'The thing that hath been, it is that which shall he; and that which
is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under
the sun.'--ECCLES. i. 9.
'That he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to
the lusts of men, but to the will of God. 3. For the time past of our
life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles.'--l
PETER iv. 2, 3.
If you will look at these two passages carefully you will, I think,
see that they imply two different, and in some respects contradictory,
thoughts about the future in its relation to the past. The first of
them is the somewhat exaggerated utterance of a dreary and depressing
philosophy, which tells us that, as in the outer world, so in regard
to man's life, there is an enormous activity and no advance, that it
is all moving round like the scenes in some circular panorama, that
after it has gone the round back it comes again, that it is the same
thing over and over again, that life is a treadmill, so to speak, with
an immense deal of working of muscles; but it all comes to nothing
over again. 'The rivers run into the sea and the sea is not full, and
where the rivers come from they go back to; and the wind goes to the
south, turns to the north, and whirls about continually. Everything is
full of labour, and it has all been done before, and there is nothing
fresh; everything is flat, stale, and unprofitable.'
Well that is not true altogether, but though it be not true
altogether--though it be an exaggeration, and though the inference
that is built upon it is not altogether satisfactory and profound--yet
the thought itself is one that has a great deal in it that is true and
important, and may be very helpful and profitable to us now; for there
is a religious way, as well as an irreligious way, of saying there is
nothing new under the sun. It may be the utterance of a material,
_blase_, unprofitable, spurious philosophy, or it may be the
utterance of the profoundest, and the happiest, and the most peaceful
religious trust and confidence.
The other passage implies the opposite notion of man's life, that
however much in my future may be just the same as what my past has
been, there is a region in which it is quite possible to make
to-morrow unlike to-day, and so to resolve and so to work as that 'the
time past of our lives' may be different from 'the rest of our time in
the flesh'; that a great revolution may come upon a man, and that
whilst the outward life is continuous and the same, and the tasks to
be done are the same, and the joys the same, there may be such a
profound and radical difference in the spirit and motive in which they
are done as that the thing that has been is _not_ that which
shall be, and for us there _may_ be a new thing under the sun.
And so just now I think we may take these two passages in their
connection--their opposition, and in their parallelism--as suggesting
to us two very helpful, mutually completing thoughts about the unknown
future that stretches before us--first, the substantial identity of
the future with the past; second, the possible total unlikeness of the
future and the past.
First then, let us try to get the impress from the first phrase of
that conviction, so far as it is true, as to the sameness of the
things that are going to be with the things that have been. The
immediate connection in which the words are spoken is in regard,
mainly, to the outer world, the physical universe, and only
secondarily and subordinately in regard to man's life. And I need not
remind you how that thought of the absolute sameness and continuous
repetition of the past and the future has gained by the advance of
physical science in modern times. It seems to be contradicted no doubt
by the continual emergence of new things here and there, but they tell
us that the novelty is only a matter of arrangement, that the atoms
have never had an addition to them since the beginning of things, that
all stand just as they were from the very commencement and foundation
of all things, and that all that seems new is only a new arrangement,
so that the thing which has been is that which shall be. And then
there comes up the other thought, upon which I need not dwell for a
moment, that the present condition of things round about us is the
result of the uniform forces that have been working straight on from
the very beginning. And yet, whilst all that is quite true, we come to
our own human lives, and we find there the true application of such
words as these: to-morrow is to be like yesterday. There is one very
important sense in which the opposite of that is true, and no
to-morrow can ever be like any yesterday for however much the events
may be the same, we are so different that, in regard even to the most
well trodden and beaten of our paths of daily life, we may all say,
'We have not passed this way before!' We cannot bring back that which
is gone--that which is gone is gone for good or evil, irrevocable as
the snow or the perfume of last year's flowers. I dare say there are
many here before me who are saying to themselves, 'No! life can never
again be what life has been for me, and the only thing that I am quite
sure about in regard to to-morrow is that it is utterly impossible
that it should ever be as yesterday was!' Notwithstanding, the word of
my text is a true word, the thing that hath been is that which shall
be. I need not dwell on the grounds upon which the certainty rests,
such, for instance, as that the powers which shape to-morrow are the
same as the powers which shaped yesterday; that you and I, in our
nature, are the same, and that the mighty Hand up there that is
moulding it is the same; that every to-morrow is the child of all the
yesterdays; that the same general impression will pervade the future
as has pervaded the past. Though events may be different the general
stamp and characteristics of them will be the same, and when we pass
into a new region of human life we shall find that we are not walking
in a place where no footprints have been before us, but that all about
us the ground is trodden down smooth.
'That which hath been is that which shall be.' Thus, while this is
proximately true in regard to the future, let me just for a moment or
two give you one or two of the plain, simple pieces of well-worn
wisdom which are built upon such a thought. And first of all let me
give you this, 'Well, then, let us learn to tone down our expectations
of what may be coming to us.' Especially I speak now to the younger
portion of my congregation, to whom life is beginning, and to whom it
is naturally tinted with roseate hue, and who have a great deal
stretching before them which is new to them, new duties, new
relationships, new joys. But whilst that is especially true for them
it is true for all. It is a strange illusion under which we all live
to the very end of our lives, unless by reflection and effort we
become masters of it and see things in the plain daylight of common
sense, that the future is going somehow or other to be brighter,
better, fuller of resources, fuller of blessings, freer from sorrow
than the past has been. We turn over each new leaf that marks a new
year, and we cannot help thinking: 'Well! perhaps hidden away in its
storehouses there may be something brighter and better in store for
me.' It is well, perhaps, that we should have that thought, for if we
were not so drawn on, even though it be by an illusion, I do not know
that we should be able to live on as we do. But don't let us forget in
the hours of quiet that there is no reason at all to expect that any
of these arbitrary, and conventional, and unreal distinctions of
calendars and dates make any difference in that uniform strand of our
life which just runs the same, which is reeled off the great drum of
the future and on to the great drum of the past, and that is all spun
out of one fibre and is one gauge, and one sort of stuff from the
beginning to the end. And so let us be contented where we are, and not
fancy that when I get that thing that I am looking forward to, when I
get into that position I am waiting for, things will be much different
from what they are to-day. Life is all one piece, the future and the
past, the pattern runs right through from the beginning to the end,
and the stuff is the same stuff. So don't you be too enthusiastic, you
people who have an eager ambition for social and political
advancement. Things will be very much as they are used to be, with
perhaps some slow, gradual, infinitesimal approximation to a higher
ideal and a nobler standard; but there will be no jump, no breaks, no
spasmodic advance. We must be contented to accept the law, that there
is no new thing under the sun. As you would lay a piece of healing ice
upon the heated forehead, lay that law upon the feverish anticipations
some of you have in regard to the future, and let the heart beat more
quietly, and with the more contentment for the recognition of that
law.
And then I may say, at the same time, though I won't dwell upon it for
more than a moment, let us take the same thought to teach us to
moderate our fears. Don't be afraid that anything whatever may come
that will destroy the substantial likeness between the past and the
future; and so leave all those jarring and terrifying thoughts that
mingle with all our anticipations of the time to come, leave them very
quietly on one side and say, 'Thou hast been my Help leave me not,
neither forsake me, O God of my salvation.'
And then there are one or two other points I mean to touch upon, and
let me just name them. Do not let us so exaggerate that thought of the
substantial sameness of the future and the past as to flatten life and
make it dreary and profitless and insignificant. Let us rather feel,
as I shall have to say presently, that whilst the framework remains
the same, whilst the general characteristics will not be much
different, there is room within that uniformity for all possible play
of variety and interest, and earnestness and enthusiasm, and hope.
They make the worst possible use of this fixity and steadfastness of
things who say, as the dreary man at the beginning of the Book of
Ecclesiastes is represented as saying, that because things are the
same as they will and have been, all is vanity. It is not true. Don't
let the uniformity of life flatten your interest in the great miracle
of every fresh day, with its fresh continuation of ancient blessings
and the steadfast mercies of our Lord.
And let us hold firmly to the far deeper truth that the future will be
the same as the past, because God is the same. God's yesterday is
God's to-morrow--the same love, the same resources, the same wisdom,
the same power, the same sustaining Hand, the same encompassing
Presence. 'A thousand years are as one day, and one day as a thousand
years'; and when we say there is no new thing under the sun let us
feel that the deepest way of expressing that thought is, 'Thou art the
same, and Thy steadfast purposes know no alteration.'
Turn to the other side of the thought suggested by the second passage
of the text. It speaks to us, as I have said, of the possible entire
unlikeness between the future and the past. To-morrow is the child of
yesterday--granted; 'whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he
reap'--certainly; there is a persistent uniformity of nature, and the
same causes working make the future much of the same general structure
as all the past has been--be it so; and yet within the limits of that
identity there may be breathed into the self-sameness of to-morrow
such an entire difference of disposition, temper, motive, direction of
life, that my whole life may be revolutionised, my whole being, I was
going to say, cleft in twain, my old life buried and forgotten, and a
new life may emerge from chaos and from the dead. Of course, the
question, Is such an alteration possible? rises up very solemnly to
men, to most of them, for I suppose we all of us know what it is to
have been beaten time after time in the attempt to shake off the
dominion of some habit or evil, and to alter the bearing and the
direction of the whole life, and we have to say, 'It is no good trying
any longer my life must run on in the channel which I have carved for
it; I have made my bed and I must lie on it; I cannot get rid of these
things.' And, no doubt, in certain aspects, change is impossible.
There are certain limitations of natural disposition which I never can
overcome. For instance, if I have no musical ear I cannot turn myself
into a musician. If I have no mathematical faculty it is no good
poring over Euclid, for, with the best intentions in the world, I
shall make nothing of it. We must work within the limits of our
natural disposition, and cut our coat according to our cloth. In that
respect to-morrow will be as yesterday, and there cannot be any
change. And it is quite true that character, which is the great
precipitate from the waters of conduct, gets rocky, that habits become
persistent, and man's will gets feeble by long indulgence in any
course of life. But for all that, admitting to the full all that, I am
here now to say to every man and woman in this place, 'Friend, you may
make your life from this moment so unlike the blotted, stained,
faultful, imperfect, sinful past that no words other than the words of
the New Testament will be large enough to express the fact. "If any
man be in Christ he is a new creature, old things are passed away."'
For we all know how into any life the coming of some large conviction
not believed in or perceived before, may alter the whole bias,
current, and direction of it; how into any life the coming of a new
love not cherished and entertained before, may ennoble and transfigure
the whole of its nature; how into any life the coming of new motives,
not yielded to and recognised before, may make all things new and
different. These three plain principles, the power of conviction, the
power of affection, the power of motive, are broad enough to admit of
building upon them this great and helpful and hopeful promise to us
all--'The time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the
will of the Gentiles,' that 'henceforth we may live the rest of our
time in the flesh according to the will of God.'
To you who have been living in the past with little regard to the
supreme powers and principles of Christ's love and God's Gospel in
Him, I bring the offer of a radical revolution; and I tell you that if
you like you may this day begin a life which, though it shall be like
yesterday in outward things, in the continuity of some habits, in the
continuance of character, shall be all under the influence of an
entirely new, and innovating, and renovating power. I ask you whether
you don't think that you have had enough, to use the language of my
text, in the part of obeying the will of the flesh; and I beseech you
that you will let these great principles, these grand convictions
which cluster round and explain the cross of Jesus Christ, influence
your mind, character, habits, desires, thoughts, actions; that you
will yield yourself to the new power of the Spirit of life in Christ,
which is granted to us if only we submit ourselves to it and humbly
desire it. And to you who have in some measure lived by this mighty
influence I come with the message for you and for myself that the time
to come may, if we will, be filled very much fuller than it is;
'To-morrow may be as this day, and much more abundant.' I believe in a
patient, reflecting, abundant examination of the past. The old proverb
says that 'Every man by the time he is forty is either a fool or a
physician'; and any man or woman by the time they get ten years short
of that age, ought to know where they are weakest, and ought to be
able to guard against the weak places in their character. I do not
believe in self-examination for the purpose of finding in a man's own
character reasons for answering the question, 'Am I a Christian?' But
I do believe that no people will avail themselves fully of the power
God has given them for making the future brighter and better than the
past who have not a very clear, accurate, comprehensive, and
penetrating knowledge of their faults and their failures in the past.
I suppose if the Tay Bridge is to be built again, it won't be built of
the same pattern as that which was blown into the water last week; and
you and I ought to learn by experience the places in our souls that
give in the tempests, where there is most need for strengthening the
bulwarks and defending our natures. And so I say, begin with the
abundant recognition of the past, and then a brave confidence in the
possibilities of the future. Let us put ourselves under that great
renovating Power which is conviction and affection and motive all in
one. 'He loved me and gave Himself for me.' And so while we front the
future we can feel that, God being in us, and Christ being in us, we
shall make it a far brighter and fairer thing than the blurred and
blotted past which to-day is buried, and life may go on with grand
blessedness and power until we shall hear the great voice from the
Throne say, 'There shall be no more death, no more sorrow, no more
crying, no more pain, for the former things are passed away, 'Behold!
I make all things new.'