The first chapter of the book of the prophet Isaiah is called “The vision

of Isaiah, the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem,

in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah.” Now this is one

prophecy by itself, in the shape of a poem; for in the old Hebrew it is

written in regular verses. The second chapter begins with another

heading, and is the beginning of a different poem; so that this first

chapter is, as it were, a summing up of all that he is going to say

afterwards; a short account of the state of the Jews for more than forty

years. And what is more, this first chapter of Isaiah must have been

written in the reign of Hezekiah, in those very religious days of which I

was just speaking; for it says that the country was desolate, and

Jerusalem alone left. And this never happened during Isaiah’s lifetime,

till the fourteenth year of Hezekiah, that is, till this great spread of

the true religion had been going on for thirteen years. Now what was

Isaiah’s vision? What did he, being taught by God’s Spirit, _see_ was

God’s opinion of these religious Jews? Listen, my friends, and take it

solemnly to heart!

“Hear the word of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law of

our God, ye people of Gomorrah. To what purpose is the multitude of your

sacrifices unto me? saith the Lord: I am full of the burnt offerings of

rams, and the fat of fed beasts: and I delight not in the blood of

bullocks, or of lambs, or of he-goats. When ye come to appear before me,

who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts? Bring no more

vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and

Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity,

even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my

soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them. And

when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; yea, when

ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood.

Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before

mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well, seek judgment, relieve the

oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow. . . . How is the

faithful city become an harlot! it was full of judgment; righteousness

lodged in it; but now murderers. Thy silver is become dross, thy wine

mixed with water; thy princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves;

every one loveth gifts, and followeth after rewards: they judge not the

fatherless, neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them.

Therefore, saith the Lord, the Lord of hosts, the mighty one of Israel,

Ah, I will ease me of mine adversaries, and avenge me of mine enemies.” . . .

Again, I say, my friends, listen to it, and take it solemnly to heart!

That is God’s opinion of religion, even the truest and soundest in

worship and doctrine, when it is without godliness, without holiness;

when it goes in hand with injustice, and covetousness, and falsehood, and

cheating, and oppression, and neglect of the poor, and keeping company

with the wicked, because it is profitable; in short, when it is like too

much of the religion which we see around us in the world at this day.

Yes—it was of no use holding to the letter of the law while they forgot

its spirit. God had commanded church-going, and woe to those, then or

now, who neglect it. Yet the Lord asks, “Who hath required this at your

hands, to tread my courts?”. . . He had commanded the Sabbath-day to be

kept holy; and woe to those, then or now, who neglect it. Yet He says,

“Your Sabbaths I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn

meeting.” The Lord had appointed feasts: and yet He says that His soul

hated them; they were a trouble to Him; He was weary to bear them. The

Lord had commanded prayer; and woe to those, then or now, in England, as

in Judæa, who neglect to pray. And yet He says: “When ye spread forth

your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you; yea, when ye make many

prayers, I will not hear.” And why?—He himself condescends to tell them

the reason, which they ought to have known for themselves: “Because,” He

says, “your hands are full of blood.” This was the reason why all their

religiousness, and orthodoxy, and church-going, and praying, was only

disgusting to God; because there was no righteousness with it. Their

faith was only a dead, rotten, sham faith, for it brought forth no fruits

of justice and love; and their religion was only hypocrisy, for it did

not make them holy. No doubt they thought themselves pious and sincere

enough; no doubt they thought that they were pleasing God perfectly, and

giving Him all that He could fairly ask of them; no doubt they were

fiercely offended at Isaiah’s message to them; no doubt they could not

understand what he meant by calling them a hypocritical nation, a second

Sodom and Gomorrah, while they were destroying idols, and keeping the law

of Moses, and worshipping God more earnestly than He had been worshipped

since Solomon’s time. But so it was. That was the message of God to

them; that was the vision of Isaiah concerning them; that there was no

soundness in the whole of the nation, “from the sole of the foot to the

crown of the head, nothing but wounds, and bruises, and putrefying

sores”—that is, that the whole heart and conscience, and ways of

thinking, were utterly rotten, and abominable in the sight of God, even

while they were holding the true doctrines about them, and keeping up the

pure worship of Him. This, says the Lord, is not the way to please me.

“He hath showed thee, oh man, what is good. And what doth the Lord

require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly

with thy God?” To do justly, to love mercy, and then to walk humbly,

sure that when you seem to have done all your duty, you have left only

too much of it undone; even as St. Paul felt when he said, that though he

knew nothing against himself; though he could not recollect a single

thing in which he had failed of his duty to the Corinthians, yet that did

not justify him. “For he that judgeth me,” he says, “is the Lord.” He

sees deeper than I can; and He, alas! may take a very different view of

my conduct from what I do; and this life of mine, which looks to me, from

my ignorance, so spotless and perfect, may be, in His eyes, full of sins,

and weakness, and neglects, and shameful follies. “To walk humbly with

God.” Not to believe that because you read the Bible, and have heard the

gospel, and are sharp at finding out false doctrine in preachers, and

belong to the Church of England, that therefore you know all about God,

and can look down upon poor papists, and heathens, and say: “This people,

which knoweth not the law, is accursed: but _we_ are enlightened, we

understand the whole Bible, we know everything about God’s will, and

man’s duty; and whosoever differs from us, or pretends to teach us

anything new about God, must be wrong.” Not to do so, my friends, but to

believe what St. Paul tells us solemnly, “That if any man think that he

knows anything, he knows nothing yet as he ought to know”—to believe that

the Great God, and the will of God, and the love of God, and the mystery

of Redemption, and the treasures of wisdom which are in His Bible, are,

as St. Paul told you, boundless, like a living well, which can never be

fathomed, or drawn dry, but fills again with fresh water as fast as you

draw from it. That is walking humbly with God; and those who do not do

so, but like the Pharisees of old, believe that they have all knowledge,

and can understand all the mysteries of the Bible, and go through the

world, despising and cursing all parties but their own—let them beware,

lest the Lord be saying of them, as He said of the church of Sardis, of

old: “Thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of

nothing, and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor,

and blind, and naked.”

How is this? What is this strange thing, without which even the true

knowledge of doctrine is of no use; which, if a man, or a nation has not,

he is poor, and blind, and wretched, and naked in soul, in spite of all

his religion? Isaiah will tell us—What did he say to the Jews in his

day?

“Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before

my eyes. Do justice to the fatherless, and relieve the widow!” “Do

that,” says the Lord, “and then your repentance will be sincere. Church

building and church going are well—but they are not repentance—churches

are not souls. I ask you for your hearts, and you give me fine stones

and fine words. I want souls—I want _your_ souls—I want you to turn to

me. And what am I? saith the Lord. I am justice, I am love, I am the

God of the oppressed, the fatherless, the widow.—That is my character.

Turn to justice, turn to love, turn to mercy; long to be made just, and

loving, and merciful; see that your sin has been just this, and nothing

else, that you have been unjust, unloving, unmerciful. Repent for your

neglect and cruelty, and repent in dust and ashes, when you see what

wretched hypocrites you really are. And then, my boundless mercy and

pardon shall be open to you. As you wish to be to me, so will I be to

you; if you wish to become merciful, you shall taste my mercy; if you

wish to become loving to others, you shall find that I love you; if you

wish to become just, you shall find that I am just, just to deal by you

as you deal by others; faithful and just to forgive you your sins, and to

cleanse you from all unrighteousness. And then, all shall be forgiven

and forgotten; “though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as

snow: though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.”

Surely, my friends, these things are worth taking to heart; for this is

the sin which most destroys all men and nations—high religious profession

with an ungodly, covetous, and selfish life. It is the worst and most

dangerous of all sins; for it is like a disease which eats out the heart

and life without giving pain; so that the sick man never suspects that

anything is the matter with him, till he finds himself, to his

astonishment, at the point of death. So it was with the Jews, three

times in their history. In the time of Isaiah, under King Hezekiah; in

the time of Jeremiah, under King Josiah; and last and worst of all, in

the time of Jesus Christ. At each of these three times the Jews were

high religious professors, and yet at each of these three times they were

abominable before God, and on the brink of ruin. In Isaiah’s time their

eyes seemed to have been opened at last to their own sins. Their fearful

danger, and wonderful deliverance from the Assyrians of which you heard

last Sunday, seem to have done that for them; as God intended it should.

During the latter part of Hezekiah’s reign they seemed to have turned to

God with their hearts, and not with their lips only; and Isaiah can find

no words to express the delight which the blessed change gives him.

Nevertheless, they soon fell back again into idolatry; and then there was

another outward lip-reformation under the good King Josiah; and Jeremiah

had to give them exactly the same warning which Isaiah had given them

nearly a hundred years before. But that time, alas! they would not take

the warning; and then all the evil which had been prophesied against them

came on them. From hypocritical profession, they fell back again into

their old idolatry; their covetousness, selfishness, party-quarrels, and

profligate lives made them too weak and rotten to stand against

Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, when he attacked them; and Jerusalem was

miserably destroyed, the temple burnt, and the Jews carried captives to

Babylon. There they repented in bitter sorrow and slavery; and God

allowed them after seventy years to return to their own land. Then at

first they seemed to be a really converted people, and to be worshipping

God in spirit and in truth. They never again fell back into the idolatry

of the heathen. So far from it, they became the greatest possible haters

of it; they went on keeping the law of God with the utmost possible

strictness, even to the day when the Lord Jesus appeared among them.

Their religious people, the Scribes and Pharisees, were the most strict,

moral, devout people of the whole world. They worshipped the very words

and letters of the Bible; their thoughts seemed filled with nothing but

God and the service of God: and yet the Lord Jesus told them that they

were in a worse state, greater sinners in the sight of God, than they had

ever been; that they, who hated idolatry, were filling up the measure of

their idolatrous forefathers’ iniquity; that the guilt of all the

righteous blood shed on earth was to fall on them; that they were a race

of serpents, a generation of vipers; and that even He did not see how

they could escape the damnation of hell. And they proved how true His

words were, by crucifying the very Lord of whom their much-prized

Scriptures bore witness, whom they pretended to worship day and night

continually; and received the just reward of their deeds in forty years

of sedition, bloodshed, and misery, which ended by the Romans coming and

sweeping the nation of the Jews from off the face of the earth.

So much for profession without practice. So much for true doctrine with

dishonest and unholy lives. So much for outward respectability with

inward sinfulness. So much for hating idolatry, while all the while

men’s hearts are far from God!

Oh! my friends, let us all search our hearts carefully in these times of

high profession and low practice; lest we be adding our drop of hypocrisy

to the great flood of it which now stifles this land of England, and so

fall into the same condemnation as the Jews of old, in spite of far

nobler examples, brighter and wider light, and more wonderful and

bounteous blessings.

XXI.

THE UNFAITHFUL SERVANT.

But and if that servant say in his heart, My lord delayeth his

coming; and shall begin to beat the men servants and the maid

servants, and to eat and drink and to be drunken; the lord of that

servant will come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an

hour when he is not aware, and will cut him asunder, and will appoint

him his portion with the unbelievers.—LUKE xii. 45, 46.

BUT why with the unbelievers? The man had not disbelieved that he had

any Lord at all; he had only believed that his Lord delayed his coming.

And why was he to be put with those who do not believe in him at all?

This is a very fearful question, friends, for us, when we think how it is

the fashion among us now, to believe that our Lord delays His coming.—And

surely most of us do believe that? For is it not our notion that, when

the Lord Jesus ascended up to heaven, He went away a great distance off,

perhaps millions of miles beyond the stars; and that He will not come

back again till the last—which, for aught we know, and as we rather

expect, may not happen for hundreds or thousands of years to come? Is

not that most people’s notion, rich as well as poor? And if that is not

believing that our Lord delays His coming, what is?

But, you may answer, the Creed says plainly, that He ascended into heaven

and sits at the right hand of God. Ah! my friends, those great words of

the Creed which you take into your lips every Sunday, mean the very

opposite to what most people fancy. They do not say, “The Lord Jesus has

left this poor earth to itself and its misery:” but they say, “Lo, He is

with you, even to the end of the world.” True, He is ascended into

heaven. And how far off is heaven?—for so far off is the Lord Jesus, and

no farther. Not so far off, my friends, after all, if you knew where to

find it. Truly said the great and good poet, now gone home to his

reward:

Heaven lies about us in our infancy.

And if we lose sight of it as we grow up to be men and women, it is not

because heaven goes farther off, but because we grow less heavenly. Even

now, so close is heaven to us, that any one of us might enter into heaven

this moment, without stirring from his seat. One real cry from the

depths of your heart—“Father, forgive thy sinful child!”—one real feeling

of your own worthlessness, and weakness, and emptiness, and of God’s

righteousness, and love, and mercy, ready for you—and you are in heaven

there and then, as near the feet of the blessed Lord Jesus, as Mary

Magdalen was, when she tried to clasp them in the garden. I am serious,

my friends; I am not given to talk fine figures of poetry; I am talking

sober, straightforward, literal truth. And the Lord sits at God’s right

hand too? you believe that? Then how far off is God?—for as far off as

God is, so far off is the Lord Jesus, and no farther. What says St.

Paul? That “God is not far off from any one of us—for in Him we live,

and move, and have our being” . . . IN Him . . . . How far off is that?

And is not God everywhere, if indeed we can say that He is any where?

Then the Lord Jesus, who is at God’s right hand, is everywhere also—here,

now, with us this day. One would have thought that there was no need to

prove that by argument, considering that His own blessed lips told us:

“Lo, I am with you, even to the end of the world;” and again:

“Wheresoever two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in

the midst of them.” And this is the Lord whom people fancy is gone away

far above the stars, till the end of time! Oh, my friends, rather bow

your heads before Him here this moment. For here He is among us now,

listening to every thought of our poor sinful hearts. . . . He is where

God is—God _in_ whom we live, and move, and have our being—and that is

everywhere. Do you wish Him to be any nearer, my friends? Or do you—do

you—take care what your hearts answer, for He is watching them—do you in

the depth of your hearts wish that He were a little farther off? Does

the notion of His being here on this earth, watching and interfering (as

we call it nowadays in our atheism) with us and everything, seem

unpleasant and burdensome? Is it more comfortable to you to think that

He is away far up beyond the stars? Do you feel the lighter and freer

for fancying that He will not visit the earth for many a year to come?

In short, is it in your _hearts_ that you are saying, The Lord delays His

coming?

That is a very important question. For mind, a pious man might be, as

many a pious man has been in these days, deceived by bad teaching into

the notion that Jesus Christ was gone far away. But if he were a truly

pious man, if he truly loved the Lord, that would be a painful thought—as

I should have fancied, an unbearable thought—to him, when he looked out

upon this poor miserable, confused world. He would be crying night and

day: “Oh, that thou wouldest rend the heavens and come down!” He would

be in an agony of pity for this poor deserted earth, and of longing for

the Saviour of it to come back and save it. He would never have a

moment’s peace of mind till he had either seen the Lord come back again

in His glory, or till he had found out—what I am sure the blessed Lord

would teach him as a reward for his love—that it was all a dream and a

nightmare, and that the Lord of the earth was in the earth, and close to

him, all along; only that his weak eyes were held so that he did not know

the Lord and the Lord’s works when he saw them.

But that was not the temper of this servant in the Lord’s parable. I am

afraid it is by no means the temper of many of us nowadays. The servant

said _in his heart_, that his master would be long away. It was his

heart put the thought into his head. He took to the notion _heartily_,

as we say, because he was glad to believe it was true; glad to think that

his master would not come to “interfere” with him; and that in the

meantime he might be lord and master himself, and treat everyone in the

house as if he himself was the owner of it, and tyrannise over his

fellow-servants, and enjoy himself in luxury and good living. So says

David of the fool: “The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God;”

his heart puts that thought into his head. He wishes to believe that

there is no God; and when there is a will there is a way; and he soon

finds out reasons and arguments enough to prove what he is so very

anxious to prove.

Now, my friends, I am afraid that there is not so much difference as

people fancy, between the fool who says in his heart, “There is no God,”

and the fool who says in his heart, “My master delays His coming.”—“God

has left the world to us, and we must shift for ourselves in it.” The

man who likes to be what St. Paul calls “without God in the world,” is he

so very much wiser than the man who likes to have no God at all? St.

James did not think so; for what does he say: “Thou believest that there

is one God? Thou doest well—the devils also believe and tremble.” They

know as much as that; but it does them no good—only increases their fear.

“But wilt thou know, oh! vain man, that faith without works,” believing

without doing, “is dead?” And are not too many, as I said just now,

afraid of the thought of God; so afraid of it that they wish to allow the

Son of God as little share as possible in the management of this world?

Have not too many a belief without works; a mere belief that there is one

God and not two, which hardly, from one year’s end to another, makes them

do one single thing which they would not have done if they had believed

that there was no God at all? Fear of the law, fear of the policeman,

fear of losing their work or their custom; fear of losing their

neighbour’s good word—that is what keeps most people from breaking loose.

There is not much of the fear of God in that, or the love of God either

as far as I can see. They go through life as if they had made a covenant

with God, that He should have his own way in the world to come, if He

would only let them have their way in this world. Oh! my friends, my

friends, do you think God is God of the next world and not of this also?

Do you think the kingdom, and the power, and the glory will be His a

great many hundreds of years hence, in what you call heaven; and will not

see what every page of Scripture tells you, what you yourself say every

time you repeat the Lord’s Prayer, that the Kingdom, and the Power and

the Glory are His now, here in this life, and that He has committed all

things to His Son Jesus Christ and given the power into His hand, that He

may rule this earth in righteousness now, here, in this life, and conquer

back for God one by one, if it be possible, every creature upon earth?

So says the Bible—and people profess nowadays to believe their Bibles.

My friends, too many, nowadays, while they profess very loudly to believe

what the Bible says, only believe what their favourite teachers tell them

that the Bible says. If they really read their Bibles for themselves,

and took God at His word, there would be less tyrannising of one man over

another, less grinding down of men by masters, and of men by each

other—for the poor are often very hard on each other in England, now, my

friends—very envious and spiteful, and slanderous about each other. They

say that dog won’t eat dog—yet how many a poor man grudges and supplants

his neighbour, and tries to get into his place and beat him down in his

wages? And there are those who call themselves learned men, who tell the

poor that that is God’s will, and the way by which God intends them to

prosper. If those men believed their Bibles, they would be repenting in

sackcloth and ashes for having preached such a devil’s sermon to God’s

children. If men really read their Bibles, there would be less eating

and drinking with the drunken; less idleness and luxury among the rich;

less fancying that a man has a right to do what he likes with his own,

because all men would know that they were only the Lord’s stewards, bound

to give an account to him of the good which they had done with what he

has lent them. There would be fewer parents fancying that they can

tyrannise over their children, bringing them up as heathens for the sake

of the few pence they earn; using bad language, and doing shameful things

before them, which they dared not do if they recollected that the Lord

was looking on; beating and scolding them as if they were brutes or

slaves, to save themselves the trouble of teaching them gently what the

poor little creatures cannot know without being taught: and most shameful

of all, robbing the poor children of their little earnings to spend it

themselves in drunkenness. Ah, blessed Lord! if people did but know how

near Thou wert to them, all that would vanish out of England, as the

night clouds vanish away before the sun!

And He is near, my friends: He is watching; He is governing; He is at

hand: and in this life or in the life to come, forget Him as we choose,

He will make us know plain enough, and without any doubt whatsoever, that

He is the Lord.

He has fulfilled this awful parable of his about the unfaithful servant

already; many a time, against many a man, many a great king, and prince,

and nation; and he will fulfil it against each and every man, from the

nobleman in his castle to the labourer in his cottage, who says in his

heart, “My Lord delays his coming,” and begins to tyrannise over those

who are weaker than himself, and to enjoy himself as he likes, and forget

that he is not his own, but bought with the price of Christ’s blood, and

bound to work for Christ’s kingdom and glory.

So he punished the popes of Rome, three hundred years ago. When all the

nations in Europe were listening to them and obeying them, and they had

put into their hands by God a greater power of doing good than He ever

gave to any human being before or since, what did they do? Instead of

using their power for Christ, they used it for themselves. Instead of

preaching to all nations the good news that Christ the Son of God was

their King, they said: “I, the pope, am your king. Christ is gone far

away into heaven, and has committed all power on earth to us; we are

Christ’s vicars; we are in Christ’s place; He has entrusted to our

keeping all the treasures of His merits and His grace, and no one can get

any blessing from Christ, unless we choose to give it him.” So they said

in their hearts just what the foolish servant in the parable said: and

fancying that they were lords and masters, naturally enough went on to

behave as such; to beat the men-servants and maid-servants, that is, to

oppress and tyrannise over the bodies and minds and consciences of men,

and women too, God knows; and to eat and drink with the drunken, to live

in riot and debauchery. But the Lord was not so far off as those foolish

popes fancied. And in an hour when they were not aware, He came and cut

them asunder. He snatched from them one-half of the nations of Europe,

and England among the rest; He punished them by doubt, ignorance,

confusion, and utter blindness, and appointed them their portion among

the unbelievers in such terrible earnest, that to this very day, to judge

by the things which they say and do, it is difficult to persuade

ourselves that the popes really believe in any God at all.

So He did, only three years ago, to many kings and princes on the

Continent. {217} They professed to be Christians; but they had forgotten

that they were Christ’s stewards, that all their power came from Him, and

that he had given it them only to use for the good of their subjects.

And they too went on saying: “The Lord delays His coming, we are rulers

in this world, and God is ruler in the world to come.” So they, too,

oppressed their subjects, and lived in ease on what they wrung out of the

poor wretches below them. But the Lord was nearer them, too, than they

fancied; and all at once—as they were fancying themselves all safe and

prosperous, and saying, “We are those who ought to speak, who is Lord

over us?”—their fool’s paradise crumbled from under their feet. A few

paltry mobs of foolish starving people, without weapons, without leaders,

without good counsel to guide them, rose against them. And what did they

do? They might have crushed down the rebels most of them, in a week, if

they had had courage. And in the only country where the rebels were

really strong, that is, in Austria, all might have been quiet again at

once, if the king had only had the heart to do common justice, and keep

his own solemn oaths. But no—the terror of the Lord came upon them. He

most truly cut them in sunder. They were every man of a different mind,

and none of them in the same mind a day together; they became utterly

conscience-stricken, terrified, perplexed, at their wit’s end, not having

courage or determination to do anything, or even to do nothing, and fled

shamefully away one after another, to their everlasting disgrace. And

those of them who have got back their power since are showing sadly

enough, by their obstinate folly and wickedness, that the Lord has

appointed them their portion with the unbelievers, and left them to fill

up the measure of their iniquity, and drink deep the cup of wrath which

is in His hand, full and mixed for those who forget God.

Oh! my friends, let us lay these things solemnly to heart. Do not fancy

that the Lord will punish the wicked great, and forget the wicked small.

In His sight there is neither great nor small; all are small enough for

Him to crush like the moth; and all are too great to be overlooked, or

forgotten by Him, without whom not a sparrow falls to the ground. Again

I say, my friends, let us lay His parable to heart. Let us who have

property, and station, and education, never forget who has given it us,

and for whom we must use it. Let us never forget that to whom much is

given, of them will much be required. Let us pray to the Lord daily to

write upon our inmost hearts those solemn words: “Who made thee to differ

from another; and what hast thou which thou didst not receive?” Let us

look on our servants, our labourers, on every human being over whom we

have any influence, as weaker brothers whom God has commanded us to help,

teach, and guide in body, mind, and spirit, not that we may make them our

slaves, but make them free, manful, self-helping, and in due time

independent of us and of everyone except God.

And you young people, who have no authority over anyone, but over your

own bodies; to whom the Lord has given little or nothing to manage and

take care of except your own health and strength—do not let the devil

tempt you to believe that that health and strength is your own property,

to do what you like with. It belongs to the Lord who died for you, and

He will require an account from you how you have used it. Do not let the

devil tempt you to believe that the Lord delays His coming to you—that

you may do what you like now, in the prime of your years, and that it

will be time enough to think about God and religion when God visits you

with cares, and sickness, and old age. That is the fancy of too many;

but it will surely turn out to be a mistake. Those who misuse their

youth, and health, and strength, in tyrannising over those who are weaker

than themselves, and laughing at those who are not as clever as

themselves, and eating and drinking with the drunken—the Lord will come

to them in an hour when they are not aware, and cut them asunder, in some

way or other, by loss of work, or poverty, or sickness, or doubt and

confusion, and bitter shame and perplexity of mind; till they find out,

poor things, that they have been living like the unbelievers all their

youth, without God in the world, while God’s love and God’s teaching, and

God’s happiness was ready for them; and have to go back again to their

Father and their Lord, and cry: “Father, we have sinned against heaven

and before Thee, and are no more worthy to be called Thy children!” Oh,

you who have been fancying that the Lord was gone far away, and that you

had a right to do what you liked with the powers which He has given you,

go back to Him, now at once, and confess that you, and all belonging to

you, belong to Him, and ask Him to teach you how to use it aright. Ask

Him to teach you how to please Him with it, and not yourselves only. Ask

Him to teach you how to do good to all around you, and not merely to do

what you like. Ask Him to show you how to do your duty to Him, and to

your neighbours, for whom He died on the cross, in that station of life

to which He has called you. Ask Him to show you how to use your

property, your knowledge, your business, your strength, your health, so

that you may be a blessing and a help to those whom He blesses and helps,

and who, He wishes, should bless and help each other. Go back to Him at

once, my friends. You will not have far to go, seeing that He is now

even among us here hearing my clumsy words; and I do hope, and trust, and

pray, bringing them home to some of your hearts with that spirit and

power of His, which is like a two-edged sword, piercing to the very

depths of a man’s heart, and showing him how ugly it is—and how noble the

Lord will make it, if he will but repent and pray to Him who never cast

out any that came to Him.

XXII.

THE WAY TO WEALTH.

Seek ye the Lord while He may be found, call ye upon Him while He is

near: let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his

thoughts and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy

upon him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.—ISAIAH lv.

6, 7.

SOME of you, surely, while the first lesson was being read this morning,

must have felt the beauty of it; and if you were thoughtful, perplexed,

weary, sad at heart, perhaps you felt that it was more than

beautiful—that it was full of comfort. And so it should be full of

comfort to you, my friends. God meant it to give you comfort. For

though it was written and spoken by a man of like passions with

ourselves, it was just as truly written and spoken by God, who made

heaven and earth. It is true and everlasting, the message which it

brings, and like all true and everlasting words, it is the voice of God

who cannot change; who makes no difference between Jew and Gentile,

between us in England here, and nations which perished hundreds of years

ago.

And what is its message? What was God’s word to the old Jews, among all

their sin, and sorrow, and labour?

Is it the message of a stern judge, saying: “Pay me that thou owest, to

the uttermost farthing; and if you cannot do that, fret and torment

yourselves in shame and terror here on earth, for all your sins, if,

possibly, you may chance to change my mind, and find forgiveness at the

last day?”

Is it the message of a proud tyrant, saying: “If you are miserable, and

fallen, and sinful, what is that to me? I am perfect, blest, contented

with myself, alone in my glory, far away beyond the sight of men, beyond

the sun and stars—what are you worms of earth to me?”

Or is it the voice of a loving Father, calling to his self-willed

children who have gone proudly and boldly away from their Father’s house,

and thrown off their Father’s government, and said in their conceit: “We

are men. Do not we know good and evil? Do we not know what is our

interest? Cannot we judge for ourselves, and shift for ourselves, and

take care of ourselves? Why are we to be barred from pleasant things

here, and profitable things there? We will be our own masters.”

To self-willed children who have said thus, and done thus in their

foolish hearts, and have found all their conceit, and shrewdness, only

lead them into sorrow, and perplexity, and distress.—Who have found that

with all their cleverness they could not get the very good things for

which they left their Father’s house; or if they get them, find no

enjoyment in them, but only discontent, and shame, and danger, and a sad

self-accusing heart—spending their money for that which does not feed

them after all, and labouring hard for things which do not satisfy them;

always longing for something more—always finding the pleasure, or the

profit, or the honour which a little way off looked so fine, looked quite

ugly and worthless, when they come up to it and get hold of it—finding

all things full of labour; the eye never satisfied with seeing, or the

ear with hearing; the same thing coming over and over again. Each young

man starting with gay hopes, as if he were the first man that ever was

born, and he was going to do out of hand such fine things as man never

did before, and make his own fortune, and set the world to right at once;

and then as he grows older, falling into the same weary ruts as his

forefathers went dragging on it, every fresh year bringing its own labour

and its own sorrow; and dying like them, taking nothing away with him of

all he has earned, and crying with his last breath: “That which is

crooked cannot be made straight, and that which is wanting cannot be

numbered. What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under

the sun, for all is vanity and vexation of spirit?”

To self-willed children, who have tried their own way ever since they

were born, they and their fathers before them, and found it go round in a

ring and leave them just where they started in heart and soul, and, on

their death-beds, in purse and power also—

To such struggling, dissatisfied beings—such as nine-tenths of the men

and women on this earth, alas! are still—comes the word of this loving

Father:

“Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters! and he that hath no

money, come, buy and eat. Yea, come, buy wine and milk without money,

and without price.” Why do you fancy that money can give you all you

want? Why this labouring and straining after money, as if it was God, as

if it made heaven and earth, and all therein? Is money a God? or money’s

worth? “I am God,” saith the Lord, “and beside me there is none else. It

is I who give, and not money. It is I who save men, and not money. And

I do save, and I do give freely to all. Come, and try my mercy, and see

if my word be not true.”

This struggling and snarling, like dogs over a bone—what profit comes of

it? are you happier? are you wiser? are you better? are you more at peace

with your neighbours; more at peace with your own hearts and consciences?

If you are, money has not made you so, nor plotting, and scraping, and

struggling, and pushing your neighbour down, that you may rise a few

inches on his shoulders. No. Hear what the voice of your Father says is

the true way to wealth and comfort, after which you all struggle and

labour so hard in vain.—“Hearken diligently unto me, and you shall eat

that which is good, and your soul shall delight itself in fatness.

Incline your ear and come unto me. Hear, and your soul shall live. And

I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies,” or

rather “the faithful oath which I sware unto David?” And what is this

faithful oath which God sware to David.—“Of the fruit of thy body, I will

set on thy seat.” A promise of a righteous king who should arise in

David’s family. How far David understood the full meaning of that

glorious promise we cannot tell. He thought most probably, at first,

that Solomon, his son, was to be the king who would fulfil it. But all

through many of his psalms, there are deep and great words about some

nobler and more perfect king than Solomon—about one who, as Isaiah says

here, would perfectly witness to the people that God was their King; one

who would be a perfect leader and commander of the people; a holy one of

Israel, who would sit on God’s right hand; to hear the good news of whom,

the Jews would call nations whom they then did not know of, and for whose

sake nations who did not know them would run to them. And dimly David

did see this, that God would raise up a true Christ, that is, one truly

anointed by God, chosen and sent out by God, to sit on his throne, and be

perfectly what David was only in part; a King made perfect by suffering,

a King of poor men, a King who bore the sins and carried the iniquities

of all His people, from the highest to the lowest. We know who that was.

We know clearly what David only knew dimly, what Isaiah only knew a

little more clearly. We know who was born of the Virgin Mary, crucified

under Pontius Pilate, ascended into heaven, and now sits at the right

hand of God, ever praying for us, ruling the world in righteousness,

Jesus the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, to whom all power is given in

heaven and earth.

But Isaiah, though he knew Him only dimly, still knew Him. He did not

know that the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, would take on Himself the

form of a poor man, and be called the son of the carpenter. Such

boundless love and condescension in the Son of God he never could have

fancied for himself, and God had not chosen to reveal it to him; or to

anyone else in those days. But this he did see, that the Lord Jesus, He

whom he calls the Holy One of Israel, was near the Jews in his time; that

He was watching over them, mourning over their sins, arguing with them,

and calling them to return to Him with most human love and tenderness, as

a husband to the woman whom he loves in spite of her unfaithfulness to

him. As he says to his sinful and distressed country in the chapter

before this: “Thy Maker is thy husband: the Lord of Hosts is His name,

and thy Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel, the Lord of the whole earth

shall He be called. For the Lord hath called thee as a woman forsaken

and grieved in spirit. For a small moment have I forsaken thee, but with

great mercies will I gather thee. In a little anger I hid my face from

thee for a moment, but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on

thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer.”

This, then, Isaiah knew—that the heart of the Holy Lord pitied and

yearned after those poor sinful Jews, as a husband’s after a foolish and

sinful wife. And how much more should we believe the same, how much more

should we believe that His heart pities and yearns for all foolish and

sinful people here in England now! We who know a thousand times more

than Isaiah knew of His love, His pity, His condescension, which led Him

to sacrifice Himself upon the cross for us? Surely, surely, if Isaiah

had a right to say to those Jews, “Seek the Lord while He may be found,”

I have a thousand times as much right to say it to you. If Isaiah had a

right to say to those Jews, “Let the wicked forsake his ways and the

unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, and He

will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon,”

then I have a right to say it to you.

Free mercy, utter pardon, pardon for all, even for the worst. And what

is the argument which Isaiah uses to make his countrymen repent? Is it

“Repent, or you shall be damned: Repent because God’s wrath and curse is

against you. The Lord hates you and despises you, and you must crawl to

His feet like beaten hounds, and entreat Him not to strike you into hell

as He intends”? Not so; it was because God loved the Jews, that they

were to repent. It is because God loves you that you must repent.

“Incline your ear,” saith the Lord, “and come unto me, hear, and your

soul shall live; and you shall eat that which is good, and your soul

shall delight itself in fatness.” Yes, God is love. God’s delight and

glory is to give; in spite of all our sins He gives and gives, sending

rain and fruitful seasons to just and unjust, to fill their hearts with

joy and gladness; and all the while men fancy that it is not God that

gives, but they who take. God has not left Himself, as St. Paul says,

without a witness; every fruitful shower and quickening gleam of sunshine

cries to us—See! God is love: He is the giver. And men will not hear

that voice. They say in their hearts, “The Lord is far away above the

skies; He does not care for us: we must help ourselves, each man to what

he can get off this earth; nay, even, when we are hard put to it for a

living, we must break God’s laws to keep ourselves alive, and so steal

from God’s table the very good things which He offers us freely.”

But some will say: “He does not give freely; we must work and struggle.

Why do you mock poor hard-worked creatures with such words as these?”

Ask that question of God, my friends, and not of me. Isaiah said that

those who hearkened to God diligently should eat what is good. The Lord

Jesus Christ Himself said the same—that if we seek first the kingdom of

God and His justice, all other things should be added to them. He did

not mean us to be idle, God forbid! but this He meant, that if we, each

in his business and calling, put steadily before ourselves what is right,

what God would wish us, His subjects, to be in His Kingdom—if instead of

making our first thought in every business we take in hand, “What will

suit my interest best, what will raise most money, what will give me most

pleasure?” we said to ourselves all day long, “What will be most right,

and just, and merciful for us to do; what will be most pleasing to a God

who is love and justice itself? what will do most good to my neighbour as

well as myself?” then all things would go well with us. Then we should

be prosperous and joyful. Then our plans would succeed and our labour

bring forth real profit to us, because they would be according to the

will of God: we should be fellow-workers with Jesus Christ in the great

work of doing good to this poor distracted world, and His help and

blessing would be with us.

And if you ask me, how can this come to pass, I must answer, as Isaiah

does in this same chapter: “The Lord’s ways are not as our ways, nor His

thoughts as our thoughts, but higher than ours, as the heavens are above

the earth.” But if we do turn to God, and repent each man of us of his

selfishness, his unfaithfulness, his hard-heartedness, his covetousness,

his self-will, his ungodliness—then God’s blessing, as Isaiah says, will

come down on us, and spring up among us, we know not how or whence, like

the rain and snow, which comes down from heaven and waters the earth, and

makes it bud and bring forth to give seed to the sower and bread to the

eater. So shall be the Lord’s word, which goes out of His mouth; it will

not return to Him void, but will accomplish what He pleases, and prosper

in that whereto He sends it. He will teach us and guide us in the right

way. He will put His word into the mouths of true teachers to show us

our duty. He will pour out His spirit upon us, to make us love our duty.

In one way and another, we know not how, we shall be taught what is good

for England, good for each parish, good for each family. And wealth,

peace, and prosperity for rich and poor will be the fruit of obeying the

word of God, and giving up our hearts to be led by His spirit. As it was

to be in Judæa, of old, if they repented, so will it be with us. They

should go forth with joy and do their work in peace. The hills should

break before them into singing, and all the trees of the field should

clap their hands; instead of thorns should come up timber-trees: instead

of briers, garden-shrubs. The whole cultivation of the country was to

improve, and be to the Lord for a name, and a sign for ever that the true

way to wealth and prosperity is the way of God, justice, mercy to each

other, and obedience to the will of Him who made heaven and earth, trees

and fruitful fields, rain and sunshine, and gives the blessings of them

freely to His children of mankind, in proportion as they look up to Him

as a loving Father, and return to him day by day, with childlike

repentance, and full desire to amend their lives according to His holy

word.

XXIII.

THE LOVE OF CHRIST.

For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that

if one died for all, then were all dead. And that He died for all,

that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but

unto Him which died for them, and rose again.—2 COR. v. 14, 15.

WHAT is the use of sermons?—what is the use of books? Here are hundreds

and thousands of people hearing weekly and daily what is right, and how

many _do_ what is right?—much less _love_ what is right? What can be the

reason of this, that men should know the better and choose the worse?

What motive can one find out?—what reason or argument can one put before

people, to make them do their duty? How can one stir them up to conquer

themselves; to conquer their own love of pleasure, laziness, cowardice,

conceit, above all their own selfishness, and do simply what is right,

morning, noon, and night? That is a question worth asking and

considering, for there ought to be some use in sermons and in books; and

there ought to be some use in every one of us too. Woe to the man who is

of no use! The Lord have mercy on his soul; for he needs it! It is,

indeed, worth his while to take any trouble which will teach him a motive

for being useful; in plain words, stir him up to do his duty, to do his

rights; for a man’s rights are not, as the world thinks, what is right

others should do to him, but what is right he should do to others. Our

duty is our right, the only thing which is right for us. What motive

will constrain us, that is, bind us, and force us to do that?

Will self-interest? Will a man do right because you tell him it is his

interest, it will pay him to do it? Look round you and see.—The drunkard

knows that drinking will ruin him, and yet he gets drunk. The

spendthrift knows that extravagance will ruin him, and yet he throws away

his money still. The idler knows that he is wasting his only chance for

all eternity, and yet he puts the thought out of his head, and goes on

idling. The cheat knows that he is in danger of being almost certainly

found out sooner or later; he knows too that he is burdening his own

conscience with the curse of inward shame and self-contempt; and yet he

goes on cheating. The hard master knows, or ought to know (for there is

quite enough to prove it to him) that it would pay him better in the long

run to be more merciful, and less covetous; that by grinding those whom

he employs down to the last farthing, he degrades them till they become

burdens on him and curses to him; that what he gains by high prices, he

will lose in the long run by bad debts; that what he saves in low wages,

he will pay in extra poor-rates; and that even if he does make money out

of the flesh and bones of those beneath him, that money ill gotten is

sure to be ill spent, that there is a curse on it, that it brings a curse

in the gnawing of a man’s own conscience, and a curse too in the way it

flows away from his family as fast as it flowed to them. “He that by

usury and unjust gain increases his wealth, shall gather for him that

will pity the poor.” So said Solomon of old. And men who worship Mammon

find it come true daily, and see that, taking all things together, a

man’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things which he

possesses, and that those who make such haste to be rich, fall, as the

apostle says, “into temptation and a snare, and pierce themselves through

with many sorrows.” Such a man sees his neighbours making money, and

making themselves more unhappy, anxious, discontented by it; he sees, in

short, that it is not his interest to do nothing but make money and save

money: and yet in spite of that, he thinks of nothing else.

Self-interest cannot keep him from that sin. I do not believe that

self-interest ever kept any man from any _sin_, though it may keep him

from many an imprudence. Self-interest may make many a man respectable,

but whom did it ever make good? You may as well make house-walls of

paper, or take a rush for a walking-stick, as take self-interest to keep

you upright, or even prudent. The first shake—and the rush bends, and

the paper wall breaks, and a man’s selfish prudence is blown to the

winds. Let pleasure tempt him, or ambition, or the lust of making money

by speculation; let him take a spite against anyone; let him get into a

passion; let his pride be hurt; and he will do the maddest things, which

he knows to be entirely contrary to his own interest, just to gratify the

fancy of the moment. Those who call themselves philosophers, and fancy

that men’s self-interest, if they can only feel it strong enough, would

make all men just and merciful to each other, know as little of human

nature as they do of God or the devil.

What _will_ make a man to do his duty? Will the hope of heaven? That

depends very much upon what you mean by heaven. But what people commonly

mean by going to heaven, is—not going to hell. They believe that they

must go to either one place or the other. They would much sooner of

course stay on earth for ever, because their treasure is here, and their

heart too. But that cannot be, and as they have no wish to go to hell,

they take up with heaven instead, by way of making the best of a bad

matter.

I ask you solemnly, my friends, each one of you, which would you sooner

do—stay here on earth, or go to heaven? You need not answer _me_. I am

afraid many of you would not dare answer me as you really felt, because

you would be ashamed of not liking to go to heaven. But answer God.

Answer yourselves in the sight of God. When you keep yourselves back

from doing a wrong thing, because you know it is wrong, is it for love of

heaven, or for mere fear of being punished in hell? Some of you will

answer boldly at once: “For neither one nor the other; when we keep from

wrong, it is because we hate and despise what is wrong: when we do right

it is because it is right and we ought to do it. We can’t explain it,

but there is something in us which tells us we ought to do right.” Very

good, my friends, I shall have a word to say to you presently; but in the

meantime there are some others who have been saying to themselves: “Well,

I know we do right because we are afraid of being punished if we do not

do it, but what of that? at all events we get the right thing done, and

leave the wrong thing undone, and what more do you want? Why torment us

with disagreeable questions as to _why_ we do it?”

Now, my friends, to make the matter simpler, I will take you at your

words, for the sake of argument. Suppose you do avoid sin from the fear

of hell, does that make what you do _right_? Does that make _you_ right?

Does that make your heart right? It is a great blessing to a man’s

neighbours, certainly, if he is kept from doing wrong any how—by the fear

of hell, or fear of jail, or fear of shame, or fear of ghosts if you

like, or any other cowardly and foolish motive—a great blessing to a

man’s neighbours: but no blessing, that I can see, to the man himself.

He is just the same; his heart is not changed; his heart is no more right

in the sight of God, or in the sight of any man of common sense either,

than it would be if he did the wrong thing, which he loves and dare not

do. You feel that yourselves about other people. You will say “That man

has a bad heart, for all his respectable outside. He would be a rogue if

he dared, and therefore he _is_ a rogue.” Just so, I say, my friends,

take care lest God should say of you, “He would be a sinner if he dared,

and therefore he is a sinner.”

How can the hope of heaven, or the fear of hell, make a man do right?

The right thing, the true thing for a man, is to be loving, and do loving

things; and can fear of hell do that, or hope of heaven either? Can a

man make himself affectionate to his children because he fancies he shall

be punished if he is not so, and rewarded if he is so? Will the hope of

heaven send men out to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, visit the

sick, preach the gospel to the poor?—The Papists say it will. I say it

will not. I believe that even in those who do these things from hope of

heaven and fear of hell, there is some holier, nobler, more spiritual

motive, than such everlasting selfishness, such perfect hypocrisy, as to

do loving works for others, for the sake of one’s own self-love.

What feeling then is there left which will bind a man to do good, not

once in a way, but always and habitually? to do good, not only to

himself, but to all around him? I know but of one, my friends, and that

is Love. There are many sides to love—admiration, reverence, gratitude,

pity, affection—they are all different shapes of that one great spirit of

love. Surely all of you have felt its power more or less; how

wonderfully it can conquer a man’s whole heart, change his whole conduct.

For love of a woman; for pity to those in distress; for admiration for

anyone who is nobler and wiser than himself; for gratitude to one who has

done him kindness; for loyalty to one to whom he feels he owes a

service—a man will dare to do things, and suffer things, which no

self-interest or fear in the world could have brought him to. Do you not

know it yourselves? Is it not fondness for your wives and children, that

will make you slave and stint yourselves of pleasure more than any hope

of gain could ever do? But there is no one human being, my friends, whom

we can meet among us now, for whom we can feel all these different sorts

of love? Surely not: and yet there must be One Person somewhere for whom

God intends us to feel them all at once; or else He would not have given

all these powers to us, and made them all different branches of one great

root of love. There must be One Person somewhere, who can call out the

whole love in us—all our gratitude; all our pity; all our admiration; all

our loyalty; all our brotherly affection. _And there is One_, my

friends. One who has done for us more than ever husband or father, wife

or brother, can do to call out our gratitude. One who has suffered for

us more than the saddest wretch upon this earth can suffer, to call out

our pity. One who is nobler, purer, more lovely in character than all

others who ever trod this earth, to call out our admiration. One who is

wiser, mightier than all rulers and philosophers, to call out all our

reverence. One who is tenderer, more gentle, more feeling-hearted, than

the kindest woman who ever sat by a sick bed, to call out all our love.

Of whom can I be speaking? Of whom but of Jesus; He who for us stooped

out of the heaven of heavens; for us left His eternal glory in the bosom

of the Father; for us took upon Him the form of a servant, and was born

of a village maiden, and was called the son of a carpenter; for us

wandered this earth for thirty years in sorrow and shame; for us gave His

back to the scourge, and His face to shameful spitting; for us hung upon

the cross and died the death of the felon and the slave. Oh! my friends,

if that story will not call out our love, what will? If we cannot admire

Christ, whom can we admire? If we cannot be grateful to Christ, to whom

can we be grateful? If we cannot pity Christ, whom can we pity? If we

cannot feel bound in honour to live for Christ, to work for Christ, to

delight in talking of Christ, thinking of Christ, to glory in doing

Christ’s commandments to the very smallest point, to feel no sacrifice

too great, no trouble too petty, if we can please Christ by it and help

forward Christ’s kingdom upon earth—if we cannot feel bound in honour to

do that for Christ, what honour is there in us? Again, I say, if we

cannot love Christ, whom can we love? If the remembrance of what He has

worked for us will not stir us up to work for Him, what will stir us up?

I say it again, we are bound by every tie, by every feeling that can bind

man to man, to devote ourselves to Christ, the Man of all men. I say

this is no dream or fancy, it is an actual fact which thousands and

hundreds of thousands on this earth have felt. Nothing but love to

Christ, nothing but loving Him because He first loved us, can constrain

and force a man as with a mighty feeling which he cannot resist, to

labour day and night for Christ’s sake, and therefore for the sake of God

the Father of Christ. What else do you suppose it was which could have

stirred up the apostles—above all, that wise, learned, high-born,

prosperous man, St. Paul, to leave house and home, and wander in daily

danger of his life? What does St. Paul say himself? “The love of Christ

constraineth us, because we thus judge, and if one died for all then were

all dead, and that He died for all, that they which live should not

henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him who died for them.” And

what else could have kept St. Paul through all that labour and sorrow of

his own choosing, of which he speaks in the chapter before?—“We are

troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in

despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed;

always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the

life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body; for we which live

are alway delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake, that the life also of

Jesus might be made manifest in our body.”

We may say that St. Paul was an exceedingly benevolent man, and _that_

made him do it; or that he had found out certain new truths and opinions

which delighted him very much, and therefore he did it. But St. Paul

gives no such account of himself: and we have no right to take anyone’s

account but his own. He knew his own heart best. He does not say that

he came to preach a scheme of redemption, or opinions about Christ. He

says he came to preach nothing but Christ Himself—Christ crucified—to

tell people about the Lord he loved, about the Lord who loved him,

certain that when they had heard the plain story of Him, their hearts, if

they were simple, and true, and loving, would leap up in answer to his

words, and find out, as by instinct, what Christ had done for them, what

they were to do for Christ. Ay, I believe, my friends—indeed I am

certain—from my own reading, that in every age and country, just in

proportion as men have loved Christ personally as a man would love

another man, just in that proportion have they loved their neighbours,

worked for their neighbours, sacrificed their time, their pleasure, their

money, to do good to all, for the sake of Him who commanded: “If ye love

_ME_, keep my commandments; and my commandment is this, that ye should

love one another as I have loved you.” That is the only sure motive.

All other motives for doing good or being good, will fail in one case or

another case, because they do not take possession of a man’s whole heart,

but only of some part of his heart. Love—love to Christ, can alone sweep

away a man’s whole heart and soul with it, and renew it, and transfigure

it, and make it strong instead of weak, pure instead of foul, gentle

instead of fierce, brave instead of being vain and cowardly, and fearing

what everyone will say of him. Only love for Christ, who loved all men

unto the death, will make us love all men too: not only one here and

there who may agree with us or help us; but those who hate us, those who

misunderstand us, those who thwart us, ay, even those who disobey and

slight not only us, but Jesus Christ Himself. _That_ is the hardest

lesson of all to learn; but thousands have learnt it; everyone ought to

learn it. In proportion as a man loves Christ, he will learn to love

those who do not love Christ. For Christ loves them whether they know it

or not; Christ died for them whether they believe it or not; and we must

love them because our Saviour loves them.

Oh! my friends, why do so few love Christ? Why do so few live as those

who are not their own, but bought with the price of His precious blood

and bound to devote themselves, body and soul, to His cause? Why do so

many struggle against their sins, while yet they cannot break off those

sins, but go struggling and sinning on, hating their sins and yet unable

to break through their sins, like birds beating themselves to death

against the wires of their cage? Why? Because they do not know Christ.

And how can they know Him, unless they read their Bibles with simple,

childlike hearts, determined to let the Bible tell its own story:

believing that those who walked with Christ on earth, must know best what

He was like? Why? Because they will not ask Christ to come and show

Himself to them, and make them see Him, and love Him, and admire Him,

whether they will or not. Oh! remember, if Christ be the Son of God, the

Lord of heaven and earth, we cannot go to Him, poor, weak, ignorant

creatures as we are. We cannot ascend up into heaven to bring Christ

down. He must come down out of His own great love and condescension, and

dwell in our hearts as He has promised to do, if we do but love Him. He

must come down and show Himself to us. Oh! read your Bibles—read the

story of Christ, and if that does not stir up in you some love for Him,

you must have hearts of stone, not flesh and blood. And then go to Him;

pray to Him, whether you believe in Him altogether or not, upon the mere

chance of His being able to hear you and help you. You would not throw

away a chance on earth; will you throw away such a chance in heaven as

having the Son of God to help you? Oh, cry to Him; say out of the depths

of your heart: “Thou most blessed and glorious Being who ever walked this

earth, who hast gone blameless through all sorrow and temptation that man

can feel; if Thou dost love anyone, if Thou canst hear anyone, hear me!

If thou canst not help me, no one can. I have a hundred puzzling

questions which I cannot answer for myself, a hundred temptations which I

cannot conquer for myself, a hundred bad habits which I cannot shake off

of myself; and they tell me that Thou canst teach me, Thou canst guide

me, Thou canst strengthen me, Thou canst take out of my heart this shame

and gnawing of an evil conscience. If Thou be the Son of God, make me

clean! If it be true that Thou lovest all men, show Thy love to me! If

it be true that Thou canst teach all men, teach me! If it be true that

Thou canst help all men, help my unbelief, for if Thou dost not, there is

no help for me in heaven or earth!” You, who are sinful, distracted,

puzzled, broken-hearted, cry to Christ in that way, if you have no better

way, and see if He does not hear you. He is not one to break the bruised

reed, or quench the smoking flax. He will hear you, for He has heard all

who have ever called on Him. Cry to Him from the bottom of your hearts.

Tell Him that you do _not_ love Him, and that yet you _long_ to love Him.

And see if you do not find it true that those who come to Christ, He will

in no wise cast out. He may not seem to answer you the first time, or

the tenth time, or for years; for Christ has His own deep, loving, wise

ways of teaching each man, and for each man a different way. But try to

learn all you can of Him. Try to know Him. Pray to know, and understand

Him, and love Him. And sooner or later you will find His words come

true, “If a man love me, I and my Father will come to him, and take up

our abode with him.” And then you will feel arise in you a hungering and

a thirsting after righteousness, a spirit of love, and a desire of doing

good, which will carry you up and on, above all that man can say or do

against you—above all the laziness, and wilfulness, and selfishness, and

cowardice which dwells in the heart of everyone. You will be able to

trample it all under foot for the sake of being good and doing good, in

the strength of that one glorious thought, “Christ lived and died for me,

and, so help me God, I will live and die for Christ.”

XXIV.

DAVID’S VICTORY.

Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield:

but I come to thee in the name of the Lord of armies, the God of

Israel, whom thou hast defied.—1 SAMUEL xvii. 45.

WE have been reading to-day the story of David’s victory over the

Philistine giant, Goliath. Now I think the whole history of David may

teach us more about the meaning of the Old Testament, and how it applies

to us, than the history of any other single character. David was the

great hero of the Jews; the greatest, in spite of great sins and follies,

that has ever been among them; in every point the king after God’s own

heart. Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself did not disdain to be called

especially the Son of David. David was the author, too, of those

wonderful psalms which are now in the mouths and the hearts of Christian

people all over the world; and will last, as I believe, till the world’s

end, giving out fresh depths of meaning and spiritual experience.

But to understand David’s history, we must go back a little through the

lessons which have been read in church the last few Sundays. We find in

the eighth and in the twelfth chapters of this same book of Samuel, that

the Jews asked Samuel for a king—for a king like the nations round them.

Samuel consulted God, and by God’s command chose Saul to be their king;

at the same time warning them that in asking for a king they had

committed a great and fearful sin, for “the Lord their God was their

king.” And the Lord said unto Samuel, that in asking for a king they had

rejected God from reigning over them. Now what was this sin which the

Jews committed? for the mere having a king cannot be wrong in itself;

else God would not have anointed Saul and David kings, and blessed David

and Solomon; much less would He have allowed the greater number of

Christian nations to remain governed by kings unto this day, if a king

had been a wrong thing in itself. I think if we look carefully at the

words of the story we shall see what this great sin of the Jews was. In

the first place, they asked Samuel to give them a king—not God. This was

a sin, I think; but it was only the fruit of a deeper sin—a wrong way of

looking at the whole question of kings and government. And that deeper

sin was this: they were a free people, and they wanted to become slaves.

God had made them a free people; He had brought them up out of the land

of Egypt, out of slavery to Pharaoh. He had given them a free

constitution. He had given them laws to secure safety, and liberty, and

equal justice to rich and poor, for themselves, their property, their

children; to defend them from oppression, and over-taxation, and all the

miseries of misgovernment. And now they were going to trample under foot

God’s inestimable gift of liberty. They wanted a king like the nations

round them, they said. They did not see that it was just their glory

_not_ to be like the nations round them in that. We who live in a free

country do not see the vast and inestimable difference between the Jews

and the other nations. The Jews were then, perhaps, so far as I can make

out, the only free people on the face of the earth. The nations round

them were like the nations in the East, now governed by tyrants, without

law or parliament, at the mercy of the will, the fancy, the lust, the

ambition, and the cruelty of their despotic kings. In fact, they were as

the Eastern people now are—slaves governed by tyrants. Samuel warned the

Jews that it would be just the same with them; that neither their

property, their families, nor their liberty would be safe under the

despots for whom they wished. And yet, in spite of that warning, they

would have a king. And why? Because they did not like the trouble of

being free. They did not like the responsibility and the labour of

taking care of themselves, and asking counsel of God as to how they were

to govern themselves. So they were ready to sell themselves to a tyrant,

that he might fight for them, and judge for them, and take care of them,

while they just ate and drank, and made money, and lived like slaves,

careless of what happened to them or their country, provided they could

get food, and clothes, and money enough. And as long as they got that,

if you will remark, they were utterly careless as to what sort of king

they had. They said not one word to Samuel about how much power their

king was to have. They made not the slightest inquiry as to whether Saul

was wise or foolish, good or bad. They did not ask God’s counsel, or

trouble themselves about God; so they proved themselves unworthy of being

free. They turned, like a dog to his vomit, and the sow to her wallowing

in the mire, cowardly back again into slavery; and God gave them what

they asked for. He gave them the sort of king they wanted; and bitterly

they found out their mistake during several hundred years of continually

increasing slavery and misery.

There is a deep lesson for us, my friends, in all this. And that is,

that God’s gifts are not fit for us, unless we are more or less fit for

them. That to him that makes use of what he has, more shall be given;

but from him who does not, will be taken away even what he has. And so

even the inestimable gift of freedom is no use unless men have free

hearts in them. God sets a man free from his sins by faith in Jesus

Christ; but unless that man uses His grace, unless he desires to be free

inwardly as well as outwardly—to be free not only from the punishment of

his sins, but from the sins themselves; unless he is willing to accept

God’s offer of freedom, and go boldly to the throne of grace, and there

plead his cause with his heavenly Father face to face, without looking to

any priest, or saint, or other third person to plead for him; if, in

short, a man has not a free spirit in him, the grace of God will become

of no effect in him, and he will receive the spirit of bondage (of

slavery, that is), again to fear. Perhaps he will fall back more or less

into popery and half-popish superstitions; perhaps, as we see daily round

us, he will fall back again into antinomianism, into the slavery of those

very sins from which God once delivered him. And just the same is it

with a nation. When God has given a nation freedom, then, unless there

be a free heart in the people and true independence, which is dependence

on God and not on man; unless there be a spirit of justice, mercy, truth,

trust of God in them, their freedom will be of no effect; they will only

fall back into slavery, to be oppressed by fresh tyrants.

So it was with the great Spanish colonies in South America a few years

ago. God gave them freedom from the tyranny of Spain; but what advantage

was it to them? Because there was no righteousness in them; because they

were a cowardly, profligate, false, and cruel people, therefore they only

became the slaves of their own lusts; they turned God’s great grace of

freedom into licentiousness, and have been ever since doing nothing but

cutting each other’s throats; every man’s hand against his own brother;

the slaves of tyrants far more cruel than those from whom they had

escaped.

Look at the French people, too. Three times in the last sixty years has

God delivered them from evil rulers, and given them a chance of freedom;

and three times have they fallen back into fresh slavery. And why?

Because they will not be righteous; because they will be proud, boastful,

lustful, godless, cruel, making a lie and loving it. God help them! We

are not here to judge them, but to take warning ourselves. Now there is

no use in boasting of our English freedom, unless we have free and

righteous hearts in us; for it is not constitutions, and parliaments, and

charters which make a nation free; they are only the shell, the outside

of freedom. True freedom is of the heart and spirit, and comes down from

above, from the Spirit of God; for where the Spirit of God is, there is

liberty, and there only. Oh, every one of you! high and low, rich and

poor, pray and struggle to get your own hearts free; free from the sins

which beset us Englishmen in these days; free from pride, prejudice, and

envy; free from selfishness and covetousness; free from unchastity and

drunkenness; free from the conceit that England is safe, while all the

rest of the world is shaking. Be sure that the spirit of freedom, like

every other good and perfect gift, is from above, and comes down from

God, the Father of lights; and that to keep that spirit with us, we must

keep ourselves worthy of it, and not expect to remain free if we indulge

ourselves in mean and slavish sins.

So the Jews got the king they wanted—a king to look at and be proud of.

Saul was, we read, a head taller than all the rest of the people, and

very handsome to look at. And he was brave enough, too, in mere

fighting, when he was awakened and stirred up to act now and then; but

there was no wisdom in him; no real trust in God in him. He took God for

an idol, like the heathens’ false gods, which had to be pleased and kept

in good humour by the smell of burnt sacrifices; and not for a living,

righteous Person, who had to be obeyed. We read of Saul’s misconduct in

these respects, in the thirteenth and fifteenth chapters of the First

Book of Samuel. That was only the beginning of his wickedness. The

worst points in his character, as I shall show in my next sermon, came

out afterwards. But still, his disobedience was enough to make God cast

him off, and leave him to go his own way to ruin.

But God was not going to cast off His people whom He loved. He deals not

with mankind after their sins, neither rewards them according to their

iniquities; and so he chose out for them a king after His own heart—a

true king of God’s making, not a mere sham one of man’s making. You may

think it strange why God should have given them a second king; why, as

soon as Saul died, He did not let them return back to their old freedom.

But that is not God’s way. He brings good out of evil in His great

mercy. But it is always by strange winding paths. His ways are not as

our ways. First, God gives man what is perfectly proper for him at that

time; sets man in his right place; and then when man falls from that, God

brings him, not back to the place from which he fell, but on forward into

something far higher and better than what he fell from. He put Adam into

Paradise. Adam fell from it, and God made use of the fall to bring him

into a state far better than Paradise—into the kingdom of God—into

everlasting life—into the likeness of Christ, the new Adam, who is a

quickening, life-giving spirit, while the old Adam was, at best, only a

living soul.

So with the church of Christian men. After the apostles’ time, and even

during the apostles’ time, as we read from the Epistle to the Galatians,

they fell away, step by step, from the liberty of the gospel, till they

sunk entirely into popish superstition. And yet God brought good out of

that evil. He made that very popery a means of bringing them back at the

Reformation into clearer light than any of the first Christians ever had

had. He is going on step by step still, bringing Christians into a

clearer knowledge of the gospel than even the Reformers had.

And so with the Jews. They fell from their liberty and chose a king.

And yet God made use of those kings of theirs, of David, of Solomon, of

Josiah, and Hezekiah, to teach them more and more about Himself and His

law, and to teach all nations, by their example, what a nation should be,

and how He deals with one.

But now let us see what this true king, David, was like, whom God chose,

that He might raise, by his means, the Jews higher than they ever yet had

been, even in their days of freedom. Now remark, in the first place,

that David was not the son of any very great man. His father seems to

have been only a yeoman. He was not bred up in courts. We find that

when Samuel was sent to anoint David king, he was out keeping his

father’s sheep in the field. And though, no doubt, he had shown signs of

being a very remarkable youth from the first, yet his father thought so

little of him, that he was going to pass him over, and caused all his

seven elder sons to pass before Samuel for his choice first, though there

seems to have been nothing particular in them, except that some of them

were fine men and brave soldiers. So David seems to have been

overlooked, and thought but little of in his youth—and a very good thing

for him. It is a good thing for a young man to bear the yoke in his

youth, that he may be kept humble and low; that he may learn to trust in

God, and not in his own wit. And even when Samuel anointed David, he

anointed him privately. His brothers did not know what a great honour

was in store for him; for we find, in the lesson which we have just read,

that when David came down to the camp, his elder brother spoke

contemptuously to him, and treated him as a child. “I know thy pride,”

he said, “and the naughtiness of thy heart. Thou art come down to see

the battle.” While David answers humbly enough: “What have I done? is

there not a cause?” feeling that there was more in him than his brother

gave him credit for; though he dare not tell his brother, hardly,

perhaps, dare believe himself, what great things God had prepared for

him. So it is yet—a prophet has no honour in his own country. How many

a noble-hearted man there is, who is looked down upon by those round him!

How many a one is despised for a dreamer, or for a Methodist, by shallow

worldly people, who in God’s sight is of very great price! But God sees

not as man sees. He makes use of the weak people of this world to

confound the strong. He sends about His errands not many noble, not many

mighty; but the poor man, rich in faith, like David. He puts down the

mighty from their seat, and exalts the humble and meek. He takes the

beggar from the dunghill, that He may set him among the princes of His

people. So He has been doing in all ages. So He will do even now, in

some measure, with everyone like David, let him be as low as he will in

the opinion of this foolish world, who yet puts his trust utterly in God,

and goes about all his work, as David did, in the name of the Lord of

hosts. Oh! if a poor man feels that God has given him wit and

wisdom—feels in him the desire to rise and better himself in life, let

him be sure that the only way to rise is David’s plan—to keep humble and

quiet till God shall lift him up, trusting in God’s righteousness and

love to raise him, and deliver him, and put him in that station, be it

high or low, in which he will be best able to do God’s work, or serve

God’s glory.

And now for the chapter from which the text is taken, which relates to us

David’s first great public triumph—his victory over Goliath the giant. I

will not repeat it to you, because everyone here who has ears to hear or

a heart to feel ought to have been struck with every word in that

glorious story. All I will try to do is, to show you how the working of

God’s Spirit comes out in David in every action of his on that glorious

day. We saw just now David’s humbleness and gentleness, the fruits of

God’s Spirit in him, in his answer to his proud and harsh brother. Look

next at David’s spirit of trust in God, which, indeed, is the key to his

whole life; that is the reason why he was the man after God’s own

heart—not for any virtues of his own, but for his unshaken continual

faith in God. David saw in an instant why the Israelites were so afraid

of the giant; because they had no faith in God. They forgot that they

were the armies of the living God. David did not: “Who is this

uncircumcised, that he shall defy the armies of the living God?” And

therefore, when Saul tried to dissuade him from attacking the Philistine,

his answer is still the same—full of faith in God. He knew well enough

what a fearful undertaking it was to fight with this giant, nearly ten

feet high, armed from head to foot with mail, which perhaps no sword or

spear which he could use could pierce. It was no wonder, humanly

speaking, that all the Jews fled from him—that his being there stopped

the whole battle. In these days, fifty such men would make no difference

in a battle; bullets and cannon-shot would mow down them like other men:

but in those old times, before firearms were invented, when all battles

were hand-to-hand fights, and depended so much on each man’s strength and

courage, that one champion would often decide the victory for a whole

army, the amount of courage which was required in David is past our

understanding; at least we may say, David would not have had it but for

his trust in God, but for his feeling that he was on God’s side, and

Goliath on the devil’s side, unjustly invading his country in

self-conceit, and cruelty, and lawlessness. Therefore he tells Saul of

his victory over the lion and the bear. You see again, here, the Spirit

of God showing in his _modesty_. He does not boast or talk of his

strength and courage in killing the lion and the bear; for he knew that

that strength and courage came from God, not from himself; therefore he

says that the Lord _delivered him_ from them. He knew that he had been

only doing his duty in facing them when they attacked his father’s sheep,

and that it was God’s mercy which had protected him in doing his duty.

He felt now, that if no one else would face this brutal giant, it was

_his_ duty, poor, simple, weak youth as he was, and therefore he trusted

in God to bring him safe through this danger also. But look again how

the Spirit of God shows in his prudence. He would not use Saul’s armour,

good as it might be, because he was not accustomed to it. He would use

his own experience, and fight with the weapons to which he had been

accustomed—a sling and stone. You see he was none of those presumptuous

and fanatical dreamers who tempt God by fancying that He is to go out of

His way to work miracles for them. He used all the proper and prudent

means to kill the giant, and trusted to God to bless them. If he had

been presumptuous, he might have taken the first stone that came to hand,

or taken only one, or taken none at all, and expected the giant to fall

down dead by a miracle. But no; he _chooses five smooth_ stones out of

the brook. He tried to get the best that he could, and have more ready

if his first shot failed. He showed no distrust of God in that; for he

trusted in God to keep him cool, and steady, and courageous in the fight,

and that, he knew, God alone could do. The only place, perhaps, where he

could strike Goliath to hurt him was on the face, because every other

part of him was covered in metal armour. And he knew that, in such

danger as he was, God’s Spirit only could keep his eye clear and his hand

steady for such a desperate chance as hitting that one place.

So he went; and as he went his courage rose higher and higher; for unto

him that hath shall more be given; and so he began to boast too—but not

of himself, like the giant. He boasted of the living God, who was with

him. He ran boldly up to the Philistine, and at the first throw, struck

on the forehead, and felled him dead.

So it is; many a time the very blessing which we expect to get only with

great difficulty, God gives us at our first trial, to show that He is the

Giver, to cheer up our poor doubting hearts, and show us that He is able,

and willing too, to give exceeding abundantly more than we can ask or

think.

So David triumphed: and yet that triumph was only the beginning of his

troubles. Sad and weary years had he to struggle on before he gained the

kingdom which God had promised him. So it is often with God’s elect. He

gives them blessings at first, to show them that He is really with them;

and then He lets them be evil-entreated by tyrants, and suffer

persecution, and wander out of the way in the wilderness, that they may

be made perfect by suffering, and purified, as gold is in the refiner’s

fire, from all selfishness, conceit, ambition, cowardliness, till they

learn to trust God utterly, to know their own weakness, and His strength,

and to work only for Him, careless what becomes of their own poor

worthless selves, provided they can help His kingdom to come, and get His

will to be done on earth as it is in heaven.

And now, my friends, surely there is a lesson in all this for you. Do

you wish to rise like David? Of course not one in ten thousand can rise

as high, but we may all rise somewhat, if not in rank, yet still, what is

far better, in spirit, in wisdom, in usefulness, in manfulness. Do you

wish to rise so? then follow David’s example. Be truly brave, be truly

modest, and in order to be truly brave and truly modest, that is, be

truly manly, be truly godly. Trust in God; trust in God; that is the key

to all greatness. Courage, modesty, truth, honesty, and gentleness; all

things, which are noble, lovely, and of good report; all things, in

short, which will make you men after God’s own heart, are all only the

different fruits of that one blessed life-giving root—FAITH IN GOD.

XXV.

DAVID’S EDUCATION.

Made perfect through sufferings.—HEBREWS ii. 10.

THAT is my text; and a very fit one for another sermon about David, the

king after God’s own heart. And a very fit one too, for any sermon

preached to people living in this world now or at any time. “A

melancholy text,” you will say. But what if it be melancholy? That is

not the fault of me, the preacher. The preacher did not make suffering,

did not make disappointment, doubt, ignorance, mistakes, oppression,

poverty, sickness. There they are, whether we like it or not. You have

only to go on to the common here, or any other common or town in England,

to see too much of them—enough to break one’s heart if—, but I will not

hurry on too fast in what I have to say. What I want to make you

recollect is, that misery is here round us, _in_ us. A great deal which

we bring on ourselves; and a great deal more misery which we do not, as

far as we can see, bring on ourselves; but which comes, nevertheless, and

lets us know plainly enough that it is close to us. Every man and woman

of us have their sorrows. There is no use shutting our eyes just when we

ourselves happen to feel tolerably easy, and saying, as too many do, “I

don’t see so very much sorrow; I am happy enough!” Are you, friend,

happy enough? So much the worse for you, perhaps. But at all events

your neighbours are not happy enough; most of them are only too

miserable. It is a sad world. A sad world, and full of tears. It is.

And you must not be angry with the preacher for reminding you of what is.

True; you would have a right to quarrel with the preacher or anyone else

who made you sorrowful with the thoughts of the sorrow round you, and

then gave you no explanation of it—told you of no use, no blessing in it,

no deliverance from it. That would be enough to break any man’s heart,

if all the preacher could say was: “This wretchedness, and sickness, and

death, must go on as long as the world lasts, and yet it does no good,

for God or man.” That thought would drive any feeling man to despair,

tempt him to lie down and die, tempt him to fancy that God was not God at

all, not the God whose name is Love, not the God who is our Father, but

only a cruel taskmaster, and Lord of a miserable hell on earth, where men

and women, and worst of all, little children, were tortured daily by tens

of thousands without reason, or use, or hope of deliverance, except in a

future world, where not one in ten of them will be saved and happy. That

is many people’s notion of the world—religious people’s even. How they

can believe, in the face of such notions, “that God is love;” how they

can help going mad with pity, if that is all the hope they have for poor

human beings, is more than I can tell. Not that I judge them—to their

own master they stand or fall: but this I do say, that if the preacher

has no better hope to give you about this poor earth, then I cannot tell

what right he has to call himself a preacher of the gospel—that is, a

preacher of good news; then I do not know what Jesus Christ’s dying to

take away the sins of the world means; then I do not know what the

kingdom of God means; then I do not know why the Lord taught us to pray,

“Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven,” if the

only way in which that can be brought about is by His sending ninety-nine

hundredths of mankind to endless torture, over and above all the lesser

misery which they have suffered in this life. What will be the end of

the greater part of mankind we do not know; we were not intended to know.

God is love, and God is justice, and His justice is utterly loving, as

well as His love utterly just; so we may very safely leave the world in

the hands of Him who made the world, and be sure that the Judge of all

the earth will do right, and that what is right is certain never to be

cruel, but rather merciful. But to every one of you who are here now, a

preacher has a right, ay, and a bounden duty, to say much more than that.

He is bound to tell you good news, because God has called you into His

church, and sent you here this day, to hear good news. He has a right to

tell you, as I tell you now, that, strange as it may seem, whatsoever

sufferings you endure are sent to make you perfect, even as your Father

in heaven is perfect; even as the blessed Lord, whom may you all love,

and trust, and worship, for ever and ever, was made perfect by

sufferings, even though He was the sinless Son of God. Consider that.

“It behoved Him,” says St. Paul, “the Captain of our salvation, to be

made perfect through sufferings.” And why? “Because,” answers St. Paul,

“it was proper for Him to be made in all things like His brothers”—like

us, the children of God—“that He might be a faithful and merciful high

priest;” for, just “because He has suffered being tempted, He is able to

succour us who are tempted.” A strange text, but one which, I think,

this very history of David’s troubles will help us to understand. For it

was by suffering, long and bitter, that God trained up David to be a true

king, a king over the Jews, “after God’s own heart.”

You all know, I hope, something at least of David’s psalms. Many of

them, seven of them at least, were written during David’s wanderings in

the mountains, when Saul was persecuting him to kill him, day after day,

month after month, as you may read in the First Book of Samuel, from

chapters xix. to xxviii. Bitter enough these troubles of David would

have been to any man, but what must have made them especially bitter and

confusing to him was, that they all arose out of his righteousness.

Because he had conquered the giant, Saul envied him—broke his promise of

giving David his daughter Merab—put his life into extreme danger from the

Philistines, before he would give him his second daughter Michal; the

more he saw that the Lord was with David, and that the young man won

respect and admiration by behaving himself wisely, the more afraid of him

Saul was; again and again he tried to kill him; as David was sitting

harmless in Saul’s house, soothing the poor madman by the music of his

harp, Saul tries to stab him unawares; and not content with that proceeds

deliberately to hunt him down, from town to town, and wilderness to

wilderness; sends soldiers after him to murder him; at last goes out

after him himself with his guards. Was not all this enough to try

David’s faith? Hardly any man, I suppose, since the world was made, had

found righteousness pay him less; no man was ever more tempted to turn

round and do evil, since doing good only brought him deeper and deeper

into the mire. But no, we know that he did not lose his trust in God;

for we have seven psalms, at least, which he wrote during these very

wanderings of his; the fifty-second, when Doeg had betrayed him to Saul;

the fifty-fourth, when Ziphim betrayed him; the fifty-sixth, when the

Philistines took him in Gath; the fifty-seventh, “when he fled from Saul

in the cave;” the fifty-ninth, “when they watched the house to kill him;”

the sixty-third, “when he was in the wilderness of Judah;” the

thirty-fourth, “when he was driven away by Abimelech;” and several more

which appear to have been written about the same time.

Now, what strikes us first, or ought to strike us, in these psalms, is

David’s utter faith in God. I do not mean to say that David had not his

sad days, when he gave himself up for lost, and when God seemed to have

forsaken him, and forgotten his promise. He was a man of like passions

with ourselves; and therefore he was, as we should have been, terrified

and faint-hearted at times. But exactly what God was teaching and

training him to be, was not to be fainthearted—not to be terrified. He

began in his youth by trusting God. That made him the man after God’s

own heart, just as it was the want of trust in God which made Saul not

the man after God’s own heart, and lost him his kingdom. In all those

wanderings and dangers of David’s in the wilderness, God was training,

and educating, and strengthening David’s faith according to His great

law: To whomsoever hath shall be given, and he shall have more

abundantly; but from him that hath not, shall be taken away even that

which he seems to have. And the first great fruit of David’s firm trust

in God was his patience.

He learned to wait God’s time, and take God’s way, and be sure that the

same God who had promised that he should be king, would make him king

when he saw fit. He knew, as he says himself, that the Strength of

Israel could not lie or repent. He had sworn that He would not fail

David. And he learned that God had sworn by His holiness. He was a

holy, just, righteous God; and David and David’s country now were safe in

His hands. It was his firm trust in God which gave him strength of mind

to use no unfair means to right himself. Twice Saul, his enemy, was in

his power. What a temptation to him to kill Saul, rid himself of his

tormentor, and perhaps get the kingdom at once! But no. He felt: “This

Saul is a wicked, devil-tormented murderer, a cruel tyrant and oppressor;

but the same God who chose me to be king next, chose him to be king now.

He is the Lord’s anointed. God put him where he is, and leaves him there

for some good purpose; and when God has done with him, God will take him

away, and free this poor oppressed people; and in the meantime, I, as a

private man, have no right to touch him. I must not do evil that good

may come. If I am to be a true king, a true man at all hereafter, I must

keep true now; if I am to be a righteous lawgiver hereafter, I must

respect and obey law myself now. The Lord be judge between me and Saul;

for He is Judge, and He will right me better than I can ever right

myself.” And thus did trust in God bring out in David that true respect

for law, without which a king, let him be as kind-hearted as he will, is

but too likely to become at last a tyrant and an oppressor.

But another thing which strikes any thinking man in David’s psalms, is

his strong feeling for the poor, and the afflicted, and the oppressed.

That is what makes the Psalms, above all, the poor man’s book, the

afflicted man’s book. But how did he get that fellow-feeling for the

fallen? By having fallen himself, and tasted affliction and oppression.

That was how he was educated to be a true king. That was how he became a

picture and pattern—a “type,” as some call it, of Jesus Christ, the man

of sorrows. That is why so many of David’s psalms apply so well to the

Lord; why the Lord fulfilled those psalms when He was on earth. David

was truly a man of sorrows; for he had not only the burden of his own

sorrows to bear, but that of many others. His parents had to escape, and

to be placed in safety at the court of a heathen prince. His friend

Abimelech the priest, because he gave David bread when he was starving,

and Goliath’s sword—which, after all, was David’s own—was murdered by

Saul’s hired ruffians, at Saul’s command, and with him his whole family,

and all the priests of the town, with their wives and children, even to

the baby at the breast. And when David was in the mountains, everyone

who was distressed, and in debt, and discontented, gathered themselves to

him, and he became their captain; so that he had on him all the

responsibility, care, and anxiety of managing all those wild, starving

men, many of them, perhaps, reckless and wicked men, ready every day to

quarrel among themselves, or to break out in open riot and robbery

against the people who had oppressed them; for—(and this, too, we may see

from David’s psalms, was not the smallest part of his anxiety)—the nation

of the Jews seems to have been in a very wretched state in David’s time.

The poor seem in general to have lost their land, and to have become all

but slaves to rich nobles, who were grinding them down, not only by

luxury and covetousness, but often by open robbery and bloodshed. The

sight of the misrule and misery, as well as of the bloody and ruinous

border inroads which were kept up by the Philistines and other

neighbouring tribes, seems for years to have been the uppermost, as well

as the deepest thought in David’s mind, if we may judge from those psalms

of his, of which this is the key-note; and it was not likely to make him

care and feel less about all that misery when he remembered (as we see

from his psalms he remembered daily) that God had set him, the wandering

outlaw, no less a task than to mend it all; to put down all that

oppression, to raise up that degradation, to train all that cowardice

into self-respect and valour, to knit into one united nation, bound

together by fellow-feeling and common faith in God, that mob of fierce,

and greedy, and (hardest task of all, as he himself felt) utterly

deceitful men. No wonder that his psalms begin often enough with

sadness, even though they may end in hope and trust. He had a work

around him and before him which ought to have made his heart sad, which

was a great part of his appointed education, and helped to make him

perfect by sufferings.

And so, upon the bare hill-side, in woods and caves of the earth, in cold

and hunger, in weariness and dread of death, did David learn to be the

poor man’s king, the poor man’s poet, the singer of those psalms which

shall endure as long as the world endures, and be the comfort and the

utterance of all sad hearts for evermore. Agony it was, deep and bitter,

and for the moment more hopeless than the grave itself, which crushed out

of the very depths of his heart that most awful and yet most blessed

psalm, the twenty-second, which we read in church every Good Friday. The

“Hind of the Morning” is its title; some mournful air to which David sang

it, giving, perhaps, the notion of a timorous deer roused in the morning

by the hunters and the hounds. We read that psalm on Good Friday, and

all say that our Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled it. What do we mean hereby?

We mean hereby, that we believe that our Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled all

sorrows which man can taste. He filled the cup of misery to the brim,

and drained it to the dregs. He was afflicted in all David’s

afflictions, in the afflictions of all mankind. He bare all their

sicknesses, and carried all their infirmities; and therefore we read this

psalm upon Good Friday, upon the day in which He tasted death for every

man, and went down into the lowest depths of terror, and shame, and

agony, and death; and, worst of all, into the feeling that God had

forsaken Him, that there was no help or hope for Him in heaven, as well

as earth—no care or love in the great God, whose Son He was—went down, in

a word, into hell; that hell whereof David and Heman, and Hezekiah after

them, had said, “Shall the dust give thanks unto thee? and shall it

declare thy truth?”—“Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt

thou suffer thy Holy One to see corruption.”—“My life draweth nigh unto

hell. . . I am like one stript among the dead, like the slain that lie

in the grave, whom thou rememberest no more; and they are cut off from

thy hand. . . . Wilt thou show wonders to the dead? and shall the dead

arise and praise thee? Shall thy wonders be known in the dark? and thy

righteousness in the land of destruction?”—“For the grave cannot praise

thee; death cannot celebrate thee: they that go down to the pit cannot

hope for thy truth.”

Even into that lowest darkness, where man feels, even for one moment,

that God is nothing to him, and he is nothing to God—even into that Jesus

condescended to go down for us. That worst of all temptations, of which

David only tasted a drop when he cried out, “My God, my God, why hast

thou forsaken me?” Jesus drained to the very dregs for us.—He went down

into hell for us, and conquered hell and death, and the darkness of the

unknown world, and rose again glorious from them, that He might teach us

not to fear death and hell; that He might know how to comfort us in the

hour of death: and in the day of judgment, when on our sick bed, or in

some bitter shame and trouble, the lying devil is telling us that we are

damned and lost, and forsaken by God, and every sin we ever did rises up

and stares us in the face.

Truly He is a king!—a king for rich and poor, young and old, Englishmen

and negro; all alike He knows them, He feels for them, He has tasted

sorrow for them, far more than David did for those poor, oppressed,

sinful Jews of his. Read those Psalms of David; for they speak not only

of David, now long since dead and gone, but of the blessed Jesus, who

lives and reigns over us now at this very moment. Read them, for they

are inspired; the honest words of a servant of God crying out to the same

God, the same Saviour and Deliverer as we have. And His love has not

changed. His arm is not shortened that He cannot save. Your words need

not change. The words of those psalms in which David prayed, in them you

and I may pray. Right out of the depths of his poor distracted heart

they came. Let them come out of our hearts too. They belong to us more

than even they did to the Jews, for whom David wrote them—more than even

they did to David himself; for Jesus has fulfilled them—filled them

full—given them boundlessly more meaning than ever they had before, and

given us more hope in using them than ever David had: for now that love

and righteousness of God, in which David only trusted beforehand, has

come down and walked on this earth in the shape of a poor man, Jesus

Christ, the Son of the maiden of Bethlehem.

Oh, you who are afflicted, pray to God in those psalms; not merely in the

words of them, but in the spirit of them. And to do that, you must get

from God the spirit in which David wrote them—the Spirit of God. Pray

for that Spirit; for the spirit of patience, which made David wait God’s

good time to right him, instead of trying, as too many do, to right

himself by wrong means; for the spirit of love, which taught David to

return good for evil; for the spirit of fellow-feeling, which taught

David to care for others as well as himself; and in that spirit of love,

do you pray for others while you are praying for yourself. Pray for that

Spirit which taught David to help and comfort those who were weaker than

himself, that you in your time may be able and willing to comfort and

help those who are weaker than yourselves. And above all, pray for the

Spirit of faith, which made David certain that oppression and wrong-doing

could not stand; that the day must surely come when God would judge the

world righteously, and hear the cry of the afflicted, and deliver the

outcast and poor, that the man of the world might be no more exalted

against them. Pray, in short, for the Spirit of Christ; and then be sure

He will hear your prayers, and answer them, and show Himself a better

friend, and a truer King to you, than ever David showed himself to those

poor Jews of old. He will deliver you out of all your troubles—if not in

this life, yet surely in the life to come; and though you walk through

the valley of the shadow of death, yet the peace of God shall keep your

hearts and minds in Him who loved you, and gave Himself for you, that you

might inherit all heaven and earth in Him.

XXVI.

THE VALUE OF LAW.

Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no

power but of God. The powers that be are ordained of God.—ROMANS

xiii. 1.

WHAT is the difference between a civilised man and a savage? You will

say: A civilised man can read and write; he has books and education; he

knows how to make numberless things which makes his life comfortable to

him. He can get wealth, and build great towns, sink mines, sail the sea

in ships, spread himself over the face of the earth, or bring home all

its treasures, while the savages remain poor, and naked, and miserable,

and ignorant, fixed to the land in which they chance to have been born.