"_Be not anxious for your life_ ... _nor yet for your
body_.... _Be not anxious, saying, What shall we eat? or, What
shall we drink? ... Be not anxious for the morrow._"--MATT.
vi. 25, 31, 34.
I
"_Take no thought for_ your life" is the more familiar rendering of the
Authorized Version. And if the words conveyed the same meaning to us
to-day as they did to all English-speaking people in the year 1611,
there would have been no need for a change. A great student of words,
the late Archbishop Trench, tells us that "thought" was then constantly
used as equivalent to anxiety or solicitous care; and he gives three
illustrations of this use of the word from writers of the Elizabethan
age. Thus Bacon writes: "Harris, an alderman in London, was put in
trouble, and died with _thought_ and anxiety before his business came to
an end." Again, in one of the _Somer's Tracts_, we read, "Queen
Katharine Parr _died of thought_"; and in Shakespeare's _Julius Caesar_,
"_Take thought_ and die for Caesar," where "to take thought" is to take
a matter so seriously to heart that death ensues.[46] In 1611,
therefore, the old translation did accurately reproduce Christ's
thought. To-day, however, it is altogether inadequate, and sometimes, it
is to be feared, positively misleading. For neither in this chapter nor
anywhere in Christ's teaching is there one word against what we call
forethought, and they who would find in the words of Jesus any
encouragement to thriftlessness are but misrepresenting Him and
deceiving themselves. Every man, who is not either a rogue or a fool,
must take thought for the morrow; at least, if he does not, some one
must for him, or the morrow will avenge itself upon him without mercy.
What our Lord forbids is not prudent foresight, but worry: "Be ye not
_anxious_!" The word which Christ uses ((Greek: merimnate)) is a very
suggestive one; it describes the state of mind of one who is drawn in
different directions, torn by internal conflict, "distracted," as we
say, where precisely the same figure of speech occurs. A similar counsel
is to be found in another and still more striking word which only Luke
has recorded, and which is rendered, "Neither be ye of doubtful mind."
There is a picture in the word ((Greek: meteorizesthe)) the picture of a
vessel vexed by contrary winds, now uplifted on the crest of some huge
wave, now labouring in the trough of the sea. "Be ye not thus," Christ
says to His disciples, "the sport of your cares, driven by the wind and
tossed; but let the peace of God rule in your hearts, and be ye not of
doubtful mind."
It cannot surprise us that Jesus should speak thus; rather should we
have been surprised if it had been otherwise. How could He speak to men
at all and yet be silent about their cares? For how full of care the
lives of most men are! One is anxious about his health, and another
about his business; one is concerned because for weeks he has been
without work, and another because his investments are turning out badly;
some are troubled about their children, and some there are who are
making a care even of their religion, and instead of letting it carry
them are trying to carry it; until, with burdens of one kind or another,
we are like a string of Swiss pack-horses, such as one may sometimes
see, toiling and straining up some steep Alpine pass under a blazing
July sun. Poor Martha, with her sad, tired face, and nervous, fretful
ways, "anxious and troubled about many things," is everywhere to-day.
Nor is it the poor only whose lives are full of care. It was not a poor
man amid his poverty, but a rich man amid his riches, who, in Christ's
parable, put to himself the question, "What shall I do?" The birds of
care build their nests amid the turrets of a palace as readily as in the
thatched roof of a cottage. The cruel thorns--"the cares of this life,"
as Jesus calls them--which choke the good seed, sometimes spring up more
easily within the carefully fenced enclosure of my lord's park than in
the little garden plot of the keeper of his lodge. On the whole,
perhaps, and in proportion to their number, there is less harassing,
wearing anxiety in the homes of the poor than in those of the wealthy.
And what harsh taskmasters our cares can be! How they will lord it over
us! Give them the saddle and the reins, and they will ride us to death.
Seat them on the throne, and they will chastise us not only with whips
but with scorpions. It is no wonder that Christ should set Himself to
free men from this grinding tyranny. He is no true deliverer for us who
cannot break the cruel bondage of our cares.