate? Not so much men of learning and literary talents, as men of zeal.
Bishop Latimer was not such a deeply-read scholar as Cranmer or Ridley. He could not quote Fathers from memory, as they did. He refused to be drawn into arguments about antiquity. He stuck to his Bible. Yet it is not too much to say that no English reformer made such a lasting impression on the nation as old Latimer did. And what was the reason? His simple zeal.
Baxter, the Puritan, was not equal to some of his contemporaries in intellectual gifts. It is no disparagement to say that he does not stand on a level with Manton or Owen. Yet few men probably exercised so wide an influence on the generation in which he lived. And what was the reason? His burning zeal.
Whitefield, and Wesley, and Berridge, and Venn were inferior in mental attainments to Bishops Butler and Watson. But they produced effects on the people of this country which fifty Butlers and Watsons would probably never have produced. They saved the Church of England from ruin. And what was one secret of their power? Their zeal.
These men stood forward at turning points in the history of the Church. They bore unmoved storms of opposition and persecution.--They were not afraid to stand alone. They cared not though their motives were misinterpreted.--They counted all things but loss for the truth's sake.--They were each and all and every one eminently _men of one thing_:--and that one thing was to advance the glory of God, and to maintain His truth in the world. They were all fire, and so they lighted others.--They were wide awake, and so they awakened others.--They were all alive, and so they quickened others.--They were always working, and so they shamed others into working too.--They came down upon men like Moses from the mount.--They shone as if they had been in the presence of God.--They carried to and fro with them, as they walked their course through the world, something of the atmosphere and savour of heaven itself.
There is a sense in which it may be said that zeal is contagious. Nothing is more useful to the professors of Christianity than to see a real live Christian, a thoroughly zealous man of God. They may rail at him,--they may carp at him,--they may pick holes in his conduct,--they may look shy upon him,--they may not understand him any more than men understand a new comet when a new comet appears;--but insensibly a zealous man does them good. He opens their eyes. He makes them feel their own sleepiness. He makes their own great darkness visible. He obliges them to see their own barrenness. He compels them to think, whether they like it or not--"What are we doing? Are we not no better than mere cumberers of the ground?" It may be sadly true that "one sinner _destroyeth_ much good;" but it is also a blessed truth that one zealous Christian can _do_ much good. Yes: one single zealous man in a town,--one zealous man in a congregation,--one zealous man in a society,--one zealous man in a family, may be a great, a most extensive blessing. How many machines of usefulness such a man sets a going! How much Christian activity he often calls into being which would otherwise have slept! How many fountains he opens which would otherwise have been sealed! Verily there is a deep mine of truth in those words of the Apostle Paul to the Corinthians: "Your zeal hath provoked very many." (2 Cor. ix, 2.)
(_c_) But, as zeal is good for the Church and for individuals, so zeal is _good for the world_. Where would the Missionary work be if it were not for zeal? Where would our City Missions and Ragged Schools be if it were not for zeal? Where would our District-Visiting and Pastoral Aid Societies be if it were not for zeal? Where would be our Societies for rooting out sin and ignorance, for finding out the dark places of the earth, and recovering poor lost souls? Where would be all these glorious instruments for good if it were not for Christian zeal? Zeal called these institutions into being, and zeal keeps them at work when they have begun. Zeal gathers a few despised men, and makes them the nucleus of many a powerful Society. Zeal keeps up the collections of a Society when it is formed. Zeal prevents men from becoming lazy and sleepy when the machine is large and begins to get favour from the world. Zeal raises up men to go forth, putting their lives in their hands, like Moffatt and Williams in our own day. Zeal supplies their place when they are gathered into the garner, and taken home.
What would become of the ignorant masses who crowd the lanes and alleys of our overgrown cities, if it were not for Christian zeal? Governments can do nothing with them: they cannot make laws that will meet the evil. The vast majority of professing Christians have no eyes to see it: like the priest and Levite, they pass by on the other side. But zeal has eyes to see, and a heart to feel, and a head to devise, and a tongue to plead, and hands to work, and feet to travel, in order to rescue poor souls, and raise them from their low estate. Zeal does not stand poring over difficulties, but simply says, "Here are souls perishing, and something _shall_ be done." Zeal does not shrink back because there are Anakims in the way: it looks over their heads, like Moses on Pisgah, and says, "The land _shall_ be possessed." Zeal does not wait for company, and tarry till good works are fashionable: it goes forward like a forlorn hope, and trusts that others will follow by and bye. Ah! the world little knows what a debt it owes to Christian zeal. How much crime it has checked! How much sedition it has prevented! How much public discontent it has calmed! How much obedience to law and love of order it has produced! How many souls it has saved! Yes! and I believe we little know what might be done if every Christian was a zealous man! How much if ministers were more like Bickersteth, and Whitefield, and M'Cheyne! How much if laymen were more like Howard, and Wilberforce, and Thornton, and Nasmith, and George Moore! Oh, for the world's sake, as well as your own, resolve, labour, strive to be a zealous Christian!
Let every one who professes to be a Christian beware of checking zeal. Seek it. Cultivate it. Try to blow up the fire in your own heart, and the hearts of others, but never, never check it. Beware of throwing cold water on zealous souls, whenever you meet with them. Beware of nipping in the bud this precious grace when first it shoots. If you are a parent, beware of checking it in your children;--if you are a husband, beware of checking it in your wife;--if you are a brother, beware of checking it in your sisters,--and if you are a minister, beware of checking it in the members of your congregation. It is a shoot of heaven's own planting. Beware of crushing it, for Christ's sake. Zeal may make mistakes.--Zeal may need directing.--Zeal may want guiding, controlling, and advising. Like the elephants on ancient fields of battle, it may sometimes do injury to its own side. But zeal does not need damping in a wretched, cold, corrupt, miserable world like this. Zeal, like John Knox pulling down the Scotch monasteries, may hurt the feelings of narrow-minded and sleepy Christians. It may offend the prejudices of those old-fashioned religionists who hate everything new, and (like those who wanted soldiers and sailors to go on wearing pigtails) abhor all change. But zeal in the end will be justified by its results. Zeal, like John Knox, in the long run of life will do infinitely more good than harm. There is little danger of there ever being too much zeal for the glory of God. God forgive those who think there is! You know little of human nature. You forget that sickness is far more contagious than health, and that it is much easier to catch a chill than impart a glow. Depend upon it, the Church seldom needs a bridle, but often needs a spur. It seldom needs to be checked, it often needs to be urged on.
And now, in conclusion, let me try to apply this subject to the conscience of every person who reads this paper. It is a warning subject, an arousing subject, an encouraging subject, according to the state of our several hearts. I wish, by God's help, to give every reader his portion.
(1) First of all, let me offer a warning to all _who make no decided profession of religion_. There are thousands and tens of thousands, I fear, in this condition. If you are one, the subject before you is full of solemn warning. Oh, that the Lord in mercy may incline your heart to receive it!
I ask you, then, in all affection, Where is your zeal in religion? With the Bible before me, I may well be bold in asking. But with your life before me, I may well tremble as to the answer. I ask again, Where is your zeal for the glory of God? Where is your zeal for extending Christ's Gospel through an evil world? Zeal, which was the characteristic of the Lord Jesus; zeal, which is the characteristic of the angels; zeal, which shines forth in all the brightest Christians: where is your zeal, unconverted reader?--where is your zeal indeed! You know well it is nowhere at all; you know well you see no beauty in it; you know well it is scorned and cast out as evil by you and your companions; you know well it has no place, no portion, no standing ground, in the religion of your soul. It is not perhaps that you know not what it is to be zealous in a certain way. You have zeal, but it is all misapplied. It is all earthly: it is all about the things of time. It is not zeal for the glory of God: it is not zeal for the salvation of souls. Yes: many a man has zeal for the newspaper, but not for the Bible,--zeal for the daily reading of the _Times_, but no zeal for the daily reading of God's blessed Word. Many a man has zeal for the account book and the business book, but no zeal about the Book of Life and the last great account,--zeal about Australian and Californian gold, but no zeal about the unsearchable riches of Christ. Many a man has zeal about his earthly concerns,--his family, his pleasures, his daily pursuits; but no zeal about God, and heaven, and eternity.
If this is the state of any one who is reading this paper, awake, I do beseech you, to see your gross _folly_. You cannot live for ever. You are not ready to die. You are utterly unfit for the company of saints and angels. Awake: be zealous and repent!--Awake to see the _harm_ you are doing! You are putting arguments in the hands of infidels by your shameful coldness. You are pulling down as fast as ministers build. You are helping the devil. Awake: be zealous, and repent!--Awake to see your childish _inconsistency_! What can be more worthy of zeal than eternal things, than the glory of God, than the salvation of souls? Surely if it is good to labour for rewards that are temporal, it is a thousand times better to labour for those that are eternal. Awake: be zealous and repent! Go and read that long-neglected Bible. Take up that blessed Book which you have, and perhaps never use. Read that New Testament through. Do you find nothing there to make you zealous,--to make you earnest about your soul? Go and look at the cross of Christ. Go and see how the Son of God there shed His precious blood for you,--how He suffered and groaned, and died for you,--how He poured out His soul as an offering for sin, in order that you, sinful brother or sister, might not perish, but have eternal life. Go and look at the cross of Christ, and never rest till you feel some zeal for your own soul,--some zeal for the glory of God,--some zeal for extension of the Gospel throughout the world. Once more I say, awake: be zealous, and repent!
(2) Let me, in the next place, say something to arouse those _who make a profession of being decided Christians, and are yet lukewarm in their practice_. There are only too many, I regret to say, in this state of soul. If you are one, there is much in this subject which ought to lead you to searchings of heart.
Let me speak to your conscience. To you also I desire to put the question in all brotherly affection, Where is your zeal?--Where is your zeal for the glory of God, and for extending the gospel throughout the world? You know well it is very low. You know well that your zeal is a little feeble glimmering spark, that just lives, and no more;--it is like a thing "ready to die." (Rev. iii. 2.) Surely, there is a fault somewhere, if this is the case. This state of things ought not to be. You, the child of God,--you, redeemed at so glorious a price,--you, ransomed with such precious blood, you, who are an heir of glory such as no tongue ever yet told, or eye saw;--surely you ought to be a man of another kind. Surely your zeal ought not to be so small.
I deeply feel that this is a painful subject to touch upon. I do it with reluctance, and with a constant remembrance of my own unprofitableness. Nevertheless, truth ought to be spoken. The plain truth is that many believers in the present day seem so dreadfully afraid of doing harm that they hardly ever dare to do good. There are many who are fruitful in objections, but barren in actions;--rich in wet blankets, but poor in anything like Christian fire. They are like the Dutch deputies, recorded in the history of last century, who would never allow Marlborough to venture anything, and by their excessive caution prevented many a victory being won. Truly, in looking round the Church of Christ, a man might sometimes think that God's kingdom had come, and God's will was being done upon earth, so small is the zeal that some believers show. It is vain to deny it. I need not go far for evidence. I point to Societies for doing good to the heathen, the colonies, and the dark places of our own land, languishing and standing still for want of active support. I ask, _Is this zeal?_ I point to thousands of miserable guinea subscriptions which are never missed by the givers, and yet make up the sum of their Christian liberality. I ask, _Is this zeal?_ I point to false doctrine allowed to grow up in parishes and families without an effort being made to check it, while so-called believers look on, and content themselves with wishing it was not so. I ask, _Is this zeal?_ Would the apostles have been satisfied with such a state of things? We know they would not.
If the conscience of any one who read this paper pleads guilty to any participation in the short-comings I have spoken of, I call upon him, in the name of the Lord, to awake, be zealous, and repent. Let not zeal be confined to Lincoln's Inn, the Temple, and Westminster;--to banks, and shops, and counting houses. Let us see the same zeal in the Church of Christ. Let not zeal be abundant to lead forlorn hopes, or get gold from Australia, or travel over thick ribbed ice in voyages of discovery, but defective to send the Gospel to the heathen, or to pluck Roman Catholics like brands from the fire, or to enlighten the dark places of the colonies of this great land. Never were there such doors of usefulness opened,--never were there so many opportunities for doing good. I loathe that squeamishness which refuses to help religious works if there is a blemish about the instrument by which the work is carried on. At this rate we might never do anything at all. Let us resist the feeling, if we are tempted by it. It is one of Satan's devices. It is better to work with feeble instruments than not to work at all. At all events, try to do something for God and Christ,--something against ignorance and sin. Give, collect, teach, exhort, visit, pray, according as God enables you. Only make up your mind that all can do something, and resolve that by you, at any rate, something shall be done. If you have only one talent, do not bury it in the ground. Try to live so as to be missed. There is far more to be done in twelve hours than most of us have ever yet done on any day in our lives.
Think of the _precious souls_ which are perishing while you are sleeping. Be taken up with your inward conflicts if you will. Go on anatomizing your own feelings, and poring over your own corruptions, if you are so determined. But remember all this time souls are going to hell, and you might do something to save them by working, by giving, by writing, by begging, and by prayer. Oh, awake! be zealous, and repent!
Think of the _shortness of time_. You will soon be gone. You will have no opportunity for works of mercy in another world. In heaven there will be no ignorant people to instruct, and no unconverted to reclaim. Whatever you do must be done now. Oh, when are you going to begin? Awake! be zealous, and repent.
Think of _the devil_, and his zeal to do harm. It was a solemn saying of old Bernard when he said that "Satan would rise up in judgment against some people at the last day, because he had shown more zeal to ruin souls than they had to save them." Awake! be zealous, and repent.
Think of _your Saviour_, and all His zeal for you. Think of Him in Gethsemane and on Calvary, shedding His blood for sinners. Think of His life and death,--His sufferings and His doings. This He has done for you. What are you doing for Him? Oh, resolve that for the time to come you will spend and be spent for Christ! Awake! be zealous and repent.
(3) Last of all, let me encourage _all readers of this paper who are truly zealous Christians_.
I have but one request to make, and that is _that you will persevere_. I do beseech you to hold fast your zeal, and never let it go. I do beseech you never to go back from your first works, never to leave your first love, never to let it be said of you that your first things were better than your last.--Beware of cooling down. You have only to be lazy, and to sit still, and you will soon lose all your warmth. You will soon become another man from what you are now. Oh, do not think this a needless exhortation!
It may be very true that wise young believers are very rare. But it is no less true that zealous old believers are very rare also. Never allow yourself to think that you can do too much,--that you can spend and be spent too much for Christ's cause. For one man that does too much I will show you a thousand who do not do enough. Rather think that "the night cometh, when no man can work" (John ix. 4),--and give, collect, teach, visit, work, pray, as if you were doing it for the last time. Lay to heart the words of that noble-minded Jansenist, who said, when told that he ought to rest a little, "What should we rest for? have we not all eternity to rest in?"
Fear not the reproach of men. Faint not because you are sometimes abused. Heed it not if you are sometimes called bigot, enthusiast, fanatic, madman, and fool. There is nothing disgraceful in these titles. They have often been given to the best and wisest of men. If you are only to be zealous when you are praised for it,--if the wheels of your zeal must be oiled by the world's commendation, your zeal will be but short-lived. Care not for the praise or frown of man. There is but one thing worth caring for, and that is the praise of God. There is but one question worth asking about our actions: "How will they look in the day of judgment?"
IX
FREEDOM
"_If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed._"--John viii. 36.
The subject before our eyes deserves a thousand thoughts. It should ring in the ears of Englishmen and Scotchmen like the voice of a trumpet. We live in a land which is the very cradle of freedom. But are we ourselves free?
The question is one which demands special attention at the present state of public opinion in Great Britain. The minds of many are wholly absorbed in politics. Yet there is a freedom, within the reach of all, which few, I am afraid, ever think of,--a freedom independent of all political changes,--a freedom which neither Queen, Lords and Commons, nor the cleverest popular leaders can bestow. This is the freedom about which I write this day. Do we know anything of it? Are we free?
In opening this subject, there are three points which I wish to bring forward.
I. I will show, in the first place, _the general excellence of freedom_.
II. I will show, in the second place, _the best and truest kind of freedom_.
III. I will show, in the last place, _the way in which the best kind of freedom may become your own_.
Let no reader think for a moment that this is going to be a political paper. I am no politician: I have no politics but those of the Bible. The only party I care for is the Lord's side: show me where that is, and it shall have my support. The only election I am very anxious about is the election of grace. My one desire is, that sinners should make their own calling and election sure.--The liberty I desire above all things to make known, and further, is the glorious liberty of the children of God.--The Government I care to support is the government which is on the shoulder of my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Before Christ I want every knee to bow, and every tongue to confess that He is Lord. I ask attention while I canvass these subjects. If you are not free, I want to guide you into true liberty. If you are free, I want you to know the full value of your freedom.
I. The first thing I have to show is _the general excellence of freedom_.
On this point some readers may think it needless to say anything: they imagine that all men know the value of freedom, and that to dwell on it is mere waste of time. I do not agree with such people at all. I believe that myriads of Englishmen know nothing of the blessings which they enjoy in their own land: they have grown up from infancy to manhood in the midst of free institutions. They have not the least idea of the state of things in other countries: they are ignorant alike of those two worst forms of tyranny,--the crushing tyranny of a cruel military despot, and the intolerant tyranny of an unreasoning mob. In short, many Englishmen know nothing of the value of liberty, just because they have been born in the middle of it, and have never been for a moment without it.
I call then on every one who reads this paper to remember that liberty is one of the greatest temporal blessings that man can have on this side the grave. We live in a land where our _bodies_ are free. So long as we hurt nobody's person, or property, or character, no one can touch us: the poorest man's house is his castle.--We live in a land where our _actions_ are free. So long as we support ourselves, we are free to choose what we will do, where we will go, and how we will spend our time.--We live in a land where our _consciences_ are free. So long as we hold quietly on our own way, and do not interfere with others, we are free to worship God as we please, and no man can compel us to take his way to heaven. We live in a land where no foreigner rules over us. Our laws are made and altered by Englishmen like ourselves, and our Governors dwell by our side, bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh.
In short, we have every kind of freedom to an extent which no other nation on earth can equal. We have personal freedom, civil freedom, religious freedom, and national freedom. We have free bodies, free consciences, free speech, free thought, free action, free Bibles, a free press, and free homes. How vast is this list of privileges! How endless the comforts which it contains! The full value of them can never perhaps be known. Well said the Jewish Rabbins in ancient days: "If the sea were ink and the world parchment, it would never serve to describe the praises of liberty."
The want of this freedom has been the most fertile cause of misery to nations in every age of the world. What reader of the Bible can fail to remember the sorrows of the children of Israel, when they were bondmen under Pharaoh in Egypt, or under Philistines in Canaan? What student of history needs to be reminded of the woes inflicted on the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, and Italy by the hand of foreign oppressors, or the Inquisition? Who, even in our own time, has not heard of that enormous fountain of wretchedness, the slavery of the Negro race? No misery certainly is so great as the misery of slavery.
To win and preserve freedom has been the aim of many national struggles which have deluged the earth with blood. Liberty has been the cause in which myriads of Greeks, and Romans, and Germans, and Poles, and Swiss, and Englishmen, and Americans have willingly laid down their lives. No price has been thought too great to pay in order that nations might be free.
The champions of freedom in every age have been justly esteemed among the greatest benefactors of mankind. Such names as Moses and Gideon in Jewish history, such names as the Spartan Leonidas, the Roman Horatius, the German Martin Luther, the Swedish Gustavus Vasa, the Swiss William Tell, the Scotch Robert Bruce and John Knox, the English Alfred and Hampden and the Puritans, the American George Washington, are deservedly embalmed in history, and will never be forgotten. To be the mother of many patriots is the highest praise of a nation.
The enemies of freedom in every age have been rightly regarded as the pests and nuisances of their times. Such names as Pharaoh in Egypt, Dionysius at Syracuse, Nero at Rome, Charles IX. in France, bloody Mary in England, are names which will never be rescued from disgrace. The public opinion of mankind will never cease to condemn them, on the one ground that they would not let people be free.
But why should I dwell on these things? Time and space would fail me if I were to attempt to say a tenth part of what might be said in praise of freedom. What are the annals of history but a long record of conflicts between the friends and foes of liberty? Where is the nation upon earth that has ever attained greatness, and left its mark on the world, without freedom? Which are the countries on the face of the globe at this very moment which are making the most progress in trade, in arts, in sciences, in civilization, in philosophy, in morals, in social happiness? Precisely those countries in which there is the greatest amount of true freedom. Which are the countries at this very day where is the greatest amount of internal misery, where we hear continually of secret plots, and murmuring, and discontent, and attempts on life and property? Precisely those countries where freedom does not exist, or exists only in name,--where men are treated as serfs and slaves, and are not allowed to think and act for themselves. No wonder that a mighty Transatlantic Statesman declared on a great occasion to his assembled countrymen: "Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"[5]
5: To prevent mistakes, I think it well to say that the man I refer to is Patrick Henry, an American Statesman of the last century.
Let us beware of _undervaluing_ the liberty we enjoy in this country of ours, as Englishmen. I am sure there is need of this warning. There is, perhaps, no country on earth where there is so much grumbling and fault-finding as there is in England. Men look at the fancied evils which they see around them, and exaggerate both their number and their intensity. They refuse to look at the countless blessings and privileges which surround us, or underrate the advantages of them. They forget that comparison should be applied to everything. With all our faults and defects there is at this hour no country on earth where there is so much liberty and happiness for all classes, as there is in England. They forget that as long as human nature is corrupt, it is vain to expect perfection here below. No laws or government whatever can possibly prevent a certain quantity of abuses and corruptions. Once more then, I say, let us beware of undervaluing English liberty, and running eagerly after every one who proposes sweeping changes. Changes are not always improvements. The old shoes may have some holes and defects, but the new shoes may pinch so much that we cannot walk at all. No doubt we might have better laws and government than we have: but I am quite sure we might easily have worse. At this very day there is no country on the face of the globe where there is so much care taken of the life, and health, and property, and character, and personal liberty of the meanest inhabitant, as there is in England. Those who want to have more liberty, would soon find, if they crossed the seas, that there is no country on earth where there is so much real liberty as our own.[6]
6: The following weighty passage, from the pen of the judicious Hooker, is commended to the attention of all in the present day. It is the opening passage of the first book of his "Ecclesiastical Polity."
"He that goeth about to persuade a multitude that they are not so well governed as they ought to be, shall never want attentive and favourable hearers, because they know the manifold defects whereunto every kind of regiment or government is subject; but the secret lets and difficulties, which in public proceedings are innumerable and inevitable, they have not ordinarily the judgment to consider. And because such as openly reprove disorders of States are taken for principal friends to the common benefit of all, and for men that carry singular freedom of mind, under this fair and plausible colour whatsoever they utter passeth for good and current. That which is wanting in the weight of their speech is supplied by the aptness of men's minds to accept and believe it. Whereas, on the other side, if we maintain things that are established, we have not only to strive with a number of heavy prejudices, deeply rooted in the breasts of men, who think that herein we serve the times, and speak in favour of the present state, because we either hold or seek preferment; but also to bear such reception as minds so averted beforehand usually take against that which they are loth should be poured into them."
But while I bid men not undervalue English liberty, so also on the other hand I charge them not to _overvalue_ it. Never forget that temporal slavery is not the only slavery, and temporal freedom not the only freedom. What shall it profit you to be a citizen of a free country, so long as your soul is not free? What is the use of living in a free land like England, with free thought, free speech, free action, free conscience, so long as you are a slave to sin, and a captive to the devil? Yes: there are tyrants whom no eye can see, as real and destructive as Pharaoh or Nero! There are chains which no hands can touch, as true and heavy and soul-withering as ever crushed the limbs of an African! It is these tyrants whom I want you this day to remember. It is these chains from which I want you to be free. Value by all means your English liberty, but do not overvalue it. Look higher, further than any temporal freedom. In the highest sense let us take care that "we are free."
II. The second thing I have to show is _the truest and best kind of freedom_.
The freedom I speak of is a freedom that is within the reach of every child of Adam who is willing to have it. No power on earth can prevent a man or woman having it, if they have but the will to receive it. Tyrants may threaten and cast in prison, but nothing they can do can stop a person having this liberty. And, once our own, nothing can take it away. Men may torture us, banish us, hang us, behead us, burn us, but they can never tear from us true freedom. The poorest may have it no less than the richest: the most unlearned may have it as well as the most learned, and the weakest as well as the strongest. Laws cannot deprive us of it: Pope's bulls cannot rob us of it. Once our own, it is an everlasting possession.
Now, what is this glorious freedom? Where is it to be found? What is it like? Who has obtained it for man? Who has got it at this moment to bestow? I ask my readers to give me their attention, and I will supply a plain answer to these questions.
The true freedom =I= speak of is spiritual freedom,--freedom of soul. It is the freedom which Christ bestows, without money and without price, on all true Christians. Those whom the Son makes free are free indeed: "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." (2 Cor. iii. 17.) Let men talk what they please of the comparative freedom of monarchies and republics; let them struggle, if they will, for universal liberty, fraternity, and equality: we never know the highest style of liberty till we are enrolled citizens of the kingdom of God. We are ignorant of the best kind of freedom if we are not Christ's freemen.
Christ's freemen are free from the _guilt of sin_. That heavy burden of unforgiven transgressions, which lies so heavy on many consciences, no longer presses them down. Christ's blood has cleansed it all away. They feel pardoned, reconciled, justified, and accepted in God's sight. They can look back to their old sins, however black and many, and say,--"Ye cannot condemn me." They can look back on long years of carelessness and worldliness and say,--"Who shall lay anything to my charge?" This is true liberty. This is to be free.
Christ's freemen are free from the _power of sin_. It no longer rules and reigns in their hearts, and carries them before it like a flood. Through the power of Christ's Spirit they mortify the deeds of their bodies, and crucify their flesh with its affections and lusts. Through His grace working in them they get the victory over their evil inclinations. The flesh may fight, but it does not conquer them; the devil may tempt and vex, but does not overcome them: they are no longer the bondslaves of lusts and appetites, and passions, and tempers. Over all these things they are more than conquerors, through Him that loved them. This is true liberty. This is to be free.
Christ's freemen are free from the _slavish fear of God_. They no longer look at Him with dread and alarm, as an offended Maker; they no longer hate Him, and get away from Him, like Adam among the trees of the garden; they no longer tremble at the thought of His judgment. Through the Spirit of adoption which Christ has given them, they look on God as a reconciled Father, and rejoice in the thought of His love. They feel that anger is passed away. They feel that when God the Father looks down upon them, He sees them in Christ, and unworthy as they are in themselves, is well-pleased. This is true liberty. This is to be free.
Christ's freemen are free from the _fear of man_. They are no longer afraid of man's opinions, or care much what man thinks of them; they are alike indifferent to his favour or his enmity, his smile or his frown. They look away from man who can be seen, to Christ who is not seen, and having the favour of Christ, they care little for the blame of man. "The fear of man" was once a snare to them. They trembled at the thought of what man would say, or think, or do: they dared not run counter to the fashions and customs of those around them; they shrank from the idea of standing alone. But the snare is now broken and they are delivered. This is true liberty. This is to be free.
Christ's freemen are free from the _fear of death_. They no longer look forward to it with silent dismay, as a horrible thing which they do not care to think of. Through Christ they can look this last enemy calmly in the face, and say,--"Thou canst not harm me." They can look forward to all that comes after death,--decay, resurrection, judgment, and eternity,--and yet not feel cast down. They can stand by the side of an open grave, and say, "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" They can lay them down on their death-beds, and say, "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil." (Ps. xxiii. 4.) "Not a hair of my head shall perish." This is true liberty. This is to be free.
Best of all, Christ's freemen are _free for ever_. Once enrolled in the list of heavenly citizens, their names shall never be struck off. Once presented with the freedom of Christ's kingdom, they shall possess it for evermore. The highest privileges of this world's freedom can only endure for a life-time; the freest citizen on earth must submit at length to die, and lose his franchise for ever: but the franchise of Christ's people is eternal. They carry it down to the grave, and it lives still; they will rise again with it at the last day, and enjoy the privileges of it for evermore. This is true liberty. This is to be free.
Does anyone ask how and in what way Christ has obtained these mighty privileges for His people? You have a right to ask the question, and it is one that can never be answered too clearly. Give me your attention, and I will show you by what means Christ has made His people free.
The freedom of Christ's people has been procured, like all other freedom, at a mighty cost and by a mighty sacrifice. Great was the bondage in which they were naturally held, and great was the price necessary to be paid to set them free: mighty was the enemy who claimed them as his captives, and it needed mighty power to release them out of his hands. But, blessed be God, there was grace enough, and power enough ready in Jesus Christ. He provided to the uttermost everything that was required to set His people free. The price that Christ paid for His people was nothing less than His own life-blood. He became their Substitute, and suffered for their sins on the cross: He redeemed them from the curse of the law, by being made a curse for them. (Gal. iii. 13.) He paid all their debt in His own person, by allowing the chastisement of their peace to be laid on Him. (Isaiah liii. 5.) He satisfied every possible demand of the law against them, by fulfilling its righteousness to the uttermost. He cleared them from every imputation of sin, by becoming sin for them. (2 Cor. v. 21.) He fought their battle with the devil, and triumphed over him on the cross. As their Champion, He spoiled principalities and powers, and made a show of them openly on Calvary. In a word, Christ having given Himself for us, has purchased the full right of redemption for us. Nothing can touch those to whom He gives freedom: their debts are paid, and paid a thousand times over; their sins are atoned for by a full, perfect, and sufficient atonement. A Divine Substitute's death meets completely the justice of God, and provides completely redemption for man.
Let us look well at this glorious plan of redemption, and take heed that we understand it. Ignorance on this point is one great secret of faint hopes, little comfort, and ceaseless doubts in the minds of Christians. Too many are content with a vague idea that Christ will somehow save sinners: but how or why they cannot tell. I protest against this ignorance. Let us set fully before our eyes the doctrine of Christ's vicarious death and substitution, and rest our souls upon it. Let us grasp firmly the mighty truth, that Christ on the cross, stood in the place of His people, died for His people, suffered for His people, was counted a curse and sin for His people, paid the debts of His people, made satisfaction for His people, became the surety and representative of His people, and in this way procured His people's freedom. Let us understand this clearly, and then we shall see what a mighty privilege it is to be made free by Christ.
This is the freedom which, above all other, is worth having. We can never value it too highly: there is no danger of overvaluing it. All other freedom is an unsatisfying thing at the best, and a poor uncertain possession at any time. Christ's freedom alone can never be overthrown. It is secured by a covenant ordered in all things and sure: its foundations are laid in the eternal councils of God, and no foreign enemy can overthrow them. They are cemented and secured by the blood of the Son of God Himself, and can never be cast down. The freedom of nations often lasts no longer than a few centuries: the freedom which Christ gives to any one of His people is a freedom that shall outlive the solid world.
This is the truest, highest kind of freedom. This is the freedom which in a changing, dying world, I want men to possess.
III. I have now to show, in the last place, _the way in which the best kind of freedom is made our own_.
This is a point of vast importance, on account of the many mistakes which prevail about it. Thousands, perhaps, will allow that there is such a thing as spiritual freedom, and that Christ alone has purchased it for us: but when they come to the application of redemption, they go astray. They cannot answer the question, "Who are those whom Christ effectually makes free?" and for want of knowledge of the answer, they sit still in their chains. I ask every reader to give me his attention once more, and I will try to throw a little light on the subject. Useless indeed is the redemption which Christ has obtained, unless you know how the fruit of that redemption can become your own. In vain have you read of the freedom wherewith Christ makes people free, unless you understand how you yourself may have an interest in it.
We are not born Christ's freemen. The inhabitants of many a city enjoy privileges by virtue of their birth-place. St. Paul, who drew life-breath first at Tarsus in Cilicia, could say to the Roman Commander, "I was free-born." But this is not the case with Adam's children, in spiritual things. We are born slaves and servants of sin: we are by nature "children of wrath," and destitute of any title to heaven.
We are not made Christ's freemen by baptism. Myriads are every year brought to the font, and solemnly baptized in the name of the Trinity, who serve sin like slaves, and neglect Christ all their days. Wretched indeed is that man's state of soul who can give no better evidence of his citizenship of heaven than the mere naked fact of his baptism!
We are not made Christ's freemen by mere membership of Christ's Church. There are Companies and Corporations whose members are entitled to vast privileges, without any respect to their personal character, if their names are only on the list of members. The kingdom of Christ is not a corporation of this kind. The grand test of belonging to it is personal character.
Let these things sink down into our minds. Far be it from me to narrow the extent of Christ's redemption: the price He paid on the cross is sufficient for the whole world. Far be it from me to undervalue baptism or Church-membership: the ordinance which Christ appointed, and the Church which He maintains in the midst of a dark world, ought neither of them to be lightly esteemed.--All I contend for is the absolute necessity of not being content either with baptism or Church-membership. If our religion stops short here it is unprofitable and unsatisfying. It needs something more than this to give us an interest in the redemption which Christ has purchased.
There is no other way to become Christ's freemen than that of simply believing. It is by faith, simple faith in Him as our Saviour and Redeemer, that men's souls are made free. It is by receiving Christ, trusting Christ, committing ourselves to Christ, reposing our whole weight on Christ,--it is by this, and by no other plan, that spiritual liberty is made our own. Mighty as are the privileges which Christ's freemen possess, they all become a man's property in the day that he first believes. He may not yet know their full value, but they are all his own. He that believeth in Christ is not condemned,--is justified, is born again, is an heir of God, and hath everlasting life.
The truth before us is one of priceless importance. Let us cling to it firmly, and never let it go. If you desire peace of conscience, if you want inward rest and consolation, stir not an inch off the ground that faith is the grand secret of an interest in Christ's redemption.--Take the simplest view of faith: beware of confusing your mind by complicated ideas about it. Follow holiness as closely as you can: seek the fullest and clearest evidence of the inward work of the Spirit. But in the matter of an interest in Christ's redemption remember that faith stands alone. It is by believing, simply believing, that souls become free.
No doctrine like this to suit the ignorant and unlearned! Visit the poorest and humblest cottager, who knows nothing of theology, and cannot even repeat the creed. Tell him the story of the cross, and the good news about Jesus Christ, and His love to sinners; show him that there is freedom provided for him, as well as for the most learned in the land,--freedom from guilt, freedom from the devil, freedom from condemnation, freedom from hell. And then tell him plainly, boldly, broadly, unreservedly, that this freedom may be all his own, if he will but trust in Christ and believe.
No doctrine like this to suit the sick and dying! Go to the bedside of the vilest sinner, when death is coming nigh, and tell him lovingly that there is a hope even for him, if he can receive it. Tell him that Christ came into the world to save sinners, even the chief of them; tell him that Christ has done all, paid all, performed all, purchased all that the soul of man can possibly need for salvation. And then assure him that he, even he, may be freed at once from all his guilt, if he will only believe. Yes, say to him, in the words of Scripture, "If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." (Rom. x. 9.)
Let us never forget that this is the point to which we must turn our own eyes, if we would know whether we have a saving interest in Christ's redemption. Waste not your time in speculations whether you are elect, and converted, and a vessel of grace. Stand not poring over the unprofitable question whether Christ died for you or not. That is a point of which no one ever made any question in the Bible. Settle your thoughts on this one simple inquiry,--"Do I really trust in Christ, as a humble sinner? Do I cast myself on Him? Do I believe?"--Look not to anything else. Look at this alone. Fear not to rest your soul on plain texts and promises of Scripture. If you believe, you are free.
(1) And now as I bring this paper to a conclusion, let me affectionately press upon every reader the inquiry which grows naturally out of the whole subject. Let me ask every one a plain question: "Are you free?"
I know not who or what you are into whose hands this paper has fallen. But this I do know, there never was an age when the inquiry I press upon you was more thoroughly needed. Political liberty, civil liberty, commercial liberty, liberty of speech, liberty of the press,--all these, and a hundred other kindred subjects, are swallowing up men's attention. Few, very few, find time to think of spiritual liberty. Many, too many, forget that no man is so thoroughly a slave, whatever his position, as the man who serves sin. Yes! there are thousands in this country who are slaves of beer and spirits, slaves of lust, slaves of ambition, slaves of political party, slaves of money, slaves of gambling, slaves of fashion, or slaves of temper! You may not see their chains with the naked eye, and they themselves may boast of their liberty: but for all that they are thoroughly slaves. Whether men like to hear it or not, the gambler and the drunkard, the covetous and the passionate, the glutton and the sensualist, are not free, but slaves. They are bound hand and foot by the devil. "He that committeth sin is the servant of sin." (Rom. viii. 34.) He that boasts of liberty, while he is enslaved by lusts and passions, is going down to hell with a lie in his right hand.
Awake to see these things, while health, and time, and life are granted to you. Let not political struggles and party strife make you forget your precious soul. Take any side in politics you please, and follow honestly your conscientious convictions; but never, never forget that there is a liberty far higher and more lasting than any that politics can give you. Rest not till that liberty is your own. Rest not till YOUR SOUL IS FREE.
(2) Do you feel any desire to be free? Do you find any longing within you for a higher, better liberty than this world can give--a liberty that will not die at your death, but will go with you beyond the grave? Then take the advice I give you this day. Seek Christ, repent, believe, and be free. Christ has a glorious liberty to bestow on all who humbly cry to Him for freedom. Christ can take burdens off your heart, and strike chains off your inward man. "If the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed." (John viii. 36.)
Freedom like this is the secret of true happiness. None go through the world with such ease and content as those who are citizens of a heavenly country. Earth's burdens press lightly upon their shoulders; earth's disappointments do not crush them down as they do others; earth's duties and anxieties do not drink up their spirit. In their darkest hours they have always this sustaining thought to fall back on,--"I have something which makes me independent of this world: I am spiritually free."
Freedom like this is the secret of being a good politician. In every age Christ's freemen have been the truest friends to law and order, and to measures for the benefit of all classes of mankind. Never, =never= let it be forgotten that the despised Puritans, two hundred years ago, did more for the cause of real liberty in England than all the Governments which ever ruled this land. No man ever made this country so feared and respected as Oliver Cromwell. The root of the most genuine patriotism is to be one of those whom Christ has made free.
(3) Are you spiritually free? Then rejoice, and be thankful for your freedom. Care not for the scorn and contempt of man: you have no cause to be ashamed of your religion or your Master. He whose citizenship is in heaven (Phil. iii. 20), who has God for his Father, and Christ for his Elder Brother, angels for his daily guards, and heaven itself for his home, is one that is well provided for. No change of laws can add to his greatness: no extension of franchise can raise him higher than he stands in God's sight. "The lines are fallen to him in pleasant places, and he has a goodly heritage." (Psalm xvi. 6.) Grace now, and the hope of glory hereafter, are more lasting privileges than the power of voting for twenty boroughs or counties.
Are you free? Then stand fast in your liberty, and be not entangled again in the yoke of bondage. Listen not to those who by good words and fair speeches would draw you back to the Church of Rome. Beware of those who would fain persuade you that there is any mediator but the one Mediator, Christ Jesus,--any sacrifice but the one Sacrifice offered on Calvary,--any priest but the great High Priest Emmanuel,--any incense needed in worship but the savour of His name who was crucified,--any rule of faith and practice but God's Word,--any confessional but the throne of grace,--any effectual absolution but that which Christ bestows on the hearts of His believing people,--any purgatory but the one fountain open for all sins, the blood of Christ, to be only used while we are alive. On all these points stand fast, and be on your guard. Scores of misguided teachers are trying to rob Christians of Gospel liberty, and to bring back among us exploded superstitions. Resist them manfully, and do not give way for a moment. Remember what Romanism was in this country before the blessed Reformation. Remember at what mighty cost our martyred Reformers brought spiritual freedom to light by the Gospel. Stand fast for this freedom like a man, and labour to hand it down to your children, whole and unimpaired.
Are you free? Then think every day you live of the millions of your fellow-creatures who are yet bound hand and foot in spiritual darkness. Think of six hundred millions of heathens who never yet heard of Christ and salvation. Think of the poor homeless Jews, scattered and wandering over the face of the earth, because they have not yet received their Messiah. Think of the millions of Roman Catholics who are yet in captivity under the Pope, and know nothing of true liberty, light, and peace. Think of the myriads of your own fellow-countrymen in our great cities, who, without Sabbaths and without means of grace, are practically heathens, and whom the devil is continually leading captive at his will. Think of them all, and feel for them. Think of them all, and often say to yourself,--"What can I do for them? How can I help to set them free?"
What! Shall it be proclaimed at the last day that Pharisees and Jesuits have compassed sea and land to make proselytes,--that politicians have leagued and laboured night and day to obtain catholic emancipation and free trade,--that philanthropists have travailed in soul for years to procure the suppression of negro slavery,--and shall it appear at the same time that Christ's freemen have done little to rescue men and women from hell? Forbid it, faith! Forbid it, charity! Surely if the children of this world are zealous to promote temporal freedom, the children of God ought to be much more zealous to promote spiritual freedom. Let the time past suffice us to have been selfish and indolent in this matter. For the rest of our days let us use =every= effort to promote spiritual emancipation. If we have tasted the blessings of freedom, let us spare no pains to make others free.
Are you free? Then look forward in faith and hope for good things yet to come. Free as we are, if we believe on Christ, from the guilt and power of sin, we must surely feel every day that we are not free from its presence and the temptations of the devil. Redeemed as we are from the eternal consequences of the fall, we must often feel that we are not yet redeemed from sickness and infirmity, from sorrow and from pain. No, indeed! Where is the freeman of Christ on earth who is not often painfully reminded that we are not yet in heaven? We are yet in the body; we are yet travelling through the wilderness of this world: we are not at home. We have shed many tears already, and probably we shall have to shed many more; we have got yet within us a poor weak heart: we are yet liable to be assaulted by the devil. Our redemption is begun indeed, but it is not yet completed. We have redemption now in the root, but we have it not in the flower.
But let us take courage: there are better days yet to come. Our great Redeemer and Liberator has gone before us to prepare a place for His people, and when He comes again our redemption will be complete. The great jubilee year is yet to come. A few more returns of Christmas and New Year's Days,--a few more meetings and partings,--a few more births and deaths,--a few more weddings and funerals,--a few more tears and struggles,--a few more sicknesses and pains,--a few more Sabbaths and sacraments,--a few more preachings and prayings,--a few more, and the end will come! Our Master will come back again. The dead saints shall be raised. The living saints shall be changed. Then, and not till then, we shall be completely free. The liberty which we enjoyed by faith shall be changed into the liberty of sight, and the freedom of hope into the freedom of certainty.
Come, then, and let us resolve to wait, and watch, and hope, and pray, and live like men who have something laid up for them in heaven. The night is far spent, and the day is at hand. Our King is not far off: our full redemption draweth nigh. Our full salvation is nearer than when we believed. The signs of the times are strange, and demand every Christian's serious attention. The kingdoms of this world are in confusion: the powers of this world, both temporal and ecclesiastical, are everywhere reeling and shaken to their foundations. Happy, thrice happy, are those who are citizens of Christ's eternal kingdom, and ready for anything that may come. Blessed indeed are those men and women who know and feel that they are free!
X
HAPPINESS
"_Happy is that people whose God is the Lord._"--Psalm cxliv. 15.
An infidel was once addressing a crowd of people in the open air. He was trying to persuade them that there was no God and no devil no heaven, and no hell, no resurrection, no judgment, and no life to come. He advised them to throw away their Bibles, and not to mind what parsons said. He recommended them to think as he did, and to be like him. He talked boldly. The crowd listened eagerly. It was "the blind leading the blind." Both were falling into the ditch. (Matt. xv. 14.)
In the middle of his address a poor old woman suddenly pushed her way through the crowd, to the place where he was standing. She stood before him. She looked him full in the face. "Sir," she said, in a loud voice, "Are you happy?" The infidel looked scornfully at her, and gave her no answer. "Sir," she said again, "I ask you to answer my question. Are you happy? You want us to throw away our Bibles. You tell us not to believe what parsons say about religion. You advise us to think as you do, and be like you. Now before we take your advice we have a right to know what good we shall get by it. Do your fine new notions give you much comfort? Do you yourself really feel happy?"
The infidel stopped, and attempted to answer the old woman's question. He stammered, and shuffled, and fidgetted, and endeavoured to explain his meaning. He tried hard to turn the subject. He said, he "had not come there to preach about happiness." But it was of no use. The old woman stuck to her point. She insisted on her question being answered, and the crowd took her part. She pressed him hard with her inquiry, and would take no excuse. And at last the infidel was obliged to leave the ground, and sneak off in confusion. He could not reply to the question. His conscience would not let him: he dared not say that he was happy.
The old woman showed great wisdom in asking the question that she did. The argument she used may seem very simple, but in reality it is one of the most powerful that can be employed. It is a weapon that has more effect on some minds than the most elaborate reasoning of Butler, or Paley, or Chalmers. Whenever a man begins to take up new views of religion, and pretends to despise old Bible Christianity, thrust home at his conscience the old woman's question. Ask him whether his new views make him feel comfortable within. Ask him whether he can say, with honesty and sincerity, that he is happy. The grand test of a man's faith and religion is, "Does it make him happy?"
Let me now affectionately invite every reader to consider the subject of this paper. Let me warn you to remember that the salvation of your soul, and nothing less, is closely bound up with the subject. The heart cannot be right in the sight of God which knows nothing of happiness. That man or woman cannot be in a safe state of soul who feels nothing of peace within.
There are three things which I purpose to do, in order to clear up the subject of happiness. I ask special attention to each one of them. And I pray the Spirit of God to apply all to the souls of all who read this paper.
I. Let me point out some things which are absolutely essential to all happiness.
II. Let me expose some common mistakes about the way to be happy.
III. Let me show the way to be truly happy.
I. First of all I have _to point out some things which are absolutely essential to all true happiness_.
Happiness is what all mankind want to obtain: the desire of it is deeply planted in the human heart. All men naturally dislike pain, sorrow, and discomfort. All men naturally like ease, comfort, and gladness. All men naturally hunger and thirst after happiness. Just as the sick man longs for health, and the prisoner of war for liberty,--just as the parched traveller in hot countries longs to see the cooling fountain, or the ice-bound polar voyager the sun rising above the horizon,--just in the same way does poor mortal man long to be happy. But, alas, how few consider what they really mean when they talk of happiness! How vague and indistinct and undefined the ideas of most men are upon the subject! They think some are happy who in reality are miserable: they think some are gloomy and sad who in reality are truly happy. They dream of a happiness which in reality would never satisfy their nature's wants. Let me try this day to throw a little light on the subject.
True happiness _is not perfect freedom from sorrow and discomfort_. Let that never be forgotten. If it were so there would be no such thing as happiness in the world. Such happiness is for angels who have never fallen, and not for man. The happiness I am inquiring about is such as a poor, dying, sinful creature may hope to attain. Our whole nature is defiled by sin. Evil abounds in the world. Sickness, and death, and change are daily doing their sad work on every side. In such a state of things the highest happiness man can attain to on earth must necessarily be a mixed thing. If we expect to find any literally perfect happiness on this side of the grave, we expect what we shall not find.
True happiness _does not consist in laughter and smiles_. The face is very often a poor index of the inward man. There are thousands who laugh loud and are merry as a grasshopper in company, but are wretched and miserable in private, and almost afraid to be alone. There are hundreds who are grave and serious in their demeanour, whose hearts are full of solid peace. A poet of our own has truly told us that smiles are worth but little:--
"A man may smile and smile and be a villain."
And the eternal Word of God teaches us that "even in laughter the heart is sorrowful." (Prov. xiv. 13.) Tell me not merely of smiling and laughing faces: I want to hear of something more than that when I ask whether a man is happy. A truly happy man no doubt will often show his happiness in his countenance; but a man may have a very merry face and yet not be happy at all.
Of all deceptive things on earth nothing is so deceptive as mere gaiety and merriment. It is a hollow empty show, utterly devoid of substance and reality. Listen to the brilliant talker in society, and mark the applause which he receives from an admiring company: follow him to his own private room, and you will very likely find him plunged in melancholy despondency. Colonel Gardiner confessed that even when he was thought most happy he often wished he was a dog.--Look at the smiling beauty in the ball-room, and you might suppose she knew not what it was to be unhappy; see her next day at her own home, and you may probably find her out of temper with herself and everybody else besides.--Oh, no: worldly merriment is not real happiness! There is a certain pleasure about it, I do not deny. There is an animal excitement about it, I make no question. There is a temporary elevation of spirits about it, I freely concede. But call it not by the sacred name of happiness. The most beautiful cut flowers stuck into the ground do not make a garden. When glass is called diamond, and tinsel is called gold, then, and not till then, your people who can laugh and smile will deserve to be called happy men.[7]
7: Cervantes, author of Don Quixote, at a time when all Spain was laughing at his humorous work, was overwhelmed with a deep cloud of melancholy.
Moliere, the first of French comic writers, carried into his domestic circle a sadness which the greatest worldly prosperity could never dispel.
Samuel Foote, the noted wit of the last century, died of a broken heart.
Theodore Hooke, the facetious novel writer, who could set everybody laughing, says of himself in his diary, "I am suffering under a constant depression of spirits, which no one who sees me in society dreams of."
A wobegone stranger consulted a physician about his health. The physician advised him to keep up his spirits by going to hear the great comic actor of the day. "You should go and hear Matthews. He would make you well." "Alas, sir," was the reply, "I am Matthews himself!"--_Pictorial Pages._
To be truly happy _the highest wants of a man's nature must be met and satisfied_. The requirements of his curiously wrought constitution must all be filled up. There must be nothing about him that cries, "Give, give," but cries in vain and gets no answer. The horse and the ox are happy as long as they are warmed and filled. And why? It is because they are satisfied. The little infant looks happy when it is clothed, and fed, and well, and in its mother's arms. And why? Because it is satisfied. And just so it is with man. His highest wants must be met and satisfied before he can be truly happy. All must be filled up. There must be no void, no empty places, no unsupplied cravings. Till then he is never truly happy.
And what are _man's principal wants_? Has he a body only? No: he has something more! He has a soul.--Has he sensual faculties only? Can he do nothing but hear, and see, and smell, and taste, and feel? No: he has a thinking mind and a conscience!--Has he no consciousness of any world but that in which he lives and moves? He has. There is a still small voice within him which often makes itself heard: "This life is not all! There is a world unseen: there is a life beyond the grave." Yes! it is true. We are fearfully and wonderfully made. All men know it: all men feel it, if they would only speak the truth. It is utter nonsense to pretend that food and raiment and earthly good things alone can make men happy. There are soul-wants. There are conscience-wants. There can be no true happiness until these wants are satisfied.
To be truly happy _a man must have sources of gladness which are not dependent on anything in this world_. There is nothing upon earth which is not stamped with the mark of instability and uncertainty. All the good things that money can buy are but for a moment: they either leave us or we are obliged to leave them. All the sweetest relationships in life are liable to come to an end: death may come any day and cut them off. The man whose happiness depends entirely on things here below is like him who builds his house on sand, or leans his weight on a reed.
Tell me not of your happiness if it daily hangs on the uncertainties of earth. Your home may be rich in comforts; your wife and children may be all you could desire; your means may be amply sufficient to meet all your wants. But oh, remember, if you have nothing more than this to look to, that you stand on the brink of a precipice! Your rivers of pleasure may any day be dried up. Your joy may be deep and earnest, but it is fearfully short-lived. It has no root. It is not true happiness.
To be really happy _a man must be able to look on every side without uncomfortable feelings_. He must be able to look back to the past without guilty fears; he must be able to look around him without discontent; he must be able to look forward without anxious dread. He must be able to sit down and think calmly about things past, present, and to come, and feel prepared. The man who has a weak side in his condition,--a side that he does not like looking at or considering,--that man is not really happy.
Talk not to me of your happiness, if you are unable to look steadily either before or behind you. Your present position may be easy and pleasant. You may find many sources of joy and gladness in your profession, your dwelling-place, your family, and your friends. Your health may be good, your spirits may be cheerful. But stop and think quietly over your past life. Can you reflect calmly on all the omissions and commissions of by-gone years? How will they bear God's inspection? How will you answer for them at the last day?--And then look forward, and think on the years yet to come. Think of the certain end towards which you are hastening; think of death; think of judgment; think of the hour when you will meet God face to face. Are you ready for it? Are you prepared? Can you look forward to these things without alarm?--Oh, be very sure if you cannot look comfortably at any season but the present, your boasted happiness is a poor unreal thing! It is but a whitened sepulchre,--fair and beautiful without, but bones and corruption within. It is a mere thing of a day, like Jonah's gourd. It is not real happiness.
I ask my readers to fix in their minds the account of things essential to happiness, which I have attempted to give. Dismiss from your thoughts the many mistaken notions which pass current on this subject, like counterfeit coin. To be truly happy, the wants of your soul and conscience must be satisfied; to be truly happy, your joy must be founded on something more than this world can give you; to be truly happy, you must be able to look on every side,--above, below, behind, before,--and feel that all is right. This is real, sterling, genuine happiness: this is the happiness I have in view when I urge on your notice the subject of this paper.
II. In the next place, _let me expose some common mistakes about the way to be happy_.
There are several roads which are thought by many to lead to happiness. In each of these roads thousands and tens of thousands of men and women are continually travelling. Each fancies that if he could only attain all he wants he would be happy. Each fancies, if he does not succeed, that the fault is not in his road, but in his own want of luck and good fortune. And all alike seem ignorant that they are hunting shadows. They have started in a wrong direction: they are seeking that which can never be found in the place where they seek it.
I will mention by name some of the principal delusions about happiness. I do it in love, and charity, and compassion to men's souls. I believe it to be a public duty to warn people against cheats, quacks, and impostors. Oh, how much trouble and sorrow it might save my readers, if they would only believe what I am going to say!
It is an utter mistake to suppose that _rank and greatness alone_ can give happiness. The kings and rulers of this world are not necessarily happy men. They have troubles and crosses, which none know but themselves; they see a thousand evils, which they are unable to remedy; they are slaves working in golden chains, and have less real liberty than any in the world; they have burdens and responsibilities laid upon them, which are a daily weight on their hearts. The Roman Emperor Antonine often said, that "the imperial power was an ocean of miseries." Queen Elizabeth, when she heard a milk-maid singing, wished that she had been born to a lot like her's. Never did our great Poet write a truer word than when he said,
"Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown."
It is an utter mistake to suppose that _riches alone_ can give happiness. They can enable a man to command and possess everything but inward peace. They cannot buy a cheerful spirit and a light heart. There is care in the getting of them, and care in the keeping of them, care in the using of them, and care in the disposing of them, care in the gathering, and care in the scattering of them. He was a wise man who said that "money" was only another name for "trouble," and that the same English letters which spelt "acres" would also spell "cares."
It is an utter mistake to suppose that _learning and science alone_ can give happiness. They may occupy a man's time and attention, but they cannot really make him happy. They that increase knowledge often "increase sorrow:" the more they learn, the more they discover their own ignorance. (Eccles. i. 18.) It is not in the power of things on earth or under the earth to "minister to a mind diseased." The heart wants something as well as the head: the conscience needs food as well as the intellect. All the secular knowledge in the world will not give a man joy and gladness, when he thinks on sickness, and death, and the grave. They that have climbed the highest, have often found themselves solitary, dissatisfied, and empty of peace. The learned Selden, at the close of his life, confessed that all his learning did not give him such comfort as four verses of St. Paul. (Titus ii. 11--14.)
It is an utter mistake to suppose that _idleness alone_ can give happiness. The labourer who gets up at five in the morning, and goes out to work all day in a cold clay ditch, often thinks, as he walks past the rich man's door, "What a fine thing it must be to have no work to do." Poor fellow! he little knows what he thinks. The most miserable creature on earth is the man who has nothing to do. Work for the hands or work for the head is absolutely essential to human happiness. Without it the mind feeds upon itself, and the whole inward man becomes diseased. The machinery within _will_ work, and without something to work upon, will often wear itself to pieces. There was no idleness in Eden. Adam and Eve had to "dress the garden and keep it." There will be no idleness in heaven: God's "servants shall serve Him." Oh, be very sure the idlest man is the man most truly unhappy! (Gen. ii. 15; Rev. xxii. 3.)
It is an utter mistake to suppose that _pleasure-seeking and amusement alone_ can give happiness. Of all roads that men can take in order to be happy, this is the one that is most completely wrong. Of all weary, flat, dull, and unprofitable ways of spending life, this exceeds all. To think of a dying creature, with an immortal soul, expecting happiness in feasting and revelling,--in dancing and singing,--in dressing and visiting,--in ball-going and card-playing,--in races and fairs,--in hunting and shooting,--in crowds, in laughter, in noise, in music, in wine! Surely it is a sight that is enough to make the devil laugh and the angels weep. Even a child will not play with its toys all day long. It must have food. But when grown up men and women think to find happiness in a constant round of amusement they sink far below a child.
I place before every reader of this paper these common mistakes about the way to be happy. I ask you to mark them well. I warn you plainly against these pretended short cuts to happiness, however crowded they may be. I tell you that if you fancy any one of them can lead you to true peace you are entirely deceived. Your conscience will never feel satisfied; your immortal soul will never feel easy: your whole inward man will feel uncomfortable and out of health. Take any one of these roads, or take all of them, and if you have nothing besides to look to, you will never find happiness. You may travel on and on and on, and the wished for object will seem as far away at the end of each stage of life as when you started. You are like one pouring water into a sieve, or putting money into a bag with holes. You might as well try to make an elephant happy by feeding him with a grain of sand a day, as try to satisfy that heart of your's with rank, riches, learning, idleness, or pleasure.
Do you doubt the truth of all I am saying? I dare say you do. Then let us turn to the great Book of human experience, and read over a few lines out of its solemn pages. You shall have the testimony of a few competent witnesses on the great subject I am urging on your attention.
A King shall be our first witness: I mean Solomon, King of Israel. We know that he had power, and wisdom, and wealth, far exceeding that of any ruler of his time. We know from his own confession, that he tried the great experiment how far the good things of this world can make man happy. We know, from the record of his own hand, the result of this curious experiment. He writes it by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, for the benefit of the whole world, in the book of Ecclesiastes. Never, surely, was the experiment tried under such favourable circumstances: never was any one so likely to succeed as the Jewish King. Yet what is Solomon's testimony? You have it in his melancholy words: "All is vanity and vexation of spirit." (Eccles. i. 14.)
A famous French lady shall be our next witness: I mean Madam De Pompadour. She was the friend and favourite of Louis the Fifteenth. She had unbounded influence at the Court of France. She wanted nothing that money could procure. Yet what does she say herself? "What a situation is that of the great! They only live in the future, and are only happy in hope. There is no peace in ambition. I am always gloomy, and often so unreasonably. The kindness of the King, the regard of courtiers, the attachment of my domestics, and the fidelity of a large number of friends,--motives like these, which ought to make me happy, affect me no longer. I have no longer inclinations for all which once pleased me. I have caused my house at Paris to be magnificently furnished: well; it pleased for two days! My residence at Bellevue is charming; and I alone cannot endure it. Benevolent people relate to me all the news and adventures of Paris: they think I listen, but when they have done I ask them what they said. In a word, I do not live: I am dead before my time. I have no interest in the world. Everything conspires to embitter my life. My life is a continual death." To such testimony I need not add a single word. (_Sinclair's Anecdotes and Aphorisms_ p. 33)
A famous German writer shall be our next witness: I mean Goethe. It is well known that he was almost idolized by many during his life. His works were read and admired by thousands. His name was known and honoured, wherever German was read, all over the world. And yet the praise of man, of which he reaped such an abundant harvest, was utterly unable to make Goethe happy. "He confessed, when about eighty years old, that he could not remember being in a really happy state of mind even for a few weeks together; and that when he wished to feel happy, he had to veil his self-consciousness." (_See Sinclair's Anecdotes and Aphorisms, p. 280._)
An English peer and poet shall be our next witness: I mean Lord Byron. If ever there was one who ought to have been happy according to the standard of the world, Lord Byron was the man. He began life with all the advantages of English rank and position. He had splendid abilities and powers of mind, which the world soon discovered and was ready to honour. He had a sufficiency of means to gratify every lawful wish, and never knew anything of real poverty. Humanly speaking, there seemed nothing to prevent him enjoying life and being happy. Yet it is a notorious fact that Byron was a miserable man. Misery stands out in his poems: misery creeps out in his letters. Weariness, satiety, disgust, and discontent appear in all his ways. He is an awful warning that rank, and title, and literary fame, alone, are not sufficient to make a man happy.
A man of science shall be our next witness: I mean Sir Humphrey Davy. He was a man eminently successful in the line of life which he chose, and deservedly so. A distinguished philosopher,--the inventor of the famous safety-lamp which bears his name, and has preserved so many poor miners from death by fire-damp,--a Baronet of the United Kingdom and President of the Royal Society;--his whole life seemed a continual career of prosperity. If learning alone were the road to happiness, this man at least ought to have been happy. Yet what was the true record of Davy's feelings? We have it in his own melancholy journal at the latter part of his life. He describes himself in two painful words: "Very miserable!"
A man of wit and pleasure shall be our next witness: I mean Lord Chesterfield. He shall speak for himself: his own words in a letter shall be his testimony. "I have seen the silly round of business and pleasure, and have done with it all. I have enjoyed all the pleasures of the world, and consequently know their futility, and do not regret their loss. I appraise them at their real value, which in truth is very low; whereas those who have not experience always overrate them. They only see their gay outside, and are dazzled with their glare; but I have been behind the scenes. I have seen all the coarse pullies and dirty ropes which exhibit and move the gaudy machine, and I have seen and smelt the tallow candles which illuminate the whole decoration, to the astonishment and admiration of the ignorant audience. When I reflect on what I have seen, what I have heard, and what I have done, I cannot persuade myself that all that frivolous hurry of bustle and pleasure of the world had any reality. I look on all that is past as one of those romantic dreams which opium occasions, and I do by no means wish to repeat the nauseous dose for the sake of the fugitive dream." These sentences speak for themselves. I need not add to them one single word.
The Statesmen and Politicians who have swayed the destinies of the world, ought by good right to be our last witnesses. But I forbear, in Christian charity, to bring them forward. It makes my heart ache when I run my eye over the list of names famous in English history, and think how many have worn out their lives in a breathless struggle after place and distinction. How many of our greatest men have died of broken hearts,--disappointed, disgusted, and tried with constant failure! How many have left on record some humbling confession that in the plentitude of their power they were pining for rest, as the caged eagle for liberty! How many whom the world is applauding as "masters of the situation," are in reality little better than galley-slaves, chained to the oar and unable to get free! Alas, there are many sad proofs, both among the living and the dead, that to be great and powerful is not necessarily to be happy.
I think it very likely that men do not believe what I am saying. I know something of the deceitfulness of the heart on the subject of happiness. There are few things which man is so slow to believe as the truths I am now putting forth about the way to be happy. Bear with me then while I say something more.
Come and stand with me some afternoon in the heart of the city of London. Let us watch the faces of most of the wealthy men whom we shall see leaving their houses of business at the close of the day. Some of them are worth hundreds of thousands: some of them are worth millions of pounds. But what is written in the countenances of these grave men whom we see swarming out from Lombard Street and Cornhill, from the Bank of England and the Stock Exchange? What mean those deep lines which furrow so many a cheek and so many a brow? What means that air of anxious thoughtfulness which is worn by five out of every six we meet? Ah, these things tell a serious tale. They tell us that it needs something more than gold and bank notes to make men happy.
Come next and stand with me near the Houses of Parliament, in the middle of a busy session. Let us scan the faces of Peers and Commoners, whose names are familiar and well-known all over the civilized world. There you may see on some fine May evening the mightiest Statesmen in England hurrying to a debate, like eagles to the carcase. Each has a power of good or evil in his tongue which it is fearful to contemplate. Each may say things before to-morrow's sun dawns, which may affect the peace and prosperity of nations, and convulse the world. There you may see the men who hold the reins of power and government already; there you may see the men who are daily watching for an opportunity of snatching those reins out of their hands, and governing in their stead. But what do their faces tell us as they hasten to their posts? What may be learned from their care-worn countenances? What may be read in many of their wrinkled foreheads,--so absent-looking and sunk in thought? They teach us a solemn lesson. They teach us that it needs something more than political greatness to make men happy.
Come next and stand with me in the most fashionable part of London, in the height of the season. Let us visit Regent Street or Pall Mall, Hyde Park or May Fair. How many fair faces and splendid equipages we shall see! How many we shall count up in an hour's time who seem to possess the choicest gifts of this world,--beauty, wealth, rank, fashion, and troops of friends! But, alas, how few we shall see who appear happy! In how many countenances we shall read weariness, dissatisfaction, discontent, sorrow, or unhappiness, as clearly as if it was written with a pen! Yes: it is a humbling lesson to learn, but a very wholesome one. It needs something more than rank, and fashion, and beauty, to make people happy.
Come next and walk with me through some quiet country parish in merry England. Let us visit some secluded corner in our beautiful old father-land, far away from great towns, and fashionable dissipation and political strife. There are not a few such to be found in the land. There are rural parishes where there is neither street, nor public house, nor beershop,--where there is work for all the labourers, and a church for all the population, and a school for all the children, and a minister of the Gospel to look after the people. Surely, you will say, we shall find happiness here! Surely such parishes must be the very abodes of peace and joy!--Go into those quiet-looking cottages, one by one, and you will soon be undeceived. Learn the inner history of each family, and you will soon alter your mind. You will soon discover that backbiting, and lying, and slandering, and envy, and jealousy, and pride, and laziness, and drinking, and extravagance, and lust, and petty quarrels, can murder happiness in the country quite as much as in the town. No doubt a rural village sounds pretty in poetry, and looks beautiful in pictures; but in sober reality human nature is the same evil thing everywhere. Alas, it needs something more than a residence in a quiet country parish to make any child of Adam a happy man!
I know these are ancient things. They have been said a thousand times before without effect, and I suppose they will be said without effect again. I want no greater proof of the corruption of human nature than the pertinacity with which we seek happiness where happiness cannot be found. Century after century wise men have left on record their experience about the way to be happy. Century after century the children of men will have it that they know the way perfectly well, and need no teaching. They cast to the winds our warnings; they rush, every one, on his own favourite path; they walk in a vain shadow, and disquiet themselves in vain, and wake up when too late to find their whole life has been a grand mistake. Their eyes are blinded: they will not see that their visions are as baseless and disappointing as the mirage of the African desert. Like the tired traveller in those deserts, they think they are approaching a lake of cooling waters; like the same traveller, they find to their dismay that this fancied lake was a splendid optical delusion, and that they are still helpless in the midst of burning sands.
Are you a young person? I entreat you to accept the affectionate warning of a minister of the Gospel, and not to seek happiness where happiness cannot be found. Seek it not in riches; seek it not in power and rank; seek it not in pleasure; seek it not in learning. All these are bright and splendid fountains: their waters taste sweet. A crowd is standing round them, which will not leave them; but, oh, remember that God has written over each of these fountains, "He that drinketh of this water shall thirst again." (John iv. 13.) Remember this, and be wise.
Are you poor? Are you tempted to fancy that if you had the rich man's place you would be quite happy? Resist the temptation, and cast it behind you. Envy not your wealthy neighbours: be content with such things as you have. Happiness does not depend on houses or land; silks and satins cannot shut out sorrow from the heart; castles and halls cannot prevent anxiety and care coming in at their doors. There is as much misery riding and driving about in carriages as there is walking about on foot: there is as much unhappiness in ceiled houses as in humble cottages. Oh, remember the mistakes which are common about happiness, and be wise!
III. Let me now, in the last place, _point out the way to be really happy_.
There is a sure path which leads to happiness, if men will only take it. There never lived the person who travelled in that path, and missed the object that he sought to attain.
It is a path open to all. It needs neither wealth, nor rank, nor learning in order to walk in it. It is for the servant as well as for the master: it is for the poor as well as for the rich. None are excluded but those who exclude themselves.
It is the one only path. All that have ever been happy, since the days of Adam, have journeyed on it. There is no royal road to happiness. Kings must be content to go side by side with their humblest subjects, if they would be happy.
Where is this path? Where is this road? Listen, and you shall hear.
The way to be happy is _to be a real, thorough-going, true-hearted Christian_. Scripture declares it: experience proves it. The converted man, the believer in Christ, the child of God,--he, and he alone, is the happy man.
It sounds too simple to be true: it seems at first sight so plain a receipt that it is not believed. But the greatest truths are often the simplest. The secret which many of the wisest on earth have utterly failed to discover, is revealed to the humblest believer in Christ. I repeat it deliberately, and defy the world to disprove it: the true Christian is the only happy man.
What do I mean when I speak of a true Christian? Do I mean everybody who goes to church or chapel? Do I mean everybody who professes an orthodox creed, and bows his head at the belief? Do I mean everybody who professes to love the Gospel? No: indeed! I mean something very different. All are not Christians who are called Christians. The man I have in view is _the Christian in heart and life_. He who has been taught by the Spirit really to feel his sins,--he who really rests all his hopes on the Lord Jesus Christ, and His atonement,--he who has been born again and really lives a spiritual, holy life,--he whose religion is not a mere Sunday coat, but a mighty constraining principle governing every day of his life,--he is the man I mean, when I speak of a true Christian.
What do I mean when I say the true Christian is happy? Has he no doubts and no fears? Has he no anxieties and no troubles? Has he no sorrows and no cares? Does he never feel pain, and shed no tears? Far be it from me to say anything of the kind. He has a body weak and frail like other men; he has affections and passions like every one born of woman: he lives in a changeful world. But deep down in his heart he has a mine of solid peace and substantial joy which is never exhausted. This is true happiness.
Do I say that all true Christians are equally happy? No: not for a moment! There are babes in Christ's family as well as old men; there are weak members of the mystical body as well as strong ones; there are tender lambs as well as sheep. There are not only the cedars of Lebanon but the hyssop that grows on the wall. There are degrees of grace and degrees of faith. Those who have most faith and grace will have most happiness. But all, more or less, compared to the children of the world, are happy men.
Do I say that real true Christians are equally happy at all times? No: not for a moment! All have their ebbs and flows of comfort: some, like the Mediterranean sea, almost insensibly; some, like the tide at Chepstow, fifty or sixty feet at a time. Their bodily health is not always the same; their earthly circumstances are not always the same; the souls of those they love fill them at seasons with special anxiety: they themselves are sometimes overtaken by a fault, and walk in darkness. They sometimes give way to inconsistencies and besetting sins, and lose their sense of pardon. But, as a general rule, the true Christian has a deep pool of peace within him, which even at the lowest is never entirely dry.[8]
8: I use the words, "as a general rule," advisedly. When a believer falls into such a horrible sin as that of David, it would be monstrous to talk of his feeling inward peace. If a man professing to be a true Christian talked to me of being happy in such a case,--before giving any evidence of the deepest, most heart-abasing repentance,--I should feel great doubts whether he ever had any grace at all.
The true Christian is the only happy man, because _his conscience is at peace_. That mysterious witness for God, which is so mercifully placed within us, is fully satisfied and at rest. It sees in the blood of Christ a complete cleansing away of all its guilt. It sees in the priesthood and mediation of Christ a complete answer to all its fears. It sees that through the sacrifice and death of Christ, God can now be just, and yet be the justifier of the ungodly. It no longer bites and stings, and makes its possessor afraid of himself. The Lord Jesus Christ has amply met all its requirements. Conscience is no longer the enemy of the true Christian, but his friend and adviser. Therefore he is happy.
The true Christian is the only happy man, because he can _sit down quietly and think about his soul_. He can look behind him and before him, he can look within him and around him, and feel, "All is well."--He can think calmly on his past life, and however many and great his sins, take comfort in the thought that they are all forgiven. The righteousness of Christ covers all, as Noah's flood overtopped the highest hills.--He can think calmly about things to come, and yet not be afraid. Sickness is painful; death is solemn; the judgment day is an awful thing: but having Christ for him, he has nothing to fear.--He can think calmly about the Holy God, whose eyes are on all his ways, and feel, "He is my Father, my reconciled Father in Christ Jesus. I am weak; I am unprofitable: yet in Christ He regards me as His dear child, and is well-pleased." Oh, what a blessed privilege it is to be able to _think_, and not be afraid! I can well understand the mournful complaint of the prisoner in solitary confinement. He had warmth, and food, and clothing, and work, but he was not happy. And why? He said, "He was obliged to think."
The true Christian is the only happy man, because _he has sources of happiness entirely independent of this world_. He has something which cannot be affected by sickness and by deaths, by private losses and by public calamities, the "peace of God, which passeth all understanding." He has a hope laid up for him in heaven; he has a treasure which moth and rust cannot corrupt; he has a house which can never be taken down. His loving wife may die, and his heart feel rent in twain; his darling children may be taken from him, and he may be left alone in this cold world; his earthly plans may be crossed; his health may fail: but all this time he has a portion which nothing can hurt. He has one Friend who never dies; he has possessions beyond the grave, of which nothing can deprive him: his nether springs may fail, but his upper springs are never dry. This is real happiness.
The true Christian is happy, because he is _in his right position_. All the powers of his being are directed to right ends. His affections are not set on things below, but on things above; his will is not bent on self-indulgence, but is submissive to the will of God; his mind is not absorbed in wretched perishable trifles. He desires useful employment: he enjoys the luxury of doing good. Who does not know the misery of disorder? Who has not tasted the discomfort of a house where everything and everybody are in their wrong places,--the last things first and the first things last? The heart of an unconverted man is just such a house. Grace puts everything in that heart in its right position. The things of the soul come first, and the things of the world come second. Anarchy and confusion cease: unruly passions no longer do each one what is right in his eyes. Christ reigns over the whole man, and each part of him does his proper work. The new heart is the only really light heart, for it is the only heart that is in order.--The true Christian has found out his place. He has laid aside his pride and self-will; he sits at the feet of Jesus, and is in his right mind: he loves God and loves man, and so he is happy. In heaven all are happy because all do God's will perfectly. The nearer a man gets to this standard the happier he will be.
The plain truth is that without Christ there is no happiness in this world. He alone can give the Comforter who abideth for ever. He is the sun; without Him men never feel warm. He is the light; without Him men are always in the dark. He is the bread; without Him men are always starving. He is the living water; without Him men are always athirst. Give them what you like,--place them where you please,--surround them with all the comforts you can imagine,--it makes no difference. Separate from Christ, the Prince of Peace, a man cannot be happy.
Give a man a sensible interest in Christ, and he will be happy _in spite of poverty_. He will tell you that he wants nothing that is really good. He is provided for: he has riches in possession, and riches in reversion; he has meat to eat that the world knows not of; he has friends who never leave him nor forsake him. The Father and the Son come to him, and make their abode with him: the Lord Jesus Christ sups with him, and he with Christ. (Rev. iii. 20.)
Give a man a sensible interest in Christ, and he will be happy _in spite of sickness_. His flesh may groan, and his body be worn out with pain, but his heart will rest and be at peace. One of the happiest people I ever saw was a young woman who had been hopelessly ill for many years with disease of the spine. She lay in a garret without a fire; the straw thatch was not two feet above her face. She had not the slightest hope of recovery. But she was always rejoicing in the Lord Jesus. The spirit triumphed mightily over the flesh. She was happy, because Christ was with her.[9]
9: John Howard, the famous Christian philanthropist, in his last journey said, "I hope I have sources of enjoyment that depend not on the particular spot I inhabit. A rightly cultivated mind, under the power of religion and the exercises of beneficent dispositions, affords a ground of satisfaction little affected by _heres and theres_."
Give a man a sensible interest in Christ, and he will be happy _in spite of abounding public calamities_. The government of his country may be thrown into confusion, rebellion and disorder may turn everything upside down, laws may be trampled under foot; justice and equity may be outraged; liberty may be cast down to the ground; might may prevail over right: but still his heart will not fail. He will remember that the kingdom of Christ will one day be set up. He will say, like the old Scotch minister who lived unmoved throughout the turmoil of the first French revolution: "It is all right: it shall be well with the righteous."
I know well that Satan hates the doctrine which I am endeavouring to press upon you. I have no doubt he is filling your mind with objections and reasonings, and persuading you that I am wrong. I am not afraid to meet these objections face to face. Let us bring them forward and see what they are.
You may tell me that "_you know many very religious people who are not happy at all_." You see them diligent in attending public worship. You know that they are never missing at the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper. But you see in them no marks of the peace which I have been describing.
But are you sure that these people you speak of are true believers in Christ? Are you sure that, with all their appearance of religion, they are born again and converted to God? Is it not very likely that they have nothing but the name of Christianity, without the reality; and a form of godliness, without the power? Alas! you have yet to learn that people may do many religious acts, and yet possess no saving religion! It is not a mere formal, ceremonial Christianity that will ever make people happy. We want something more than going to Church, and going to sacraments, to give us peace. There must be real, vital union with Christ. It is not the formal Christian, but the true Christian, that is the happy man.
You may tell me that "_you know really spiritually-minded and converted people who do not seem happy_." You have heard them frequently complaining of their own hearts, and groaning over their own corruption. They seem to you all doubts, and anxieties, and fears; and you want to know where is the happiness in these people of which I have been saying so much.
I do not deny that there are many saints of God such as these whom you describe, and I am sorry for it. I allow that there are many believers who live far below their privileges, and seem to know nothing of joy and peace in believing. But did you ever ask any of these people whether they would give up the position in religion they have reached, and go back to the world? Did you ever ask them, after all their groanings, and doubtings, and fearings, whether they think they would be happier if they ceased to follow hard after Christ? _Did you ever ask those questions?_ I am certain if you did, that the weakest and lowest believers would all give you one answer. I am certain they would tell you that they would rather cling to their little scrap of hope in Christ, than possess the world. I am sure they would all answer, "Our faith is weak, if we have any; our grace is small, if we have any; our joy in Christ is next to nothing at all: but we cannot give up what we have got. Though the Lord slay us, we must cling to Him." The root of happiness lies deep in many a poor weak believer's heart, when neither leaves nor blossoms are to be seen!
But you will tell me, in the last place, that "_you cannot think most believers are happy, because they are so grave and serious_." You think that they do not really possess this happiness I have been describing, because their countenances do not show it. You doubt the reality of their joy, because it is so little seen.
I might easily repeat what I told you at the beginning of this paper,--that a merry face is no sure proof of a happy heart. But I will not do so. I will rather ask you whether you yourself may not be the cause why believers look grave and serious when you meet them? If you are not converted yourself, you surely cannot expect them to look at you without sorrow. They see you on the high road to destruction, and that alone is enough to give them pain: they see thousands like you, hurrying on to weeping and wailing and endless woe. Now, is it possible that such a daily sight should not give them grief? Your company, very likely, is one cause why they are grave. Wait till you are a converted man yourself, before you pass judgment on the gravity of converted people. See them in companies where all are of one heart, and all love Christ, and so far as my own experience goes, you will find no people so truly happy as true Christians.[10]
10: When the infidel Hume asked Bishop Horne why religious people always looked melancholy, the learned prelate replied, "The sight of you, Mr. Hume, would make any Christian melancholy."--_Sinclair's Aphorisms._ Page 13.
I repeat my assertion in this part of my subject. I repeat it boldly, confidently, deliberately. I say that there is no happiness among men that will at all compare with that of the true Christian. All other happiness by the side of his is moonlight compared to sunshine, and brass by the side of gold. Boast, if you will, of the laughter and merriment of irreligious men; sneer, if you will, at the gravity and seriousness, which appear in the demeanour of many Christians. I have looked the whole subject in the face, and am not moved. I say that the true Christian alone is the truly happy man, and the way to be happy is to be a true Christian.
And now I am going to close this paper by a few words of plain application. I have endeavoured to show what is essential to true happiness. I have endeavoured to expose the fallacy of many views which prevail upon the subject. I have endeavoured to point out, in plain and unmistakable words, where true happiness alone can be found. Suffer me to wind up all by an affectionate appeal to the consciences of all into whose hands this volume may fall.
(1) In the first place, _let me entreat every reader of this paper to apply to his own heart the solemn inquiry, Are you happy_?
High or low, rich or poor, master or servant, farmer or labourer, young or old, here is a question that deserves an answer,--_Are you really happy_?
Man of the world, who art caring for nothing but the things of time, neglecting the Bible, making a god of business or money, providing for everything but the day of judgment, scheming and planning about everything but eternity: are you happy? _You know you are not._
Foolish woman, who art trifling life away in levity and frivolity, spending hours after hours on that poor frail body which must soon feed the worms, making an idol of dress and fashion, and excitement, and human praise, as if this world was all: are you happy? _You know you are not._
Young man, who art bent on pleasure and self-indulgence, fluttering from one idle pastime to another, like the moth about the candle,--fancying yourself clever and knowing, and too wise to be led by parsons, and ignorant that the devil is leading you captive, like the ox that is led to the slaughter: are you happy? _You know you are not._
Yes: each and all of you, you are not happy! and in your own consciences you know it well. You may not allow it, but it is sadly true. There is a great empty place in each of your hearts, and nothing will fill it. Pour into it money, learning, rank, and pleasure, and it will be empty still. There is a sore place in each of your consciences, and nothing will heal it. Infidelity cannot; free-thinking cannot; Romanism cannot: they are all quack medicines. Nothing can heal it, but that which at present you have not used,--the simple Gospel of Christ. Yes: you are indeed a miserable people!
Take warning this day, that you never will be happy till you are converted. You might as well expect to feel the sun shine on your face when you turn your back to it, as to feel happy when you turn your back on God and on Christ.
(2) In the next place, _let me warn all who are not true Christians of the folly of living a life which cannot make them happy_.
I pity you from the bottom of my heart, and would fain persuade you to open your eyes and be wise. I stand as a watchman on the tower of the everlasting Gospel. I see you sowing misery for yourselves, and I call upon you to stop and think, before it is too late. Oh, that God may show you your folly!
You are hewing out for yourselves cisterns, broken cisterns, which can hold no water. You are spending your time, and strength, and affections on that which will give you no return for your labour,--"spending your money on that which is not bread, and your labour for that which satisfieth not." (Isa. lv. 2.) You are building up Babels of your own contriving, and ignorant that God will pour contempt on your schemes for procuring happiness, because you attempt to be happy without Him.
Awake from your dreams, I entreat you, and show yourselves men. Think of the uselessness of living a life which you will be ashamed of when you die, and of having a mere nominal religion, which will just fail you when it is most wanted.
Open your eyes and look round the world. Tell me who was ever really happy without God and Christ and the Holy Spirit. Look at the road in which you are travelling. Mark the footsteps of those who have gone before you: see how many have turned away from it, and confessed they were wrong.
I warn you plainly, that if you are not a true Christian you will miss happiness in the world that now is, as well as in the world to come. Oh, believe me, the way of happiness, and the way of salvation are one and the same! He that will have his own way, and refuses to serve Christ, will never be really happy. But he that serves Christ has the promise of both lives. He is happy on earth, and will be happier still in heaven.
If you are neither happy in this world nor the next, it will be all your own fault. Oh, think of this! Do not be guilty of such enormous folly. Who does not mourn over the folly of the drunkard, the opium eater, and the suicide? But there is no folly like that of the impenitent child of the world.
(3) In the next place, _let me entreat all readers of this book, who are not yet happy, to seek happiness where alone it can be found_.
The keys of the way to happiness are in the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is sealed and appointed by God the Father, to give the bread of life to them that hunger, and to give the water of life to them that thirst. The door which riches and rank and learning have so often tried to open, and tried in vain, is now ready to open to every humble, praying believer. Oh, if you want to be happy, come to Christ!
Come to Him, confessing that you are weary of your own ways, and want rest,--that you find you have no power and might to make yourself holy or happy or fit for heaven, and have no hope but in Him. Tell Him this unreservedly. This is coming to Christ.
Come to Him, imploring Him to show you His mercy, and grant you His salvation,--to wash you in His own blood, and take your sins away,--to speak peace to your conscience, and heal your troubled soul. Tell Him all this unreservedly. This is coming to Christ.
You have everything to encourage you. The Lord Jesus Himself invites you. He proclaims to you as well as to others, "Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." (Matt. xi. 28--30.) Wait for nothing. You may feel unworthy. You may feel as if you did not repent enough. But wait no longer. Come to Christ.
You have everything to encourage you. Thousands have walked in the way you are invited to enter, and have found it good. Once, like yourself, they served the world, and plunged deeply into folly and sin. Once, like yourself, they became weary of their wickedness, and longed for deliverance and rest. They heard of Christ, and His willingness to help and save: they came to Him by faith and prayer, after many a doubt and hesitation; they found Him a thousand times more gracious than they had expected. They rested on Him and were happy: they carried His cross and tasted peace. Oh, walk in their steps!
I beseech you, by the mercies of God, to come to Christ. As ever you would be happy, I entreat you to come to Christ. Cast off delays. Awake from your past slumber: arise, and be free! This day come to Christ.
(4) In the last place, _let me offer a few hints to all true Christians for the increase and promotion of their happiness_.
I offer these hints with diffidence. I desire to apply them to my own conscience as well as to your's. You have found Christ's service happy. I have no doubt that you feel such sweetness in Christ's peace that you would fain know more of it. I am sure that these hints deserve attention.
Believers, if you would have an increase of happiness in Christ's service, _labour every year to grow in grace_. Beware of standing still. The holiest men are always the happiest. Let your aim be every year to be more holy,--to know more, to feel more, to see more of the fulness of Christ. Rest not upon old grace: do not be content with the degree of religion whereunto you have attained. Search the Scriptures more earnestly; pray more fervently; hate sin more; mortify self-will more; become more humble the nearer you draw to your end; seek more direct personal communion with the Lord Jesus; strive to be more like Enoch,--daily walking with God; keep your conscience clear of little sins; grieve not the Spirit; avoid wranglings and disputes about the lesser matters of religion: lay more firm hold upon those great truths, without which no man can be saved. Remember and practise these things, and you will be more happy.
Believers, if you would have an increase of happiness in Christ's service, _labour every year to be more thankful_. Pray that you may know more and more what it is to "rejoice in the Lord." (Phil. iii. 1.) Learn to have a deeper sense of your own wretched sinfulness and corruption, and to be more deeply grateful, that by the grace of God you are what you are. Alas, there is too much complaining and too little thanksgiving among the people of God! There is too much murmuring and poring over the things that we have not. There is too little praising and blessing for the many undeserved mercies that we have. Oh, that God would pour out upon us a great spirit of thankfulness and praise!
Believers, if you would have an increase of happiness in Christ's service, _labour every year to do more good_. Look round the circle in which your lot is cast, and lay yourself out to be useful. Strive to be of the same character with God: He is not only good, but "doeth good." (Ps. cxix. 68.) Alas, there is far too much selfishness among believers in the present day! There is far too much lazy sitting by the fire nursing our own spiritual diseases, and croaking over the state of our own hearts. Up; and be useful in your day and generation! Is there no one in all the world that you can read to? Is there no one that you can speak to? Is there no one that you can write to? Is there literally nothing that you can do for the glory of God, and the benefit of your fellow-men? Oh I cannot think it! I cannot think it. There is much that you might do, if you had only the will. For your own happiness' sake, arise and do it, without delay. The bold, outspeaking, working Christians are always the happiest. The more you do for God, the more God will do for you.
The compromising lingering Christian must never expect to taste perfect peace. THE MOST DECIDED CHRISTIAN WILL ALWAYS BE THE HAPPIEST MAN.
XI
FORMALITY
"_Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof._"--2 Tim. iii. 5.
"_He is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh_:
"_But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God._"--Rom. ii. 28, 29.
The texts which head this page deserve serious attention at any time. But they deserve especial notice in this age of the Church and world. Never since the Lord Jesus Christ left the earth, was there so much formality and false profession as there is at the present day. Now, if ever, we ought to examine ourselves, and search our religion, that we may know of what sort it is. Let us try to find out whether our Christianity is a thing of form or a thing of heart.
I know no better way of unfolding the subject than by turning to a plain passage of the Word of God. Let us hear what St. Paul says about it. He lays down the following great principles in his Epistle to the Romans: "He is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: but he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God." (Rom. ii. 28, 29.) Three most instructive lessons appear to me to stand out on the face of that passage. Let us see what they are.
I. We learn, firstly, that formal religion is not religion, and a formal Christian is not a Christian in God's sight.
II. We learn, secondly, that the heart is the seat of true religion, and that the true Christian is the Christian in heart.
III. We learn, thirdly, that true religion must never expect to be popular. It will not have the "praise of man, but of God."
Let us thoroughly consider these great principles. Two hundred years have passed away since a mighty Puritan divine said, "Formality, formality, formality is the great sin of England at this day, under which the land groans.--There is more light than there was, but less life; more shadow, but less substance; more profession, but less sanctification." (_Thomas Hall, on 2 Tim. iii. 5, 1658._) What would this good man have said if he had lived in our times?
I. We learn first, that _formal religion is not religion, and a formal Christian is not a Christian in God's sight_.
What do I mean when I speak of formal religion? This is a point that must be made clear. Thousands, I suspect, know nothing about it. Without a distinct understanding of this point my whole paper will be useless. My first step shall be to paint, describe, and define.
When a man is a Christian in name only, and not in reality,--in outward things only, and not in his inward feelings,--in profession only, and not in practice,--when his Christianity in short is a mere matter of form, or fashion, or custom, without any influence on his heart or life,--in such a case as this the man has what I call a "formal religion." He possesses indeed the _form_, or husk, or skin of religion, but he does not possess its substance or its _power_.
Look for example at those thousands of people whose whole religion seems to consist in keeping religious ceremonies and ordinances. They attend regularly on public worship. They go regularly to the Lord's table. But they never get any further. They know nothing of experimental Christianity. They are not familiar with the Scriptures, and take no delight in reading them. They do not separate themselves from the ways of the world. They draw no distinction between godliness and ungodliness in their friendships, or matrimonial alliances. They care little or nothing about the distinctive doctrines of the Gospel. They appear utterly indifferent as to what they hear preached. You may be in their company for weeks, and for anything you may hear or see on a week day you might suppose they were infidels or deists. What can be said about these people? They are Christians undoubtedly, by profession; and yet there is neither heart nor life in their Christianity. There is but one thing to be said about them.--They are formal Christians. Their religion is a FORM.
Look in another direction at those hundreds of people whose whole religion seems to consist in talk and high profession. They know the theory of the Gospel with their heads, and profess to delight in Evangelical doctrine. They can say much about the "soundness" of their own views, and the "darkness" of all who disagree with them. But they never get any further! When you examine their inner lives you find that they know nothing of practical godliness. They are neither truthful, nor charitable, nor humble, nor honest, nor kind-tempered, nor gentle, nor unselfish, nor honourable. What shall we say of these people? They are Christians, no doubt, in name, and yet there is neither substance nor fruit in their Christianity. There is but one thing to be said.--They are formal Christians. Their religion is an empty FORM.
Such is the formal religion against which I wish to raise a warning voice this day. Here is the rock on which myriads on every side are making miserable shipwreck of their souls. One of the wickedest things that Machiavel ever said was this: "Religion itself should not be cared for, but only the appearance of it. The credit of it is a help; the reality and use is a cumber." Such notions are of the earth, earthy. Nay, rather they are from beneath: they smell of the pit. Beware of them, and stand upon your guard. If there is anything about which the Scripture speaks expressly, it is the sin and uselessness of FORMALITY.
Hear what St. Paul tells the Romans: "He is not a Jew which is one outwardly, neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh." (Rom. ii. 28.) These are strong words indeed! A man might be a son of Abraham according to the flesh,--a member of one of the twelve tribes,--circumcised the eighth day,--a keeper of all the feasts,--a regular worshipper in the temple,--and yet in God's sight not be a Jew!--Just so a man may be a Christian by outward profession,--a member of a Christian Church,--baptized with Christian baptism,--an attendant on Christian ordinances,--and yet, in God's sight, not a Christian at all.
Hear what the prophet Isaiah says: "To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto Me? saith the Lord: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks or of lambs, or of he-goats. When ye come to appear before Me, who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts? Bring no more vain oblations: incense is an abomination unto Me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto Me: I am weary to bear them. And when ye spread forth your hands I will hide mine eyes from you; yea, when ye make many prayers I will not hear: your hands are full of blood." (Isaiah i. 10--15.) These words, when duly weighed, are very extraordinary. The sacrifices which are here declared to be useless were appointed by God Himself! The feasts and ordinances which God says He "hates," had been prescribed by Himself! God Himself pronounces His own institutions to be useless when they are used formally and without heart in the worshipper! In fact they are worse than useless; they are even offensive and hurtful. Words cannot be imagined more distinct and unmistakeable. They show that formal religion is worthless in God's sight. It is not worth calling religion at all.
Hear, lastly, what our Lord Jesus Christ says. We find Him saying of the Jews of His day, "This people draweth nigh unto Me with their mouth, and honoureth Me with their lips; but their heart is far from Me. But in vain do they worship Me." (Matt. xv. 8.) We see Him repeatedly denouncing the formalism and hypocrisy of the scribes and Pharisees, and warning His disciples against it. Eight times in one chapter (Matt.