"The Lord by wisdom hath founded the earth; by understanding hath he
established the heavens."--PROV. iii. 19.
Did it ever strike you as a very remarkable and important thing, that
after saying in Proverbs iii. that Wisdom is this precious treasure, and
bidding his son seek for her because (verse 16) "Length of days is in her
right hand, and in her left hand riches and honour: Her ways are ways of
pleasantness, and all her paths are peace,"--Solomon goes on immediately
to say (verses 19, 20), "The Lord by Wisdom hath founded the earth, and
established the heavens?"
By Wisdom: by the very same Wisdom, Solomon says, which is to give men
length of days, and riches, and honour. Is not this curious at least?
That there is but one wisdom for God and man? That man's true wisdom is
a pattern of God's wisdom? That a man to prosper in the world must get
the very same wisdom by which God made and rules the world? Curious. But
most blessed news, my friends, if we will think over what it means. I
will try to explain it to you: first, as to this world which we see;
next, as to the heavenly world of spirits which we do not see.
You have, many of you, heard the word "Science." Many of you of course
know what it means. That it means wisdom and learning about this earth
and all things in it. Many more of you of course know that in the last
hundred years science has improved in a most wonderful way, and is
improving every day; that we have now gas-lights, steam-engines, cotton-
mills, railroads, electric telegraphs, iron ships, and a hundred curious
and useful machines and manufactures of which our great-grandfathers
never dreamed; that our knowledge of different countries, of medicines,
of the laws of health and disease, and of all in short which has to do
with man's bodily life, is increasing day by day; and that all these
discoveries are very great blessings; they give employment and food to
millions who would otherwise have had nothing to do; they bring vast
wealth into this country, and all the countries which trade with us. They
enable this land of England to support four times as many human beings as
it did two hundred years ago; they make many of the necessaries of life
cheaper, so that in many cases a poor man may now have comforts which his
grandfather never heard of.
I know that there is a dark side to this picture; that with all this
increase of wisdom, there has come conceit, and trust in deceitful
riches, and want of trust in God, and obedience to His law. I know that
in some things we are not better, but worse than our forefathers; God
forgive us for it! But the good came from God; and that man is very
unwise and unthankful too, who despises God's great gift of science,
because fallen man has defiled His gift as it passed through his unclean
hands.
Look only at this one thing, as I said just now, that by all these
wonderful discoveries and improvements, England is able to support four
times as many Englishmen as it used of old, and that, if we feared God,
and sought His kingdom better, I believe, England would support many more
people yet--and see if _that_ be not a thing to thank Almighty God for
every day of our lives.
Now how did this wonderful change and improvement take place--suddenly,
and, as it were, in the course of the last hundred years? Simply by
mankind understanding the text (Prov. iii. 19), and by obeying it. I
tell you a real truth, my friends, and it happened thus.
For more than sixteen hundred years after our Lord's time, mankind seem
to have become hardly any wiser about earthly things, nay, even to have
gone back. The land was no better tilled; goods were no more easily
made; diseases were no better cured, than they had been sixteen hundred
years before. And if any learned men longed to become very wise and
cunning, and to get power over this world and the things in it, they flew
off to witchcraft, charms, and magic, deceived by the devil's old lie,
that the kingdom and the power and the glory of this world belonged to
him and not to God.
But about two hundred and fifty years ago, it pleased God to open the
eyes of one of the wisest men who ever lived, who was called Francis
Bacon, Lord Verulam, Lord Chancellor of England, and to show him the real
and right way of learning by which men can fulfil God's command to
replenish the earth and subdue it. And Francis Bacon told all the
learned men boldly that they had all been wrong together, and that their
wisdom was no better than a sort of madness, as it is written, "The
wisdom of man is foolishness with God;" that the only way for man to be
wise was to get God's wisdom, the wisdom with which He had founded the
earth, and find out God's laws by which He had made this world.
"And then," he said, "if you can do that, you will be able to imitate God
in your own small way. If you learn the laws by which God made all
things, you will be able to invent new things for yourselves. _For you
can only subdue nature by obeying her_." That was one of his greatest
sayings, and by it he meant, that you can only subdue a thing and make it
useful to you, by finding out the rules by which God made that thing, and
by obeying them.
For instance, you cannot subdue and till a barren field, and make it
useful, without knowing and obeying the laws and rules of that soil; and
then you can subdue and conquer that field, and change and train it, as I
may say, to grow what you like. You cannot conquer diseases without
knowing and obeying the laws by which God has made man's body, and the
laws by which fever and cholera and other plagues come.
Let me give you another instance. You all have seen lightning
conductors, which prevent tall chimneys and steeples from being struck by
storms, so that the lightning runs harmless downward. Now we can all see
how this is conquering the force of lightning in a wonderful and
beautiful way. But before you can conquer the lightning by a conductor,
you must obey the lightning and its laws most carefully. If you make the
conductor out of your own head and fancy, it will be of no use. You must
observe and follow humbly the laws which God has given to the lightning.
You must make the conductor of metal wire, or it will be useless. You
must make it run through glazed rings, or it will be only more dangerous
than no conductor at all; for God who made the lightning chose that it
should be so, and you must _obey_ if you wish to _conquer_.
Man could not conquer steam, and make it drive his engines and carry his
ships across the seas, till he found out and obeyed the laws which God
had given to steam; and so without breaking the laws, man turned them to
his own use, and set the force of steam to turn his machines, instead of
rushing idly out into the empty air.
So it is with all things, whether in heaven or earth. If you want to
rule, you must obey. If you want to rise to be a master, you must stoop
to be a servant. If you want to be master of anything in earth or
heaven, you must, as that great Lord Verulam used to say, obey God's will
revealed in that thing; and the man who will go his own way, and follow
his own fancy, will understand nothing, and master nothing, and get
comfort out of nothing in earth or heaven.
Well--when Lord Verulam told men his new wisdom, they laughed and
scoffed, as fools always will at anything new. But one by one, wise men
tried his plan, and found him right, and went on; and from that time
those who followed Lord Verulam began discovering wonders of which they
had never dreamed, and those who did not, but kept to the old way of
witchcraft and magic, found out nothing, and made themselves a laughing
stock. And after a while witchcraft vanished out of all civilised
countries, and in its place came all the wonderful comforts and
discoveries which we have now, and which under God, we owe to the wisdom
of the great Lord Verulam. Cotton mills, steam engines, railroads,
electric telegraphs, sanitary reforms, cheap books, penny postage, good
medicine and surgery, and a thousand blessings more. That great Lord
Chancellor has been the father of them all.
And a noble thought it is for us Church people, and a glorious testimony
to the good training which the Church of England gives, that the three
men, who more than any others laid the foundation of all our wonderful
discoveries, I mean Lord Verulam, Mr. Boyle, and Sir Isaac Newton, were
all of them heart and soul members of the Church of England.
I said just now that the man who will not obey, will never rule; that the
man who will not stoop to be a servant, will never rise to be a master;
that the man who neglects God's will and mind about things, and will
follow his own will and fancy, will understand nothing, and master
nothing, and get comfort out of nothing, either in earth or heaven.
Either in earth or heaven, I say. For the same rule which holds good in
this earthly world, which we do see, holds good in the heavenly world
which we do not see. Solomon does not part the two worlds, and I cannot.
Solomon says the same rules which hold good about men's bodies, hold good
about their souls. The great Lord Verulam used always to say the same,
and we must believe the same. For see, Solomon says, that this same
wisdom by which God made the worlds, will help our souls as well as our
bodies; that it is not merely the earthly wisdom which brings a man
length of life and riches, but heavenly wisdom, which is a tree of life
to every one who lays hold of her (Prov. iii. 18). The heavenly wisdom
which begins in trusting in the Lord with all our heart, the heavenly
wisdom which is learnt by chastenings and afflictions, and teaches us
that we are the sons of God, is the very same wisdom by which God founded
the earth, and makes the clouds drop down dew! Strange at first sight;
but not strange if we remember the Athanasian creed, and believe that God
is one God, who has no parts or passions, and therefore cannot change or
be divided.
Yes, my friends, God's wisdom is one--unchangeable, everlasting, and
always like itself; and by the same wisdom by which He made the earth and
the heavens, by the same wisdom by which He made our bodies, has He made
our souls; and therefore we can, and are bound to, glorify Him alike in
our bodies and our spirits, for both are His.
It may not seem easy to understand this; but I will explain what I mean
by an example. I just told you, that in earthly matters we must stoop to
conquer; we must obey the laws which God has given to anything, before we
can master and use that thing. And in matters about our own soul--about
our behaviour to God--about our behaviour to our fellow-men, believe me
there is no rule like the golden one of Lord Verulam's--stoop to
conquer--obey if you wish to rule. For see now. What is there more
common than this? It happens to each of us every day. We meet a fellow-
man our equal, neither better nor worse than ourselves, and we want to
make him do something. Now there are two ways in which we may set about
that. We may drive our man, or we may lead him. You know well enough
which of those two ways is likely to succeed best. If you try to drive
the man, you say to yourself, "I know I am right. I see the thing in
this light, and he is a fool if he does not see it in the same light. I
choose to have the thing done, and done it shall be, and if he is stupid
enough not to take my view of it, I will let him know who I am, and we
will see which of us is the stronger!" So says many a man in his heart.
But what comes of it? Nothing. For the other man gets angry, and
determines to have his way in his turn. There is a quarrel and a great
deal of noise; and most probably the thing is not done. Instead of the
man getting what he wants, he has a fresh quarrel on his hands, and
nothing more. So his blustering is no sign that he is really strong. For
the strong man is the man who _can_ get what he wants done. Is he not?
Surely we shall all agree to that. And the proud, hot, positive,
dictatorial, self-willed man is just the man, in a free country like
this, who does _not_ get what he wants done. He will not stoop--therefore
he will not conquer.
But suppose we take another plan. Suppose instead of trying to drive, we
try to lead. Suppose if we want a man to do anything, we begin by
obeying him, and serving him, that we may afterwards lead him, and
afterwards make use of him. There is a base, mean way of doing that, by
flattering, and fawning, and cringing, which are certainly the devil's
works. For the devil can put on the form of an angel of light; but we
need not do that. We may serve and obey a man honestly and honourably,
in order to get him to do what he ought to do. I will tell you what I
mean.
Suppose when we have dealings with any man, we begin with him, as I was
saying we ought to begin with earthly things--with a field for
instance--we should say, before I begin to make this field bear the crop
I want I must look it through and understand it. I must see what state
it is in--what its soil is--what has been taken off it already--what the
weather is--what state of drainage it is in, and so forth; and I must
obey the rules of all these things, or my crop will come to nothing. So
with this man. First of all, before I get anything out of the man, I
must understand the man. I must find out what sort of temper and
character he has, what his opinions are, how he has been brought up, how
he has been accustomed to look at things--so as to be able to make
allowance for all, else I shall never be able to understand how he looks
at this one matter, or to make him understand _my_ way of looking at it.
And to do that--to understand the man, or make him understand me, I must
begin by making a _friend_ of him.
There, my friends--there is one of the blessed laws of the kingdom of
Heaven, that in a free country (as this, thank God, is) the only sure way
to get power and influence over people, is by making _friends_ of them,
by behaving like Christians to them, making them trust you and love you,
by pleasing them, giving way to them, making yourself of service to them,
doing what they like whenever you can, in order that they may do to you,
as you have done to them, and measure back to you (as the Lord Jesus
promises they will), with the same measure with which you have measured
to them. In short, serving men, that you may rule them, and stooping
before them that you may conquer them.
And if any of you are too proud to try this plan, and think it fairer to
drive men than to lead them, I can tell you of two persons who were not
as proud as you are, and were not ashamed to do what you are ashamed to
do--and yet they are two persons, before the least of whom you would hang
your head, and feel, as I am sure I should, a very small, and mean, and
pitiful person if I met them in the road.
For the first, and by far the least of the two, is St. Paul. Now St.
Paul says this was the very plan by which he got influence over men, and
persuaded and converted them, and brought them home to God, by being
himself a servant to all men, and pleasing all men, being a Jew to the
Jews, and a Greek to the Greeks, and all things to all men, if by any
means he might save some. Giving up, giving way, taking trouble, putting
himself out of the way, as we say here, all day long, to win people to
love him, and trust him, and see that he really cared for them, and
therefore to be ready to listen to him. From what one can see of St.
Paul's manners, from his own Epistles, he must have been the most perfect
gentleman; a gentle man, civil, obliging, delicate minded, careful to
hurt no one's feelings; and when he had (as he had often) to say rough
things and deal with rough men, doing it as tenderly and carefully as he
could, like his Master the Lord Jesus Christ, lest he should break the
bruised reed, or quench the smoking flax. Which of us can read the
Epistle to Philemon (which to my mind is the most civil, pleasant,
kindly, gentlemanlike speech which I know on earth), without saying to
ourselves, "Ah, if we had but St. Paul's manners, St. Paul's temper, St.
Paul's way of managing people, how few quarrels there would be in this
noisy troublesome world."
But I said that there was one greater than St. Paul who was not ashamed
to behave in the very same way, stooping to all, conciliating all. And
so there is--One whose shoes St. Paul was not worthy to stoop down and
unloose--and that is, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself--who ate and drank
with publicans and sinners, who went out into the highways and hedges, to
bring home into God's kingdom poor wretches whom men despised and cast
off. It was He who taught St. Paul to behave in the same way. May He
teach us to behave in the same way also! St. Paul learnt to discern
men's spirits, and feel for them, and understand them, and help them, and
comfort them, and at last to turn and change them whichever way he chose,
simply because he was full of the Spirit of Christ, who is the Spirit of
God, proceeding both from the Father and the Son.
For St. Paul says positively, that his reason for not pleasing himself,
but taking so much trouble to please other people, was because Christ
also pleased not Himself. "We that are strong," he says, "ought to bear
the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let every man
please his neighbour for his good unto edification, for even Christ
pleased not Himself," (Rom. xv. 1-3.) And again, "We have a High Priest
who can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities," (Heb. iv. 15).
So it was by stooping to men, that Christ learned to understand men, and
by understanding men He was able to save men. And again, St. Paul says,
"Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the
form of God, and equal with God," yet--"made Himself of no reputation,
but took upon Him the form of a slave, and was made in the likeness of
man, and being found in fashion as a man, _humbled Himself_, and became
_obedient unto death_, even the death of the cross," (Phil. ii. 5, 9,
10).
There, my friends--there was the perfect fulfilment of the great
law--_Stoop to conquer_. There was the reward of Christ's not pleasing
Himself. Christ stooped lower than any man, and therefore He rose again
higher than all men. He did more to please men than any man; and
therefore God was better pleased with Him than with all men, and a voice
came from Heaven, saying--This Person who stoops to the lowest depths
that He may understand and help those who were in the lowest deep--this
outcast who has not where to lay His head, slandered, blasphemed, spit
on, scourged, crucified, because He will help all, and feel for all, and
preach to all; "this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased,"
(Matt. iii. 17). "The brightness of my glory,--the express image of my
person," (Heb. i. 3).
My friends, this may seem to you a strange sermon, which began by talking
of railroads and steamships, and ends by talking of the death and the
glory of the Lord Jesus Christ; and you may ask what has the end of it to
do with the beginning?
If you want to know, recollect that I began by saying that there was but
_One_ wisdom for earth or heaven, for man and for God; and that is the
wisdom which lies in _stooping to conquer_, as the Lord Jesus Christ did.
Think over that, and behave accordingly; and be sure, meanwhile, that
whenever you feel proud, and self-willed, and dictatorial, and inclined
to drive men instead of leading them, and to quarrel with them, instead
of trying to understand them and love them, and bring them round gently,
by appealing to their reason and good feeling, not to their fear of
you--then you are going not God's way, no, nor man's way either, but the
devil's way. You are going, not the way by which the Lord Jesus Christ
rose _to_ Heaven, but the way by which the devil fell _from_ Heaven, as
all self-willed proud men will fall. Proud and self-willed men will not
get done the things they want to be done; while the meek, those who are
gentle, and tender, and try to draw men as God does with the cords of _a
man_ and the bands of _love_, will prosper in this world and in the next;
they will see their heart's desire; they will inherit the land, and be
refreshed in the multitude of peace.