Hand and foot and eye are, of course, regarded as organs of the
inward self, and symbols of its tastes and capacities. We may
perhaps see in them the familiar distinction between the practical
and the theoretical:--hand and foot being instruments of action, and
the eye the organ of perception. Our Lord takes an extreme case. If
members of the body are to be amputated and plucked out should they
cause us to stumble, much more are associations to be abandoned and
occupations to be relinquished and pleasures to be forsaken, if
these draw us away. But it is to be noticed that the whole stringency
of the commandment rests upon that _if_. '_If_ they cause thee
to stumble,' then, and not else, amputate. The powers are natural,
the operation of them is perfectly innocent, but a man may be ruined
by innocent things. And, says Christ, if that process is begun, then,
and only then, does My exhortation come into force.
Now, all that solemn thought of a possible injurious issue of
innocent occupations, rests upon the principles that our nature has
an ideal order, so as that some parts of it are to be suppressed and
some are to rule, and that there are degrees of importance in men's
pursuits, and that where the lower interfere and clog the operations
of the higher, there they are harmful. And so the only wisdom is to
excise and cut them off.
We see illustrations in abundance every day. There are many people
who are being ruined in regard to the highest purposes of their
lives, simply by an over-indulgence in lower occupations which in
themselves may be perfectly right. Here is a young woman that spends
so much of her day in reading novels that she has no time to look
after the house and help her mother. Here is a young man so given to
athletics that his studies are neglected--and so you may go all
round the circle, and find instances of the way in which innocent
things, and the excessive or unwise exercise of natural faculties,
are destroying men. And much more is that the case in regard to
religion, which is the highest object of pursuit, and in regard to
those capacities and powers by which we lay hold of God. These are
to be ministered to by the rest, and if there be in my nature or in
the order of my life something which is drawing away to itself the
energy that ought to go in that other direction, then, howsoever
innocent it may be, _per se_, it is harming me. It is a wen
that is sucking all the vital force into itself, and turning it into
poison. And there is only one cure for it, and that is the knife.
Then there is another point to be observed in this case supposed,
and that is that the whole matter is left to the determination of
personal experience. No one else has the right to decide for you
what it is safe and wise for you to do in regard to things which are
not in themselves wrong. If they are wrong in themselves, of course
the consideration of consequences is out of place altogether; but if
they be not wrong in themselves, then it is you that must settle
whether they are legitimate for you or not. Do not let your
Christian liberty be interfered with by other people's dictation in
regard to this matter. How often you hear people say, _'I_
could not do it'; meaning thereby, 'therefore _he_ ought not to
do it!' But that inference is altogether illegitimate. True, there
are limitations of our Christian liberty in regard to things
indifferent and innocent. Paul lays down the most important of these
in three sentences. 'All things are lawful for me, but all things
are not expedient.' 'All things are lawful for me, but all things
edify not';--you must think of your brethren as well as of yourself.
'All things are lawful for me, yet will I not be brought under the
power of any'; keep master of them, and rather abstain altogether
than become their slave. But these three limitations being observed,
then, in regard to all such matters, nobody else can prescribe for
you or me. 'To his own Master he standeth or falleth.'
But, on the other hand, do not you be led away into things that
damage you, because some other man does them, as he supposes,
without injury. 'Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that
thing which he alloweth.' There are some Christian people who are
simply very unscrupulous and think themselves very strong; and whose
consciences are not more enlightened, but less sensitive, than those
of the 'narrow-minded brethren' upon whom they look askance.
And so, dear friend, you ought to take the world--to inhale it, if I
may so say, as patients do chloroform; only you must be your own
doctor and keep your own fingers on your pulse, and watch the first
sign of failure there, and take no more. When the safety lamps begin
to burn blue you may be quite sure there is choke-damp about; and
when Christian men and women begin to find prayer wearisome, and
religious thoughts dull, and the remembrance of God an effort or a
pain, then, whatever anybody else may do, it is time for them to
pull up. 'If thy hand offend thee,' never mind though your brother's
hand is not offending him, do the necessary thing for your health,
'cut it off and cast it from you.'
But of course there must be caution and common-sense in the
application of such a principle. It does not mean that we are to
abandon all things that are susceptible of abuse, for everything is
so; and if we are to regulate our conduct by such a rule, it is not
the amputation of a hand that will be sufficient. We may as well cut
off our heads at once, and go out of the world altogether; for
everything is capable of being thus abused.
Nor does the injunction mean that unconditionally we are to abandon
all occupations in which there is danger. It can never be a duty to
shirk a duty because it is dangerous. And sometimes it is as much a
Christian man's duty to go into, and to stand in, positions that are
full of temptation and danger, as it is a fireman's business to go
into a burning house at the risk of suffocation. There were saints
in Caesar's household, flowers that grew on a dunghill, and they
were not bidden to abandon their place because it was full of
possible danger to their souls. Sometimes Christ sets His sentinels
in places where the bullets fly very thick; and if we are posted in
such a place--and we all are so some time or other in our lives--the
only course for us is to stand our ground until the relieving guard
comes, and to trust that He said a truth that was always to be true,
when He sent out His servants to their dangerous work, with the
assurance that if they drank any deadly thing it should not hurt
them.
II. So much, then, for the first of the points here. Now a word, in
the second place, as to the sharp remedy enjoined.
'Cut it off and cast it from thee.' Entire excision is the only
safety. I myself am to be the operator in that surgery. I am to lay
my hand upon the block, and with the other hand to grasp the axe and
strike. That is to say, we are to suppress capacities, to abandon
pursuits, to break with associates, when we find that they are
damaging our spiritual life and hindering our likeness to Jesus
Christ.
That is plain common-sense. In regard to physical intoxication, it
is a great deal easier to abstain altogether than to take a very
little and then stop. The very fumes of alcohol will sometimes drive
a reclaimed drunkard into a bout of dissipation that will last for
weeks; therefore, the only safety is in entire abstinence. The rule
holds in regard to everyday life. Every man has to give up a great
many things if he means to succeed in one, and has to be a man of
one pursuit if anything worth doing is to be done. Christian men
especially have to adopt that principle, and shear off a great deal
that is perfectly legitimate, in order that they may keep a reserve
of strength for the highest things.
True, all forms of life are capable of being made Christian service
and Christian discipline, but in practice we shall find that if we
are earnestly seeking the kingdom of God and His righteousness, not
only shall we lose our taste for a great deal that is innocent, but
we shall have, whether we lose our taste for them or not--and more
imperatively if we have not lost our taste for them than if we have--to
give up allowable things in order that with all our heart, and soul,
and strength, and mind, we may love and serve our Master. There are no
half-measures to be kept; the only thing to do with the viper is to
shake it off into the fire and let it burn there. We have to empty our
hands of earth's trivialities if we would grasp Christ with them. We
have to turn away our eyes from earth if we would behold the Master,
and rigidly to apply this principle of excision in order that we may
advance in the divine life. It is the only way to ensure progress.
There is no such certain method of securing an adequate flow of sap
up the trunk as to cut off all the suckers. If you wish to have a
current going down the main bed of the stream, sufficient to keep it
clear, you must dam up all the side channels.
But it is not to be forgotten that this commandment, stringent and
necessary as it is, is second best. The man is maimed, although it
was for Christ's sake that he cut off his hand, or put out his eye.
His hand was given him that with it he might serve God, and the
highest thing would have been that in hand and foot and eye he
should have been anointed, like the priests of old, for the service
of his Master. But until he is strong enough to use the faculty for
God, the wisest thing is not to use it at all. Abandon the outworks
to keep the citadel. And just as men pull down the pretty houses on
the outskirts of a fortified city when a siege is impending, in order
that they may afford no cover to the enemy, so we have to sweep away
a great deal in our lives that is innocent and fair, in order that
the foes of our spirit may find no lodgment there. It is second best,
but for all that it is absolutely needful. We must lay 'aside every
_weight_,' as well as 'the _sin_ which so easily besets us.' We
must run lightly if we would run well. We must cast aside all burdens,
even though they be burdens of treasure and delights, if we would 'run
with patience the race that is set before us.' 'If thy foot offend
thee,' do not hesitate, do not adopt half-measures, do not try
moderation, do not seek to sanctify the use of the peccant member;
all these may be possible and right in time, but for the present there
is only one thing to do--down with it on the block, and off with it!
'Cut it off and cast it from thee.'
III. And now, lastly, a word as to the solemn exhortation by which
this injunction is enforced.
Christ rests His command of self-denial and self-mutilation upon the
highest ground of self-interest. 'It is better for thee.' We are
told nowadays that this is a very low motive to appeal to, that
Christianity is a religion of selfishness, because it says to men,
'Your life or your death depends upon your faith and your conduct.'
Well, I think it will be time for us to listen to fantastic
objections of this sort when the men that urge them refuse to turn
down another street, if they are warned that in the road on which
they are going they will meet their death. As long as they admit
that it is a wise and a kind thing to say to a man, 'Do not go that
way or your life will be endangered,' I think we may listen to our
Master saying to us, 'Do not do that lest thou perish; do this, that
thou may'st enter into life.'
And then, notice that a maimed man may enter into life, and a
complete man may perish. The first may be a very poor creature, very
ignorant, with a limited nature, undeveloped capacities, intellect
and the like all but dormant in him, artistic sensibilities quite
atrophied, and yet he may have got hold of Jesus Christ and His
love, and be trying to love Him back again and serve Him, and so be
entering into life even here, and be sure of a life more perfect
yonder. And the complete man, cultured all round, with all his
faculties polished and exercised to the full, may have one side of
his nature undeveloped--that which connects him with God in Christ.
And so he may be like some fair tree that stands out there in the
open, on all sides extending its equal beauty, with its stem
symmetrical, cylindrical, perfect in its green cloud of foliage, yet
there may be a worm at the root of it, and it may be given up to
rottenness and destruction. Cultivated men may perish, and
uncultured men may have the life. The maimed man may touch Christ
with his stump, and so receive life, and the complete man may lay
hold of the world and the flesh and the devil with his hands, and so
share in their destruction.
Ay! and in that case the maimed man has the best of it. It is a very
plain axiom of the rudest common-sense, this of my text: 'It is
better for thee to enter into life maimed, than to go into hell-fire
with both thy hands.' That is to say, it is better to live maimed
than to die whole. A man comes into a hospital with gangrene in his
leg; the doctor says it must come off; the man says, 'It shall not,'
and he is dead to-morrow. Who is the fool--the man that says, 'Here,
then, cut away; better life than limb,' or the man that says, 'I
will keep it and I will die'?
'Better to enter into life maimed,' because you will not always be
maimed. The life will overcome the maiming. There is a wonderful
restoration of capacities and powers that have been sacrificed for
Christ's sake, a restoration even here. As crustaceans will develop
a new claw in place of one that they have thrown off in their peril
to save their lives, so we, if we have for Christ's sake maimed
ourselves, will find that in a large measure the suppression will be
recompensed even here on earth.
And hereafter, as the Rabbis used to say, 'No man will rise from the
grave a cripple.' All the limitations which we have imposed upon
ourselves, for Christ's sake, will be removed then. 'Then shall the
eyes of the blind be opened, and the ears of the deaf be unstopped;
then shall the lame man leap as a hart, and the tongue of the dumb
shall sing.' 'Verily I say unto thee, there is no man that hath left
any' of his possessions, affections, tastes, capacities, 'for My
sake but he shall receive a hundredfold more in this life, and in
the world to come, life everlasting.' No man is a loser by giving up
anything for Jesus Christ.
And, on the other hand, the complete man, complete in everything
except his spiritual nature, is a fragment in all his completeness;
and yonder, there will for him be a solemn process of stripping.
'Take it from him, and give it to him that hath ten talents.' Ah!
how much of that for which some of you are flinging away Jesus
Christ will fade from you when you go yonder. 'His glory shall not
descend after him'; 'as he came, so shall he go.' 'Tongues, they
shall cease; knowledge, it shall vanish away'; gifts will fail,
capacities will disappear when the opportunities for the exercise of
them in a material world are at an end, and there will be little
left to the man who _would_ carry hands and feet and eyes all
into the fire and forgot the 'one thing needful,' but a thin thread,
if I may so say, of personality quivering with the sense of
responsibility, and preyed upon by the gnawing worm of a too-late
remorse.
My brother, the lips of Incarnate Love spoke those solemn words of
my text, which it becomes not me to repeat to you as if they were
mine; but I ask you to weigh this, His urgent commandment, and to
listen to His solemn assurance, by which He enforces the wisdom of
the self-suppression: 'It is better for thee to enter into life
maimed, than having two hands, to be cast into hell-fire.'
Give your hearts to Jesus Christ, and set the following in His
footsteps and the keeping of His commandments high above all other
aims. You will have to suppress much and give up much, but such
suppression is the shortest road to becoming perfect men, complete
in Him, and such surrender is the surest way to possess all things.
'He that loseth his life'--which is more than hand or eye--for
Christ's sake,' the same shall find it.'