We all know what 'diligence' means, but it is worth while to point out
that the original meaning of the word is not so much _diligence_ as
_haste_. It is employed, for instance, to describe the eager swiftness
with which the Virgin went to Elizabeth after the angel's salutation and
annunciation. It is the word employed to describe the murderous hurry
with which Herodias came rushing in to the king to demand John the
Baptist's head. It is the word with which the Apostle, left solitary in
his prison, besought his sole trusty companion Timothy to 'make haste so
as to come to him before winter.' Thus, the first notion in the word is
haste, which crowds every moment with continuous effort, and lets no
hindrances entangle the feet of the runner. Wise haste has sometimes to
be content to go slowly. 'Raw haste' is 'half sister to delay.' When
haste degenerates into hurry, and becomes agitation, it is weakness, not
strength; it turns out superficial work, which has usually to be pulled
to pieces and done over again, and it is sure to be followed by reaction
of languid idleness. But the less we hurry the more should we hasten in
running the race set before us.
But with this caution against spurious haste, we cannot too seriously
lay to heart the solemn motives to wise and well-directed haste. The
moments granted to any of us are too few and precious to let slip
unused. The field to be cultivated is too wide and the possible harvest
for the toiler too abundant, and the certain crop of weeds in the
sluggard's garden too poisonous, to allow dawdling to be considered a
venial fault. Little progress will be made if we do not work as feeling
that 'the night is far spent, the day is at hand,' or as feeling the
apparently opposite but really identical conviction, 'I must work the
works of Him that sent me while it is day. The night cometh when no man
can work.' The day of full salvation, repose, and blessedness is near
dawning. The night of weeping, the night of toil, is nearly past. By
both aspects of this brief life we should be spurred to haste.
The first element, then, in Christian diligence is economy of time as of
most precious treasure, and the avoidance, as of a pestilence, of all
procrastination. 'To-morrow and to-morrow' is the opiate with which
sluggards and cowards set conscience asleep, and as each to-morrow
becomes to-day it proves as empty of effort as its predecessors, and,
when it has become yesterday, it adds one more to the solemn company of
wasted opportunities which wait for a man at the bar of God. 'All their
yesterdays have lighted' such idlers 'to dusty death,' because in each
they were saying, 'to-morrow we will begin the better course,' instead
of beginning it to-day. 'Now is the accepted time.' 'Wherefore, giving
all haste, add to your faith.'
Another of the phases of the virtue, which Peter here regards as
sovereign, is represented in our translation of the word by
'earnestness,' which is the parent of diligence. Earnestness is the
sentiment, of which diligence is the expression. So the word is
frequently translated. Hence we gather that no Christian growth is
possible unless a man gives his mind to it. Dawdlers will do nothing.
There must be fervour if there is to be growth. The heated bar of iron
will go through the obstacle which the cold one will never penetrate. We
must gather ourselves together under the impulse of an all-pervading and
noble earnestness, too deep to be demonstrative, and which does not
waste itself in noise, but settles down steadily to work. The engine
that is giving off its steam in white puffs is not working at its full
power. When we are most intent we are most silent. Earnestness is dumb,
and therefore it is terrible.
Again we come to the more familiar translation of the word as in the
text. 'Diligence' is the panacea for all diseases of the Christian
life. It is the homely virtue that leads to all success. It is a great
thing to be convinced of this, that there are no mysteries about the
conditions of healthy Christian living, but that precisely the same
qualities which lead to victory in any career to which a man sets
himself do so in this; that, on the one hand, we shall never fail if in
earnest and saving the crumbs of moments, we give ourselves to the work
of Christian growth; and that on the other hand, no fine emotions, no
select moments of rapture and communion will ever avail to take the
place of the dogged perseverance and prosaic hard work which wins in all
other fields; and wins, and is the only thing that does win, in this one
too. If you want to be a strong Christian--that is to say, a happy
man--you must bend your back to the work and 'give all diligence.'
Nobody goes to heaven in his sleep. No man becomes a vigorous Christian
by any other course than 'giving all diligence.' It is a very lowly
virtue. It is like some of the old wives' recipes for curing diseases
with some familiar herb that grows at every cottage door. People will
not have that, but if you bring them some medicine from far away, very
rare and costly, and suggest to them some course out of the beaten rut
of ordinary, honest living, they will jump at that. Quackery always
deals in mysteries and rare things. The great physician cures diseases
with simples that grow everywhere. A pennyworth of some familiar root
will cure an illness that nothing else will touch. It is a homely
virtue, but if in its homeliness we practised it, this Church and our
own souls would wear a different face from what it and they do to-day.