literally pray always, it is clear that we should sin never: it may be
thus that Christ's redeemed, at his coming, as they will be for ever
with him and with the Father, can therefore sin no more. For where God
is, there is no place left for sin. But we cannot pray always: we cannot
pray the greatest portion of our time; nay, we can pray, in the common
sense of the term, only a very small portion of it. Yet, at least, we
can take heed that we do pray sometimes, and that our prayer be truly in
earnest. We can pray then for God's help to abide with us when we are
not praying: we can commit to his care, not only our hours of sleep, but
our hours of worldly waking. "I have work to do, I have a busy world
around me; eye, ear, and thought will be all needed for that work, done
in and amidst that busy world; now, ere I enter upon it, I would commit
eye, ear, thought and wish to Thee. Do thou bless them, and keep their
work thine; that as, through thy natural laws, my heart beats and my
blood flows without my thought for them, so my spiritual life may hold
on its course, through, thy help, at those times when my mind cannot
consciously turn to Thee to commit each particular thought to
thy service."
But I dare not say that by any the most urgent prayers, uttered only at
night and morning, God's blessing can thus be gained for the whole
intervening day. For, in truth, if we did nothing more, the prayers
would soon cease to be urgent; they would become formal, that is, they
would be no prayers at all. For prayer lives in the heart, and not in
the mouth; it consists not of words, but wishes. And no man can set
himself heartily to wish twice a day for things, of which he never
thinks at other times in the day. So that prayer requires in a manner to
be fed, and its food is to be found in reading and thinking; in reading
God's word, and in thinking about him, and about the world as being
his work.
Young men and boys are generally, we know, not fond of reading for its
own sake; and when they do read for their own pleasure, they naturally
read something that interests them. Now, what are called serious books,
including certainly the Bible, do not interest them, and therefore they
are not commonly read. What shall we say, then? Are they not interested
in becoming good, in learning to do the things which, they would? If
they are not, if they care not for the bondage of sin and death, there
is, of course, nothing to be said; then they are condemned already; they
are not the children of God. But one says, "I wish I could find interest
in a serious book, but I cannot." Observe again, "Ye cannot do the
things that ye would," because the flesh and the Spirit are contrary to
one another. However, to return to him who says this, the answer to him
is this,--"The interest cannot come without the reading; it may and
will come with it." For interest in a subject depends very much on our
knowledge of it; and so it is with, the things of Christ. As long as the
life and death of Christ are strange to us, how can we be interested
about them? but read them, thinking of what they were, and what were
their ends, and who can help being interested about them? Read them
carefully, and read them often, and they will bring before our minds the
very thoughts which we need, and which the world keeps continually from
us, the thoughts which naturally feed our prayers; thoughts not of self,
nor selfishness, nor pleasure, nor passion, nor folly, but of such
things as are truly God's--love, and self-denial, and purity, and
wisdom. These thoughts come by reading the Scriptures; and strangely do
they mingle at first with the common evil thoughts of our evil nature.
But they soon find a home within us, and more good thoughts gather round
them, and there comes a time when daily life with its various business,
which, once seemed to shut them out altogether, now ministers to their
nourishment.
Wherefore, in conclusion, walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil
the lusts of the flesh; but do even the things which ye would. And ye
can walk in the Spirit, if ye seek for the Spirit; if ye seek him by
prayer, and by reading of Christ, and the things of Christ. If we will
do neither, then most assuredly we are not seeking him; if we seek him
not, we shall never find him. If we find him not, we shall never be able
to do the things that we would; we shall never be redeemed, never made
free, but our souls shall be overcome by their evil nature, as surely as
our bodies by their diseased nature; till one death shall possess us
wholly, a death of body and of soul, the death of eternal misery.
LECTURE IX.
* * * * *
LUKE xiv. 33.
_Whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot
be my disciple_.
In order to show that these words were not spoken to the apostles alone,
but to all Christians, we have only to turn to the 25th and 26th verses,
which run thus:--"And there went great multitudes with him, and he
turned and said unto them, If any man come to me, and hate not his
father and mother, and wife and children, and brethren and sisters, yea
and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple." The words were not,
then, spoken to the twelve apostles only, as if they contained merely
some rule of extraordinary piety, which was not to be required of common
Christians; they were spoken to a great multitude; they were spoken to
warn all persons in that multitude that not one of them could become a
Christian, unless he gave himself up to Christ body and soul. Thus
declaring that there is but one rule for all; a rule which the highest
Christian can never go beyond; and which the lowest, if he would be a
Christian at all, must make the foundation of his whole life.
Now take the words, either of the text or of the 26th verse, and is it
possible to avoid seeing that, on the very lowest interpretation, they
do insist upon a very high standard; that they do require a very entire
and devoted obedience? Is it possible for any one who believes what
Christ has said, to rest contented, either for himself or for others,
with that very low and very unchristian standard which he sees and knows
to prevail generally in the world? Is it possible for him not to wish,
for himself and for all in whose welfare he is interested, that they may
belong to the small minority in matters of principle and practice,
rather than to the large majority?
And because he so wishes, one who endeavours to follow Christ sincerely
can never be satisfied with the excuse that he acts and thinks quite as
well as the mass of persons about him; it can never give him comfort,
with regard to any judgment or practice, to be told, in common language,
"Everybody thinks so; everybody does so." If, indeed, this expression
"everybody" might be taken literally; if it were quite true, without any
exception, that "everybody thought or did so;" then I grant that it
would have a very great authority; so great that it would be almost a
mark of madness to run counter to it. For what all men, all without a
single exception, were to agree in, must be some truth which the human
mind could not reject without insanity,--like the axioms of science, or
some action which if we did not we could not live, as sleeping and
eating; or if there be any moral point so universally agreed upon, then
it must be something exceedingly general: as, for instance, that truth
is in itself to be preferred to falsehood; which to dispute would be
monstrous. But, once admit a single exception, and the infallible virtue
of the rule ceases. I can conceive one single good and wise man's
judgment and practice, requiring, at any rate, to be carefully attended
to, and his reasons examined, although millions upon millions stood
against him. But go on with the number of exceptions, and bring the
expression "everybody," to its real meaning, which is only "most
persons," "the great majority of the world;" then the rule becomes of
no virtue at all, but very often the contrary. If in matters of morals
many are on one side and some on the other, it is impossible to
pronounce at once which are most likely to be right: it depends on the
sort of case on which the difference exists; for the victories of truth
and of good are but partial. It is not all truth that triumphs in the
world, nor all good; but only truth and good up to a certain point. Let
them once pass this point, and their progress pauses. Their followers,
in the mass, cannot keep up with them thus far: fewer and fewer are
those who still press on in their company, till at last even these fail;
and there is a perfection at which they are deserted by all men, and are
in the presence of God and of Christ alone.
Thus it is that, up to a certain point, in moral matters the majority
are right; and thus Christ's gospel, in a great many respects, goes
along with public opinion, and the voice of society is the voice of
truth. But this, to use the expression of our Lord's parable, this is
but half the height of that tower whose top should reach unto heaven.
Christianity ascends a great deal higher; and therefore so many who
begin to build are never able to finish. Christ's disciples and the
world's disciples work for a certain way together; and thus far the
world's disciples call themselves Christ's, and so Christ's followers
seem to be a great majority. But Christ warns us expressly that we are
not his disciples merely by going a certain way on the same road with
them. They only are His, who follow Him to the end. They only are His,
who follow him in spite of everything, who leave all rather than leave
him. For the rest, He does not own them. What the world can give they
may enjoy; but Christ's kingdom is shut against them.
Speaking, then, according to Christ's judgment, and we must hold those
to be of the world, and not of Him,--and therefore in God's judgment, to
be the evil and not the good,--who do not make up their minds to live in
His service, and to refer their actions, words, and thoughts to His
will. Who these are it is very true that we many times cannot know: only
we may always fear that they are the majority of society; and therefore
we are rather anxious in any individual's case to get a proof that he is
not one of them, because, as they are very many, there is always a sort
of presumption that any given person is of this number, unless there is
some evidence, or some presumption at any rate, for thinking
the contrary.
When we speak, then, of the good and of the evil side in human life, in
any society, whether smaller or larger,--this is what we mean, or should
mean. The evil side contains much that is, up to a certain point, good:
the good side,--for does it not consist of human beings?--contains,
unhappily, much in it that is evil. Not all in the one is to be
avoided,--far from it; nor is all in the other by any means to be
followed. But still those are called evil in God's judgment who live
according to their own impulses, or according to the law of the society
around them; and those are to be called good, who, in their principles,
whatever may be the imperfections of their practice, endeavour in all
things to live according to the will of Christ.
And in this view the characters of Jacob and Esau are, as it seems to
me, full of instruction; and above all to us here. For I have often
observed that the early age of an individual bears a great resemblance
to the early age of the human race, or of any particular nation; so that
the characters of the Old Testament are often more suited, in a
Christian country, for the instruction of the young than for those of
more advanced years. To Christian men, looking at Jacob's life, with the
faults recorded of it, it is sometimes strange that he should be spoken
of as good. But it seems that in a rude state of society, where
knowledge is very low, and passion very strong, the great virtue is to
be freed from the dominion of the prevailing low principle, to see and
resolve that we ought and will live according to knowledge, and not
according to passion or impulse. The knowledge may be very imperfect,
and probably is so: the practice may in many respects offend against
knowledge, and probably will do so: yet is a great step taken; it is
_the_ virtue of man, in such a state of society, to follow, though
imperfectly, principle, where others follow instinct, or the opinion of
their fellows. It is the great distinguishing mark, in such a state of
things, between the good and the evil; for this reason, amongst many
others, that it is the virtue, under such, circumstances, of the hardest
attainment.
Now, the Scripture judgment of Jacob and Esau, should be in an especial
manner the basis of our judgment with regard to the young. None can
doubt, that amongst the young, when they form a society of their own,
the great temptation is to live by impulse, or according to the opinion
of those around them. It is like a light breaking in upon darkness, when
a young person is led to follow a higher standard, and to live according
to God's will. Esau, in his faults and amiable points alike, is the very
image of the prevailing character amongst boys; sometimes violently
revengeful, as when Esau looked forward with satisfaction to the
prospect of his father's death, because then we should be able to slay
his brother Jacob; sometimes full of generosity, as when Esau forgot all
his grounds of complaint against his brother, and received him on his
return from Mesopotamia with open arms;--but habitually careless, and
setting the present before the future, the lower gratification before
the higher, as when Esau sold his birth-right for a mess of pottage. And
the point to be noted is, that, because of this carelessness, this
profaneness or ungodliness, as it is truly called in the New Testament,
Esau is distinguished from those who were God's people; the promises
were not his, nor yet the blessing. This is remarkable, because Esau's
faults, undoubtedly were just the faults of his age: he was no worse
than the great majority of those around him; he lived as we should say,
in our common language, that it was natural for him to live. He had,
therefore, precisely all those excuses which are commonly urged for the
prevailing faults of boys; yet it is quite certain that the Scripture
holds him out as a representative of those who were not on the side
of God,
If the Scripture has so judged of Esau and Jacob, it must be the model
for our judgments of those whose circumstances, on account of their
belonging to a society consisting wholly of persons young in age,
greatly resemble the circumstances of the early society of the world. I
lay the stress on the belonging to a society wholly formed of young
persons; for the case of young persons brought up at home, is extremely
different; and their circumstances would be best suited by a different
scriptural example. But here, with you, I am quite sure that the great
distinguishing mark between good and evil, is the endeavouring, or not
endeavouring, to rise above the carelessness of the society of which you
are members; the determining, or not determining, to judge of things by
another rule than that of school morality or honour; the trying, or not
trying, to please God, instead of those around you: for the notions and
maxims of a society of young persons are like the notions and maxims of
men in a half-civilized age, a strange mixture of right and wrong; or
rather wrong in their result, although with some right feeling in them,
and therefore as a guide, false and mischievous. That it is natural to
follow these maxims, is quite obvious: they are the besetting sin of
your particular condition; and it is always according to our corrupt
nature to follow our besetting sin. It is quite natural that you should
be careless, profane, mistaking evil for good, and good for evil; but
salvation is not for those who follow their nature, but for those in
whom God's grace has overcome its evil; it is for those, in Christ's
language, who take up their cross and follow him; that is, for those who
struggle against their evil nature, that they may gain a better nature,
and be born, not after the flesh, but after the Spirit of God.
What is to be said to this? or what qualification, or compromise, is to
be made in it? The words of the text will authorize us, at any rate, to
make none: their language is not that of indulgent allowance; but it is
a call, a loud and earnest, even a severe, call, it may be, in the
judgment of our evil nature,--to shake off the weight that hangs about
us; to deliver our hearts from the dominion of that which cannot profit,
and to submit them to Christ alone. This is God's judgment, this is
Christ's word; and we cannot and dare not qualify it. They are evil, for
God and Christ declare it, who judge and live after the maxims of the
society around them, and not after Christ; they are evil who are
careless; they are evil who live according to their own blind and
capricious feelings, now hot, now cold; they are evil who call evil
good, and good evil, because they have not known the Father nor Christ.
This, and nothing less, we say, lest we should be found false witnesses
of God: but if this language, which is that of Scripture, seem harsh, to
any one, oh! let him remember how soon he may change it into the
language of the most abundant mercy, of the tenderest love; that if he
calls upon God, God is ready to hear; that if he seeks to know and to do
God's will, God will be found by him, and will strengthen him; that it
is true kindness not to disguise from him his real danger, but earnestly
to conjure him to flee from it, and to offer our humblest prayers to
God, for him and ourselves, that our judgments and our practice may be
formed only after his example.
LECTURE X.
* * * * *
1 TIMOTHY i. 9.
_The law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and
disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for the unholy
and profane_.
These words explain the meaning of a great many passages in St. Paul's
Epistles, in which also he speaks of the law, and of not being under the
law, and other such expressions. And it is clear also, that he is not
speaking solely, or chiefly, or, in any considerable degree, of the
ceremonial law; but much more of the law of moral good, the law which
told men how they ought to live, and how they ought not. This law, he
says, is not made for good men, but for evil: a thing so plain, that we
may well wonder how any could ever have misunderstood it. It is so
manifest, that strict rules are required, just exactly in proportion to
our inability or want of will to rule ourselves; it is so very plain,
that, with regard to those crimes which we are under no temptation to
commit, we feel exactly as if there were no law. Which of us ever
thinks, as a matter of personal concern, of the law which sentences to
death murderers, or housebreakers, or those who maliciously set fire to
their neighbours' property? Do we not feel that, as far as our own
conduct is concerned, it would be exactly the same thing if no such law
were in existence? We should no more murder, or rob, or set fire to
houses and barns, if the law were wholly done away, than we do now that
it is in force.
There are, then, some points in which we feel practically that we are
not under the law, but dead to it; that the law is not made for us: but
do we think, therefore, that we may murder, and rob, and burn? or do we
not rather feel that such a notion would be little short of madness? We
are not under the law, because we do not need it; not because there is
in reality no law to punish us if we do need it. And just of this kind
is that general freedom from the law, of which St. Paul speaks, as the
high privilege of true Christians.
But yet St. Paul would not at all mean that any Christian is altogether
without the law: that is, that there are no points at all in which his
inclination is not to evil, and in which, therefore, he needs the fear
of God to restrain him from it. When he says of himself, that he kept
under his body lest that by any means he should become a castaway; just
so far as this fear of being a castaway possessed him, that is, just so
far as there were any evil tendencies in him, which required him to keep
them under by an effort, just so far was he under the law. And this is
so, as we full well know, with us all; for as there is none of us in
whom sin is utterly dead, so neither can there be any of us who is
altogether dead to the law.
Yet, although this be so, there is no doubt that the gospel wishes to
consider us as generally dead to the law, in order that we really may
become so continually more and more. It supposes that the Spirit of God,
presenting to our minds the sight of God's love in Christ, sets us free
from the law of sin and death; that is, that a sense of thankfulness to
God, and love of God and of Christ, will be so strong a motive, that we
shall, generally speaking, need no other; that it will so work upon us,
as to make us feel good, easy, and delightful, and thus to become dead
to the law. And there is no doubt also, that that same freedom from the
law, which we ourselves experience daily, in respect of some particular
great crimes, (for, as I said, we do not feel that it is the fear of the
law which keeps us from murder or from robbing,) that very same freedom
is felt by good men in many other points, where it may be that we
ourselves do not feel it. A common instance may be given with respect to
prayer, and the outward worship of God. There are a great many who feel
this as a duty; but there are many also to whom it is not so much a
duty, as a privilege and a pleasure; and these are dead to the law which
commands us to be instant in prayer, just as we, in general, are dead to
the law which commands us to do no murder.
This being understood, it will be perfectly plain, why St. Paul, along
with all his language as to the law being passed away, and our being
become dead to it, yet uses, very frequently, language of another kind,
which shows that the law is not dead in itself, but lives, and ever will
live. He says, "We must all stand before the judgment seat of Christ,
that every one may receive according to what he has done in the body."
And he adds, "Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade
men." But the judgment, and the terror of the Lord, mean precisely what
are meant by the law. And this language of St. Paul shows more clearly,
that, unless we are first dead to the law, the law is not, and never
will be dead to us.
I should not have thought it useless, to have offered merely this
explanation of a language, which is very common in the New Testament,
which, forms one of its characteristic points, (for St. John's
expression of "Perfect love casteth out fear," is exactly equivalent to
St. Paul's, "That we are dead to the law,") and which has been often
misunderstood, or misrepresented. But yet I am well aware, that mere
explanations of Scripture cannot be expected to interest those to whom
Scripture is not familiar. The answer to a riddle would be very soon
forgotten, unless the riddle had first at once amused and puzzled us.
Just so, explanations of Scripture, to be at all valued, must suppose a
previous knowledge of, and desire to understand, the difficulty; and
this we cannot expect to find in very young persons. Thus far, then,
what I have said has been necessarily addressed, I do not say, or mean,
to the oldest part of my hearers only, but yet to the older, and more
considering part of them. But the subject is capable, I think, of being
brought much more closely home to us; for what St. Paul says of the law,
with reference to all mankind, is precisely that state of mind which one
would wish to see here; and the mistakes of his meaning are just such as
are often prevalent, and are likely to do great mischief, with regard to
the motives to be appealed to in education.