Part 10

8. Indeed some have supposed, that before the fulness of the Gentiles shall come in, the scandal of the cross will cease: that God will cause Christians to be esteemed and loved, even by those who are as yet in their sins. Yea, and sure it is, that even now, he at sometimes suspends the contempt as well as the fierceness of men: _he makes a man’s enemies to be at peace with him_ for a season, and gives him favour with his bitterest persecutors. But setting aside this exempt case, _the scandal of the cross is_ not yet _ceased_: but a man may say still, _If I please men, I am not the servant of_ Christ: let no man therefore regard that pleasing suggestion (pleasing doubtless to flesh and blood) “That bad men only _pretend_ to hate and despise them that are good, but do indeed love and esteem them in their hearts.” Not so: they may employ them sometimes; but it is for their own profit. They may put confidence in them: for they know their ways are not like other mens. But still they love them not; unless so far as the Spirit of God may be striving with them. Our Saviour’s words are express: _If ye were of the world, the world would love its own; but because ye are not of the world, therefore the world hateth you_. Yea, (setting aside what exceptions may be made by the preventing grace or the peculiar providence of God) it hateth them as cordially and sincerely, as ever it did their Master.

9. It remains only to enquire, how are the children of God to behave, with regard to persecution? *And first, they ought not knowingly or designedly, to bring it upon themselves. This is contrary both to the example and advice of our Lord and all his apostles; who teach us not only not to seek, but to avoid it, as far as we can, without injuring our conscience; without giving up any part of that righteousness, which we are to prefer before life itself. So our Lord expresly, _When they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another_: which is indeed, when it can be taken, the most unexceptionable way of avoiding persecution.

10. Yet think not, that you can always avoid it, either by this, or any other means. If ever that idle imagination steals into your heart, put it to flight by that earnest caution, _Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his_ Lord. _If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you._ Be ye _wise as serpents, and harmless as doves_. But will this screen you from persecution? Not unless you have more wisdom than your Master, or more innocence than the Lamb of God.

Neither desire to avoid it, to escape it wholly; for if you do, you are none of his. If you escape the persecution, you escape the blessing; the blessing of those who are persecuted for righteousness sake. If you are not persecuted for righteousness sake, you cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven. _If we suffer with him, we shall also reign with him. But if we deny him, he will also deny us._

11. Nay, rather, _rejoice and be exceeding glad_, when men persecute you for his sake: when _they persecute_ you by _reviling_ you, and by _saying all manner of evil against you falsely_; (which they will not fail to mix with every kind of persecution; they must blacken you to excuse themselves.) _For so persecuted they the prophets which were before you_, those who were most eminently holy in heart and life; yea, and all the righteous which ever have been from the beginning of the world. Rejoice, because by this mark also, ye know unto whom ye belong. And because _great is your reward in heaven_: the reward purchased by the blood of the covenant, and freely bestowed in proportion to your sufferings, as well as to your holiness of heart and life. _Be exceeding glad_; knowing that _these light afflictions, which are but for a moment, work out for you a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory_.

12. Mean time, let no persecution turn you out of the way of lowliness and meekness, of love and beneficence. [76]_Ye have heard_ indeed _that it hath been said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth_. And your miserable teachers have hence allowed you to avenge yourselves, to return evil for evil.

_But I say unto you, that ye resist not evil_――Not thus; not by returning it in kind. _But_ (rather than do this) _whosoever smiteth thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain._

So invincible let thy meekness be. And be thy love suitable thereto. _Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away._ Only, give not away that which is another man’s, that which is not thine own. Therefore, 1. Take care to owe no man any thing. For what thou owest, is not thy own but another man’s. 2. Provide for those of thine own houshold. This also God hath required of thee: and what is necessary to sustain them in life and godliness, is also not thine own. Then, 3. Give or lend all that remains from day to day, or from year to year. Only first, seeing thou canst not give or lend to all, remember the houshold of faith.

13. The meekness and love we are to feel, the kindness we are to shew to them which persecute us for righteousness sake, our blessed Lord describes farther in the following verses. O that they were graven upon our hearts!

[77]_Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour and hate thy enemy._ (God indeed had said only the former part, _Thou shalt love thy neighbour_. The children of the devil had added the latter, _and hate thy enemy_.) *_But I say unto you_, 1. _Love your enemies_. See that you bear a tender good will, to those who are most bitter of spirit against you, who wish you all manner of evil. 2. _Bless them that curse you._ Are there any whose bitterness of spirit breaks forth in bitter words? Who are continually cursing and reproaching you when you are present, and _saying all evil against you_ when absent? So much the rather do you bless. In conversing with them, use all mildness and softness of language. Reprove them, by repeating a better lesson before them, by shewing them how they ought to have spoken. And in speaking of them, say all the good you can, without violating the rules of truth and justice. 3. _Do good to them that hate you._ Let your actions shew, that you are as real in love as they in hatred. Return good for evil. _Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good._ 4. If you can do nothing more, at least _pray for them that ♦despitefully use you and persecute you_. You can never be disabled from doing this; nor can all their malice or violence hinder you. Pour out your souls to God, not only for those, who did this once, but now repent. This is a little thing. [78]_If thy brother seven times a day, turn and say unto thee, I repent_; that is, if after ever so many relapses, he give thee reason to believe, that he is really and throughly changed, _then thou shalt forgive him_, so as to trust him, to put him in thy bosom, as if he had never sinned against thee at all. But pray for, wrestle with God, for those that do not repent, that now despitefully use thee and persecute thee. Thus far forgive them, [79]_not until seven times only, but until seventy times seven_. Whether they repent or no, yea tho’ they appear farther and farther from it, yet shew them this instance of kindness: _that ye may be the children_, that ye may approve yourselves the genuine children _of your Father which is in heaven_, who shews his goodness by giving such blessings as they are capable of, even to his stubbornest enemies; _who maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. [80]For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? Do not even the Publicans the same?_ Who pretend to no religion: whom ye yourselves acknowledge to be without God in the world. [81]_And if ye salute_, shew kindness in word or deed, to _your brethren_, your friends or kinsfolk _only: what do ye more than others_? Than those who have no religion at all? _Do not even the Publicans so?_ Nay, but follow ye a better pattern than them. In patience, in long-suffering, in mercy, in beneficence of every kind, to all, even to your bitterest persecutors: [82]_Be ye_, Christians, _perfect_ (in kind, tho’ not in degree) even _as your Father which is in heaven is perfect_.

III. *Behold Christianity in its native form! as delivered by its great Author! This is the genuine religion of _Jesus Christ_. Such he presents it to him whose eyes are opened. See a picture of God, so far as he is imitable by man! A picture drawn by God’s own hand! _Behold, ye despisers and wonder and perish!_ Or rather, wonder and adore! Rather cry out, Is this the religion of _Jesus_ of _Nazareth_? The religion which I persecuted! Let me no more be found even to fight against God. Lord, what wouldst thou have me to do?――What beauty appears in the whole! How just a symmetry! What exact proportion in every part! How desirable is the happiness here described? How venerable, how lovely the holiness?――This is the _spirit_ of religion: the quintessence of it. These are indeed the _fundamentals_ of Christianity. O that we may not be hearers of it only! _Like a man beholding his own face in a glass, who goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was._ Nay, but let us steadily _look into this perfect law of liberty, and continue therein_. Let us not rest, until every line thereof is transcribed into our own hearts. Let us watch and pray and believe and love, and _strive for the mastery_, ’till every part of it shall appear in our soul, graven there by the finger of God: ’till we are _holy as he which hath called us is holy, perfect as our Father which is in heaven is perfect_!

SERMON XXIV.

UPON OUR LORD’S SERMON ON THE MOUNT. DISCOURSE IV. MATT. v. 13, 14, 15, 16.

_Ye are the salt of the earth. But if the salt hath lost its savour, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and trodden under foot of men.

Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.

Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel; but on a candlestick, and it giveth light to all that are in the house.

Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven._

1. *THE beauty of holiness, of that inward man of the heart, which is renewed after the image of God, cannot but strike every eye which God hath opened, every enlightened understanding. The ornament of a meek, humble, loving spirit, will at least excite the approbation of all those who are capable in any degree of discerning spiritual good and evil. From the hour men begin to emerge out of the darkness which covers the giddy, unthinking world, they cannot but perceive how desirable a thing it is, to be thus transformed into the likeness of him that created us. This inward religion bears the shape of God, so visibly imprest upon it, that a soul must be wholly immersed in flesh and blood, when he can doubt of its divine original. We may say of this, in a secondary sense, even as of the Son of God himself, That it is the _brightness of his glory, the express image of his person_: ἀπαύγασμα ♦τῆς δόξης αὐτοῦ· _The beaming forth of his_ eternal _glory_; and yet so tempered and softened, that even the children of men, may herein see God and live: χαρακτὴρ τῆς ὑποστάσεως αὐτοῦ· _The character, the stamp, the living impression, of his person_, who is the fountain of beauty and love, the original source of all excellency and perfection.

3. If religion therefore were carried no farther than this, they could have no doubt concerning it: they should have no objection against pursuing it with the whole ardor of their souls. But why, say they, is it cloged with other things? What need of loading it with _doing_ and _suffering_? These are what damps the vigour of the soul and sinks it down to earth again. Is it not enough to _follow after charity_? To soar upon the wings of love? Will it not suffice, to worship God who is a Spirit, with the spirit of our minds, without incumbring ourselves with outward things, or even thinking of them at all? Is it not better, that the whole extent of our thoughts should be taken up with high and heavenly contemplation? And that instead of busying ourselves at all about externals, we should only commune with God in our hearts?

4. Many eminent men have spoken thus: have advised us “To cease from all outward actions;” wholly to withdraw from the world; to leave the body behind us; to abstract ourselves from all sensible things: to have no concern at all about outward religion, but to “work all virtues in the will,” as the far more excellent way, more perfective of the soul, as well as more acceptable to God.

5. It needed not that any should tell our Lord, of this master-piece of the wisdom from beneath! This fairest of all the devices wherewith _Satan_ hath ever perverted the right ways of the Lord. And O! What instruments hath he found from time to time, to employ in this his service! To wield this grand engine of hell, against some of the most important truths of God! Men that _would deceive if it were possible the very elect_; the men of faith and love: yea, that have for a season deceived and led away no inconsiderable number of them; who have fallen in all ages into the gilded snare, and hardly escaped with the skin of their teeth.

6. But has our Lord been wanting on his part? Has he not sufficiently guarded us against this pleasing delusion? Has he not armed us here with armour of proof against Satan _transformed into an angel of light_? Yea, verily: he here defends, in the clearest and strongest manner, the active, patient religion he had just described: what can be fuller and plainer than the words he immediately subjoins, to what he had said of doing and suffering? _Ye are the salt of the earth. But if the salt have lost its savour, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out and trodden under foot of men. Ye are the light of the world: a city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel; but on a candlestick and it giveth light to all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven._

In order fully to explain and inforce these important words, I shall endeavour to shew, First, That Christianity is essentially a social religion, and that to turn it into a solitary one, is to destroy it: secondly, That to conceal this religion is impossible, as well as utterly contrary to the design of its Author. I shall, thirdly, Answer some objections; and conclude the whole with a practical application.

I. 1. First. I shall endeavour to shew, that Christianity is essentially a social religion; and that to turn it into a solitary religion, is indeed to destroy it.

By Christianity I mean, that method of worshipping God, which is here revealed to man by _Jesus Christ_. When I say, This is essentially a social religion, I mean not only, that it cannot subsist so well, but that it cannot subsist at all without society, without living and conversing with other men. And in shewing this, I shall confine myself to those considerations, which will arise from the very discourse before us. But if this be shewn, then doubtless to turn this religion into a solitary one, is to destroy it.

Not that we can in any wise condemn, the intermixing solitude or retirement with society. This is not only allowable, but expedient: nay, it is necessary as daily experience shews, for every one that either already is, or desires to be a real Christian. It can hardly be that we should spend one entire day, in a continued intercourse with men, without suffering loss in our soul, and in some measure grieving the Holy Spirit of God. We have need daily to retire from the world, at least, morning and evening, to converse with God, to commune more freely with our Father which is in secret. Nor indeed can a man of experience condemn, even longer seasons of religious retirement, so they do not imply any neglect of the worldly employ, wherein the providence of God has placed us.

2. Yet such retirement must not swallow up all our time; this would be to destroy, not advance true religion. For, that the religion described by our Lord in the foregoing words, cannot subsist without society, without our living and conversing with other men, is manifest from hence, that several of the most essential branches thereof, can have no place, if we have no intercourse with the world.

3. *There is no disposition (for instance) which is more essential to Christianity than meekness. Now altho’ this, as it implies resignation to God, or patience in pain and sickness, may subsist in a desert, in a hermit’s cell, in total solitude; yet as it implies (which it no less necessarily does) mildness, gentleness, and long-suffering, it cannot possibly have a being, it has no place under heaven, without an intercourse with other men. So that to attempt turning this into a solitary virtue, is to destroy it from the face of the earth.

4. *Another necessary branch of true Christianity, is peace-making, or doing of good. That this is equally essential with any of the other parts of the religion of _Jesus Christ_, there can be no stronger argument to evince (and therefore it would be absurd to alledge any other) than that it is here inserted in the original plan he has laid down, of the fundamentals of his religion. Therefore to set aside this, is the same daring insult on the authority of our great Master, as to set aside mercifulness, purity of heart, or any other branch of his institution. But this is apparently set aside, by all who call us to the wilderness; who recommend entire solitude either to the babes, or the young men, or the fathers in _Christ_. For will any man affirm, that a solitary Christian (so called, tho’ it is little less than a contradiction in terms) can be a merciful man? That is, one that takes every opportunity of doing all good to all men? What can be more plain than that this fundamental branch of the religion of _Jesus Christ_, cannot possibly subsist without society, without our living and conversing with other men?

5. But is it not expedient however (one might naturally ask) to converse only with good men? Only with those whom we know to be meek and merciful; holy of heart, and holy of life? Is it not expedient to refrain from any conversation or intercourse, with men of the opposite character? Men who do not obey, perhaps do not believe, the gospel of our Lord _Jesus Christ_? The advice of St. _Paul_ to the Christians at _Corinth_, may seem to favour this. [83]_I wrote unto you in an epistle, not to company with fornicators._ And it is certainly not adviseable so to company with them, or with any of the workers of iniquity, as to have any particular familiarity, or any strictness of friendship with them. To contract or continue an intimacy with any such, is no way expedient for a Christian. It must necessarily expose him to abundance of dangers and snares, out of which he can have no reasonable hope of deliverance.

But the apostle does not forbid us, to have any intercourse at all, even with the men that know not God. For then, says he, _ye must needs go out of the world_, which he could never advise them to do. But he subjoins, [84]_If any man that is called a brother_, that professes himself a Christian, _be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolator, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner――Now I have written unto you not to keep company_ with him; _with such an one, no not to eat_. This must necessarily imply, that we break off all familiarity, all intimacy of acquaintance with them. [85]_Yet count him not_, saith the apostle elsewhere _as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother_: plainly shewing, that even in such a case as this, we are not to renounce all fellowship with him: so that here is no advice, to separate wholly, even from wicked men. Yea, these very words teach us quite the contrary.

6. Much more the words of our Lord: who is so far from directing us, to break off all commerce with the world, that without it, according to his account of Christianity, we cannot be Christians at all. *It would be easy to shew, that some intercourse even with ungodly and unholy men, is absolutely needful in order to the full exertion of every temper, which he has described as the way to the kingdom: that it is indispensably necessary in order to the compleat exercise of poverty of spirit, of mourning, and of every other disposition which has a place here, in the genuine religion of _Jesus Christ_. Yea, it is necessary to the very being of several of them; of that meekness, for example, which instead of demanding _an eye for an eye, or a tooth for a tooth_, doth _not resist evil_; but causes us rather, when smitten _on the right cheek, to turn the other also_: of that mercifulness, whereby we _love our enemies, bless them that curse us, do good to them that hate us, and pray for them which despitefully use us and persecute us_: and of that complication of love and all holy tempers, which is exercised in suffering for righteousness sake. Now all these, it is clear, could have no being, were we to have no commerce with any but real Christians.

7. *Indeed were we wholly to separate ourselves from sinners, how could we possibly answer that character, which our Lord gives us in these very words: _ye_ (Christians, ye that are lowly, serious and meek; ye that hunger after righteousness, that love God and man, that do good to all, and therefore suffer evil: ye) _are the salt of the earth_. It is your very nature to season whatever is round about you. It is the nature of the divine savour which is in you, to spread to whatsoever you touch; to diffuse itself, on every side, to all those among whom you are. This is the great reason why the providence of God has so mingled you together with other men, that whatever grace you have received of God may through you be communicated to others; that every holy temper, and word, and work of yours, may have an influence on them also. By this means a check will in some measure be given, to the corruption which is in the world; and a small part, at least, saved from the general infection, and rendered holy and pure before God.