high and pure as it is, it is nothing unreasonable or impossible; that
what he requires us to be dead to absolutely is that which is evil;
that, because of the mixture of evil with ourselves and all around us,
this life must not and cannot be a life of entire enjoyment without
becoming godless and selfish; that, therefore, our affections cannot be
set upon earthly things so as to enjoy them in and for themselves
entirely, without becoming inordinate, and therefore evil. He does
require us, old and young alike, to set our affection on things above:
to remember that with God, and with Him alone, can be our rest, and the
fulness of our joy; and amidst our pleasure in earthly things to retain
in our minds, first, a grateful sense of their Giver; secondly, a
remembrance of their passing nature; and thirdly, a consciousness of the
evil that is in the world, which makes it a sin to resign ourselves to
any enjoyment, except as a permitted refreshment to strengthen us for
duty to come. Above all, let one feeling be truly cherished, and it
will do more, perhaps, than any other to moderate our pleasure in
earthly things, and to render it safe, and wholesome, and Christianlike.
That feeling is the remembrance of our own faults. Let us bear these in
mind as God does; let us consider how displeasing they are in His sight;
how often they are repeated; how little they deserve the enjoyments
which are given us. If this does not change our selfish pleasure into a
zealous gratitude, then, indeed, sin must have a dominion over us; for
the natural effect would be, that our hearts should burn within us for
very shame, and should enkindle us to be thankful with all our strength
for blessings so undeserved; to show something of our love to God who
has so richly shown his love to us.
LECTURE VII.
* * * * *
CORINTHIANS iii. 21-23.
_All things are yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the
world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are
yours; and ye are Christ's; and Christ is God's_.
It is very possible, that all may not distinctly understand the force of
the several clauses of this passage, yet, all, I suppose, would derive a
general impression from it, that it spoke of the condition of Christians
in very exalted language, and made it to extend to things in this world,
as well as to things in the world to come. But can it be good for us to
dwell on our exaltation? And if we do, may we not dread lest such
language might be used towards us as that which St. Paul uses in the
very next chapter to the Corinthians, "Now ye are full, now ye are rich,
ye have reigned as kings without us; and I would to God ye did reign,
that we also might reign with you." It would seem, however, that it
would be good for us to dwell on the greatness of our condition and
privileges, because St. Paul, who thus upbraids the Corinthians with
their pride, had yet himself immediately before laid the picture of
their high privileges, in the words of the text, in full detail before
them, as if he wished them carefully to consider it. And so indeed it
is. It feeds pride to dwell upon our good qualities or advantages, as
individuals, or as a class in society, or as a nation, or as a sect or
party; but, to speak generally, our advantages and privileges, as
Christians, have not a tendency to excite pride; for some reasons in the
nature of the case; for this reason amongst ourselves particularly,
because the very essence of pride consists in contrast; we are proud
that we are, in some one or more points, superior to others who come
immediately under our observation. Now, we have so little to do with any
who are not Christians, that the contrast is in this case wanting; we
have none over whom to be proud; none whom we can glory in surpassing;
and, therefore, a consideration of our Christian advantages, in the
absence of that one element which might feed pride, is likely with us to
work in a better manner, and to lead rather to thankfulness and
increased exertion.
I say to increased exertion; for what would stop exertion is pride. It
is the turning back, and pausing to look with satisfaction on what is
below us, rather than the looking upward to the summit, and thinking how
much our actual elevation has brought us on the way towards it. And,
further, there is coupled with every consideration of Christian
privileges, the thought of what it must be to leave such privileges
unimproved. In this respect, how well does the language of the two
lessons from Deuteronomy suit the lesson from the Epistle to the
Corinthians. We heard the description of the beauty and richness of the
land which God gave to his people,--there were their advantages and
privileges,--we heard also, the declaration of their unworthiness, and
the solemn threatening of vengeance if, after having received good, they
did evil. And as the vengeance has fallen upon them to the utmost, so we
are taught expressly to apply their example to ourselves. "If God spared
not the natural branches," such was St. Paul's language to the church at
Rome, "take heed lest he also spare not thee."
Let us not fear, then, to consider more nearly the high privileges
which, as Christians, we enjoy: let us endeavour to understand, not
merely generally, but in detail, the exalted language of the text, where
it is said, that all things are ours; Paul, Apollos, and Cephas, the
world, and life, and death, the things of time, and the things of
eternity. These are ours because we are Christ's, and Christ is God's;
they are ours so long as we are Christ's, and so far as we are his
truly. They are not ours so far as we are not his: they are ours in no
degree whatever the moment that he shall declare that we are his
no longer.
"Paul, and Apollos, and Peter, are ours." This, perhaps, is the
expression which we should understand least distinctly of any. It is an
expression, however, of deep importance, though perhaps less so here
than in congregations of a different sort. I need not, therefore, dwell
on it long now. But the Corinthians, as many Christians have done since,
were apt to think more of their being Christians of a certain sort, than
of being Christians simply: some said, "We have Paul's view of
Christianity, the true and sound view of it, free from superstition:"
others said, "But we have Peter's view of Christianity, one of Christ's
own apostles, who were with him on earth; ours is the true and earliest
view of it, free from all innovations:" and others, again, said, "Nay,
but we have been taught by Apollos, an eloquent man, and mighty in the
Scriptures; one who best understands how to unite the law and the
gospel; one who has given us the full perfection of Christianity." No
doubt there were some differences of views even between Paul, and Peter,
and Apollos; for while, on the one hand, they were all enlightened by
the Spirit of God, yet, on the other hand, they retained still their
human differences of character and disposition, which must on several
occasions have been manifest. But St. Paul does not tell us what these
were, nor how far they extended, nor to what degree they had been
exaggerated by those who heard them. He does not insist upon the truth
of his own view, nor wish the Corinthians to lay aside their divisions,
after the manner so zealously enforced by some persons now, namely, that
those who said they were of Peter, or of Apollos, should confess that
they had been in error, and declare themselves to be now only of Paul.
Such a condemnation of schism he would have held to be in itself in the
highest degree schismatical. But St. Paul was earnest, that schism
should be ended after another way than this, by all parties remembering,
that whatever became of the truth or falsehood of their own particular
views of Christianity, yet, that Christianity according to any of their
views was the one great thing which was their glory and their salvation.
"Paul, and Apollos, and Peter, are all yours: but you are Christ's." You
should not glory in men; that you belong to a purer church than other
Christians; but that you belong to the church of Christ; that church,
which, in its most pure particular branches, has never been free from
some mixture of human infirmity and error; nor yet, in its worst
branches, has ever lost altogether the seal of Christ's Spirit, nor
ceased to believe in Christ crucified.
But the next words are of more particular concern to us here. "The
world, and life, and death, and things present, and things to come, are
all ours." They are all ours, so far as we are Christ's. The world is
ours; its manifold riches and delights, its various wisdom, all are
ours. They are ours, not as a thing stolen, and which will be taken from
us with a heavy over-payment of penalty, because we stole it when it did
not belong to us; but they are ours by God's free gift, to minister to
our comfort, and to our good. And this is the great difference; the good
things of this world are stolen by many; but they belong, by God's gift,
to those only who are Christ's: and there is the sure sign, generally,
to be seen of their being stolen,--an unwillingness that He to whom of
right they belong should see them. What a man steals, he enjoys, as it
were, in fear: if the owner of it finds him with it, then all his
enjoyment is gone; he wishes that he had never touched it; it is no
source of pleasure to him, but merely one of terror. And so it is often
with our stolen pleasures,--stolen, I mean, not in respect of man, but
of God,--stolen, because we do not feel them to be God's gift, nor
receive them, as from him, with thankfulness. They may be very lawful
pleasures, so far as other men are concerned; pleasures bought, it may
be, with our own money, or given to us by our own friends, and enjoyed
without any injury to any one. They may be the very simplest enjoyments
of life, our health, the fresh air, our common food, our common
amusements, our common society; things most permitted to us all, as far
as man is concerned, but yet things which are constantly stolen by us,
because we take them without God's leave, and enjoy them not as his
gifts. They are all his, and he gives them freely to his children. If we
are his children, he gives them to us; and delights in our enjoyment of
them, as any human father loves to see the pleasure of his children in
those things which it is good for them to enjoy. But then, is any child
afraid of his father so seeing him? or is the thought of his father any
interruption to his enjoyment? If it would be, we should be sure that
there was something wrong; that the enjoyment, either in itself, or with
respect to the particular case of that child, was a stolen one. And even
as simple is the state of our dread of God, of our wish to keep his
name and his thought away from us. It is the sure sign that our
pleasures are stolen, either as being wrong in themselves, or much
oftener, because we have taken them without being fit for them, have
snatched them for ourselves, instead of receiving them at the hands of
God. Two of us may be daily doing the very same thing in most
respects,--enjoying actually the very same pleasures, whether of body or
of mind; the same exercises, the same studies, the same indulgences, the
same society,--and yet these very same things may belong rightfully to
the one, and be stolen by the other. To the one they may come with a
double blessing, as the assurance of God's greater love hereafter: to
the other, they are but an addition to that sad account, when all good
things enjoyed here, having been not our own rightly, but stolen, shall
be paid for in over measure, by evil things to be suffered hereafter.
And what I have said of the world, will apply also to life and to death.
Oh, the infinite difference whether life is ours, or but stolen for an
instant; whether death is ours, our subject, ministering only to our
good; or our fearful enemy, our ever keen pursuer, from whose grasp we
have escaped for a few short years, but who is following fast after us,
and when he has once caught us will hold us fast for ever! Have we ever
seen his near approach--has he ever forced himself upon our notice
whether we would or no? But two days since he was amongst us,--we were,
as it were, forced to look upon him. Did we think that he was ours, or
that we were his? If we are his, then indeed he is fearful: fearful to
the mere consciousness of nature; a consciousness which no arguments can
overcome; fearful if it be merely the parting from life, if it be
merely the resigning that wonderful thing which we call our being. It is
fearful to go from light to darkness, from all that we have ever known
and loved, to that of which we know and love nothing. But if death, even
thus stingless, is yet full of horror, what is he with his worst sting
beside, the sting of our sins? What is he when he is taking us, not to
nothingness, but to judgment? He is indeed so fearful then, that no
words can paint him half so truly as our foreboding dread of him, and no
arguments which the wit of man can furnish can strip him of his terrors.
But what if death too, as well as life, be ours?--which he is, if we are
Christ's; for Christ has conquered him. If he be ours, our servant, our
minister, sent but to bring us into the presence of our Lord, then,
indeed, his terrors, his merely natural terrors, the outside roughness
of his aspect, are things which the merest child need not shrink from.
Then disease and decay, however painful to living friends to look upon,
have but little pain for him who is undergoing them. For it is not only
amidst the tortures of actual martyrdom that Christians have been more
than conquerors,--in common life, on the quiet or lonely sick bed, under
the grasp of fever or of consumption, the conquest has been witnessed as
often and as completely. It is not a little thing when the faintest
whisper of thought to which expiring nature can give utterance breathes
of nothing but of peace and of forgiveness. It is not a little thing
when the name of Christ possesses us wholly; not distinctly, it may be,
for reason may be too weak for this; but with an indescribable power of
support and comfort. Or even if there be a last conflict,--a season of
terror and of pain, a valley of the shadow of death, dark and
gloomy,--yet even there Christ is with his servants, and as their trial
is so is his love. Thus it is, if death be ours; and death is ours, if
we be Christ's. And are we not Christ's? We bear his name, we have his
outward seal of belonging to his people,--can we refuse to be his in
heart and true obedience? Would we rather steal our pleasures than enjoy
them as our own; steal life for an instant, rather than have it our sure
possession for ever? Would we rather be fugitives from death, fugitives
whom he will surely recover and hold fast, than be able to say and to
feel that death, as well as life is ours, things to come, as well as
things present, because we are truly Christ's?
LECTURE VIII.
* * * * *
GALATIANS V. 16, 17.
_Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh. For
the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh;
and these are contrary the one to the other, so that ye cannot do the
things that ye would_.
"We cannot do the things that we would." These are words of familiar and
common use; this is the language in which we are all apt to excuse,
whether to ourselves or to others, the various faults of our conduct. We
should be glad to do better, so we say and think, but the power to do so
fails us. And so far it may seem that we are but echoing the apostle's
language; for he says the very same thing, "Ye cannot do the things that
ye would." Yet the words as we use them, and as the apostle used them,
have the most opposite meaning in the world. We use them as a reason why
we should be satisfied, the apostle as a reason why we should be
alarmed; we intend them to be an excuse, the apostle meant them to be a
certain sign of condemnation.
The reasons of this difference may be understood very easily. We, in the
common course of justice, should think it hard to punish a man for not
doing what he cannot do. We think, therefore, that if we say that we
cannot do well, we establish also our own claim to escape from
punishment. But God declares that a state of sin is and must be a state
of misery; and that if we cannot escape the sin, we cannot escape the
misery. According to God's meaning, then, the words, "Ye cannot do the
things which ye would," mean no other than this: "Ye cannot escape from
hell; ye cannot be redeemed from the power of death and of Satan; the
power is wanting in you, however much you may wish it: death has got
you, and it will keep you for ever." So that, in this way, sickness or
weakness of the soul is very like sickness or weakness of the body. We
cannot help being ill or weak in many cases: is that any reason why,
according to the laws of God's providence, we should not suffer the pain
of illness? Or is it not, rather, clear that we suffer it just because
we have not the power to get rid of it; if we had the power to be well,
we should be well. A man's evils are not gone because he wishes them
away; it is not he who would fain see his chains broken, that escapes
from his bondage; but he who has the strength to rend them asunder.
Thus, then, in St. Paul's language, "Ye cannot do the things that ye
would," means exactly, "Ye are not redeemed, but in bondage; ye are not
saved, but lost." But he goes on to the reason why we cannot do the
things which we would, which is, "because the flesh and the Spirit are
contrary to one another," and pull us, as it were, different ways. Just
as we might say of a man in illness, that the reason why he is not well,
as he wishes to be, is because his healthy nature and his disease are
contrary to one another, and are striving within him for the mastery.
His blood, according to its healthy nature, would flow calmly and
steadily; his food, according to his healthy nature, would be received
with appetite, and would give him nourishment and strength; but, behold,
there is in him now another nature, contrary to his healthy nature: and
this other nature makes his blood flow with feverish quickness, and
makes food distasteful to him, and makes the food which he has eaten
before to become, as it were, poison; it does not nourish him or
strengthen, but is a burden, a weakness, and a pain. As long as these
two natures thus struggle within him, the man is sick; as soon as the
diseased nature prevails, the man sinks and dies. He does not wish to
die,--not at all,--most earnestly, it may be, does he wish to live; but
his diseased nature has overcome his healthy nature, and so he must die.
If he would live, in any sense that deserves to be called life, the
diseased nature must not overcome, must not struggle equally; it must be
overcome, it must be kept down, it must be rendered powerless; and then,
when the healthy nature has prevailed, its victory is health
and strength.
So far all is alike; but what follows afterwards? As "ye cannot do the
things which ye would, because the flesh and the Spirit are contrary to
one another,"--what then? "Therefore," says the apostle, "walk in the
Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh." Surely there is
some thing marvellous in this. For, let us speak the same language to
the sick man: tell him, "Follow thy healthy nature, and them shalt not
be sick," what would the words be but a bitter mockery? "How can you bid
me," he would say, "to follow my healthy nature, when ye know that my
diseased nature has bound me? Have ye no better comfort than this to
offer me? Tell me rather how I may become able to follow my healthy
nature; show me the strength which may help my weakness; or else your
words are vain, and I never can recover." Most true would be this
answer; and therefore disease and death do make havoc of us all, and the
healthy nature is in the end borne down by the diseased nature, and
sooner or later the great enemy triumphs over us, and, in spite of all
our wishes and fond desires for life, we go down, death's conquered
subjects, to the common grave of all living.
This happens to the bodies of us all; to the souls of only too many. But
why does it not happen also to the souls of all? How is it that some do
fulfil the apostle's bidding? that they do walk in the Spirit, and
therefore do not fulfil the lusts of the flesh; and therefore having
conquered their diseased nature, they do walk according to their
healthful nature, and are verily able to do, and do continually, the
very things that they would? Surely this so striking difference, between
the universal conquest of our diseased nature in the body, and the
occasional victory of the healthy nature in the soul, shows us clearly
that for the soul there has appeared a Redeemer already, while for the
body the redemption is delayed till death shall be swallowed up
in victory.
For most true is it that in ourselves we could not deliver ourselves
either soul or body. "Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the
lusts of the flesh," might have been as cruel a mockery to us, as the
similar words addressed to the man bodily sick,--"Walk according to thy
healthy nature, and thou shalt not suffer from disease." They might have
been a mockery, but blessed be God, they are not. They are not, because
God has given us a Redeemer; they are not, because Christ has died, yea
rather has risen again; and because the Spirit of Christ helpeth our
infirmities, and gives us that power which by ourselves we had not.
Not by wishing then to be redeemed, but by being redeemed, shall we
escape the power of death. Not by saying, "Alas! we cannot do the things
that we would!" but by becoming able to do them. Walk in the Spirit, and
ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh; but if ye do fulfil them,
ye must die.
The power to walk in the Spirit is given by the Spirit; but either all
have not this power, or all do not use it. I think rather it is that all
have it not, for if they had it, a power so mighty and so beneficent,
they surely could not help using it. All have it not; but I do not say
that they all might not have it; on the contrary, all might have it, but
in point of fact they have it not. They have it not because they seek it
not: for an idle wish is one thing; a steady persevering pursuit is
another. They seek not the Spirit by the appointed means, the means of
prayer and attending to God's holy word, and thinking of life and death
and judgment.
Do those seek the spirit of God who never pray to God? Clearly they do
not. For they who never pray to God never think of Him; they who never
think of Him, by the very force of the terms it follows that they cannot
seek his help. And yet they say, "Oh, I wish to be good, but I cannot!"
But this, in the language of the Scripture, is a lie. If they did wish
to be good they would seek the help that could make them so. There is no
boy so young as not to know that, when temptation is on him to evil,
prayer to God will strengthen him for good. As sure as we live, if he
wished really to overcome the temptation, he would seek the strength.
Consider what prayer is, and see how it cannot but strengthen us. He who
stands in a sheltered place, where the wind cannot reach him, and with
no branches over his head to cause a damp shade, and then holds up his
face or his hands to the sun, in his strength, can he help feeling the
sun's warmth? Now, thus it is in prayer: we turn to God, we bring our
souls, with all their thoughts and feelings, fully before Him; and by
the very act of so doing, we shelter ourselves from every chill of
worldly care, we clear away every intercepting screen of worldly thought
and pleasure. It is an awful thing so to submit ourselves wholly to the
influence of God. But do it; and as surely as the sun will warm us if we
stand in the sun, so will the Giver of light and life to the soul pour
his Spirit of life into us; even as we pray, we become changed into
his image.
This is not spoken extravagantly. I ask of any one who has ever prayed
in earnest, whether for that time, and while he was so praying, he did
not feel, as it were, another man; a man able to do the things which he
would; a man redeemed and free. But most true is it that this feeling
passes away but too soon, when the prayer is done. Still for the time,
there is the effect; we know what it is to put ourselves, in a manner,
beneath the rays of God's grace; but we do not abide there long, and
then we feel the damp and the cold of earth again.