firm standing ground amid the wreck of fashions and opinions; of a
kingdom which can not be moved, tho the heavens pass away like a
scroll, and the earth be burnt up with a fervent heat.
And it tells us that the King of that kingdom is He, who is called
Jesus Christ--the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.
An eternal and changeless kingdom, and an eternal and changeless
King--these the Epistle to the Hebrews preaches to all generations.
It does not say that we have an unchangeable cosmogony, an
unchangeable eschatology, an unchangeable theory of moral
retribution, an unchangeable dogmatic system; not to these does it
point the Jews, while their own nation and worship were in their
very death-agony, and the world was rocking and reeling round them,
decay and birth going on side by side, in a chaos such as man had
never seen before. Not to these does the epistle point the Hebrews:
but to the changeless kingdom and to the changeless King.
My friends, do you really believe in that kingdom, and in that King?
Do you believe that you are now actually in a kingdom of heaven,
which can not be moved; and that the living, acting, guiding,
practical, real King thereof is Christ who died on the cross?
These are days in which a preacher is bound to ask his
congregation--and still more to ask himself--whether he really
believes in that kingdom, and in that King; and to bid himself and
them, if they have not believed earnestly enough therein, to repent
of having neglected that most cardinal doctrine of Scripture and of
the Christian faith.
But if we really believe in that changeless kingdom and in that
changeless King, shall we not--considering who Christ is, the
coequal and coeternal Son of God--believe also, that if the heavens
and the earth are being shaken, then Christ Himself may be shaking
them? That if opinions be changing, then Christ Himself may be
changing them? That if new truths are being discovered, Christ
Himself may be revealing them? That if some of those truths seem
to contradict those which He has revealed already, they do not
really contradict them? That, as in the sixteenth century, Christ
is burning up the wood and stubble with which men have built on
His foundation, that the pure gold of His truth may alone be left?
It is at least possible; it is probable, if we believe that Christ
is a living, acting King, to whom all power is given in heaven and
earth, and who is actually exercising that power; and educating
Christendom, and through Christendom the whole human race, to a
knowledge of Himself, and through Himself of God their Father in
heaven.
Should we not say--We know that Christ has been so doing, for
centuries and for ages? Through Abraham, through Moses, through
the prophets, through the Greeks, through the Romans, and at last
through Himself, He gave men juster and wider views of themselves,
of the universe, and of God. And even then He did not stop. How
could He, who said of Himself, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I
work"? How could He, if He be the same yesterday, to-day, and for
ever? Through the apostles, and especially through St. Paul, He
enlarged, while He confirmed, His own teaching. And did He not do
the same in the sixteenth century? Did He not then sweep from the
minds and hearts of half Christendom beliefs which had been sacred
and indubitable for a thousand years? Why should He not be doing
so now? If it be answered, that the Reformation of the sixteenth
century was only a return to simpler and purer apostolic truth--why,
again, should it not be so now? Why should He not be perfecting His
work one step more, and sweeping away more of man's inventions,
which are not integral and necessary elements of the one catholic
faith, but have been left behind, in pardonable human weakness,
by our great reformers? Great they were, and good: giants on the
earth, while we are but as dwarfs beside them. But, as the hackneyed
proverb says, the dwarf on the giant's shoulders may see further
than the giant himself: and so may we.
Oh! that men would approach new truth in something of that spirit;
in the spirit of reverence and godly fear, which springs from a
living belief in Christ the living King, which is--as the text
tells us--the spirit in which we can serve God acceptably. Oh!
that they would serve God; waiting reverently and anxiously, as
servants standing in the presence of their Lord, for the slightest
sign or hint of His will. Then they would have grace by which they
would receive new-thought with grace; gracefully, courteously,
fairly, charitably, reverently; believing that, however strange or
startling, it may come from Him whose ways are not as our ways, nor
His thoughts as our thoughts; and that he who fights against it, may
haply be fighting against God.
True, they would receive all new thought with caution, that
conservative spirit, which is the duty of every Christian; which
is the peculiar strength of the Englishman, because it enables him
calmly and slowly to take in the new, without losing the old which
his forefathers have already won for him. So they would be cautious,
even anxious, lest in grasping too greedily at seeming improvements,
they let go some precious knowledge which they had already attained:
but they would be on the lookout for improvements; because they
would consider themselves, and their generation, as under a divine
education. They would prove all things fairly and boldly, and
hold fast that which is good; all that which is beautiful, noble,
improving and elevating to human souls, minds, or bodies; all that
increases the amount of justice, mercy, knowledge, refinement; all
that lessens the amount of vice, cruelty, ignorance, barbarism.
That at least must come from Christ. That at least must be the
inspiration of the Spirit of God: unless the Pharisees were right
after all when they said, that evil spirits could be cast out by the
prince of the devils.
Be these things as they may, one comfort it will give us, to believe
firmly and actively in the changeless kingdom, and in the changeless
King. It will give us calm, patience, faith and hope, tho the
heavens and the earth be shaken around us. For then we shall see
that the kingdom, of which we are citizens, is a kingdom of light,
and not of darkness; of truth, and not of falsehood; of freedom,
and not of slavery; of bounty and mercy, and not of wrath and fear;
that we live and move and have our being not in a "_Deus quidam
deceptor_" who grudges his children wisdom, but in a Father of
Light, from whom comes every good and perfect gift; who willeth that
all men should be saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth. In
His kingdom we are; and in the King whom He has set over it we can
have the most perfect trust. For us that King stooped from heaven
to earth; for us He was born, for us He toiled, for us He suffered,
for us He died, for us He rose, for us He sits for ever at God's
right hand. And can we not trust Him? Let Him do what He will. Let
Him lead us whither He will. Wheresoever He leads must be the way
of truth and life. Whatsoever He does, must be in harmony with that
infinite love which He displayed for us upon the cross. Whatsoever
He does, must be in harmony with that eternal purpose by which He
reveals to men God their Father. Therefore, tho the heaven and the
earth be shaken around us, we will trust in Him. For we know that He
is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever; and that His will and
promise is, to lead those who trust in Him into all truth.
CAIRD
RELIGION IN COMMON LIFE
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
JOHN CAIRD was born at Greenock, Scotland, in 1820. He attained
great popularity as a preacher in Edinburgh. In 1862 he was called
to Park Church, Glasgow, and in 1873 became Principal of Glasgow
University. The sermon given here was preached before the Queen in
1855, and, printed by her command, attained an amazing circulation.
Dr. Caird's deep and earnest thought was clothed almost invariably
in clear and beautiful language. He had many gifts as a pulpit
speaker. His voice was full and deep-toned, his manner gracious
and sympathetic, and his gestures, tho infrequent, were always
significant and graceful. He died in 1898.
CAIRD
1820-1898
RELIGION IN COMMON LIFE[4]
[4] Printed by permission of Messrs. William Blackwood & Sons,
Publishers.
_Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the
Lord._--Romans xii., 11.
When a man is learning to be a Christian, it matters not what
his particular work in life may be; the work he does is but
the copy-line set to him; the main thing to be considered is
that he learn to live well. The form is nothing, the execution
is everything. It is true, indeed, that prayer, holy reading,
meditation, the solemnities and services of the Church, are
necessary to religion, and that these can be practised only apart
from the work of secular life. But it is to be remembered that all
such holy exercises do not terminate in themselves. They are but
steps in the ladder to heaven, good only as they help us to climb.
They are the irrigation and enriching of the spiritual soil--worse
than useless if the crop become not more abundant. They are, in
short, but means to an end--good, only in so far as they help us
to be good and to do good--to glorify God and do good to man; and
that end can perhaps best be attained by him whose life is a busy
one, whose avocations bear him daily into contact with his fellows,
into the intercourse of society, into the heart of the world. No man
can be a thorough proficient in navigation who has never been at
sea, tho he may learn the theory of it at home. No man can become
a soldier by studying books on military tactics in his closet: he
must in actual service acquire those habits of coolness, courage,
discipline, address, rapid combination, without which the most
learned in the theory of strategy or engineering will be but a
schoolboy soldier after all. And, in the same way, a man in solitude
and study may become a most learned theologian, or may train himself
into the timid, effeminate piety of what is technically called "the
righteous life." But never, in the highest and holiest sense, can he
become a religious man, until he has acquired those habits of daily
self-denial, of resistance to temptation, of kindness, gentleness,
humility, sympathy, active beneficence, which are to be acquired
only in daily contact with mankind. Tell us not, then, that the
man of business, the bustling tradesman, the toil-worn laborer,
has little or no time to attend to religion. As well tell us that
the pilot, amid the winds and storms, has no leisure to attend to
navigation--or the general, on the field of battle, to the art
of war! Where will he attend to it? Religion is not a perpetual
moping over good books--religion is not even prayer, praise, holy
ordinances; these are necessary to religion--no man can be religious
without them. But religion, I repeat, is, mainly and chiefly, the
glorifying God amid the duties and trials of the world,--the guiding
our course amid the adverse winds and currents of temptation, by the
starlight of duty and the compass of divine truth,--the bearing us
manfully, wisely, courageously, for the honor of Christ, our great
Leader, in the conflict of life. Away then with the notion that
ministers and devotees may be religious, but that a religious and
holy life is impracticable in the rough and busy world! Nay rather,
believe me, that is the proper scene, the peculiar and appropriate
field for religion,--the place in which to prove that piety is not
a dream of Sundays and solitary hours; that it can bear the light
of day; that it can wear well amid the rough jostlings, the hard
struggles, the coarse contacts of common life,--the place, in one
word, to prove how possible it is for a man to be at once "not
slothful in business," and "fervent in spirit, serving the Lord."
Another consideration, which I shall adduce in support of the
assertion that it is not impossible to blend religion with the
business of common life, is this: that religion consists, not so
much in doing spiritual or sacred acts, as in doing secular acts
from a sacred or religious motive.
There is a very common tendency in our minds to classify actions
according to their outward form, rather than according to the
spirit or motive which pervades them. Literature is sometimes
arbitrarily divided into "sacred" and "profane" literature, history
into "sacred" and "profane" history,--in which classification the
term "profane" is applied, not to what is bad or unholy, but to
everything that is not technically sacred or religious--to all
literature that does not treat of religious doctrines and duties,
and to all history save church history. And we are very apt to apply
the same principle to actions. Thus in many pious minds there is a
tendency to regard all the actions of common life as so much, by an
unfortunate necessity, lost to religion. Prayer, the reading of the
Bible and devotional books, public worship--and buying, selling,
digging, sowing, bartering, money-making, are separated into two
distinct, and almost hostile, categories. The religious heart and
sympathies are thrown entirely into the former, and the latter are
barely tolerated as a bondage incident to our fallen state, but
almost of necessity tending to turn aside the heart from God.
But what God has cleansed, why should we call common or unclean? The
tendency in question, tho founded on right feeling, is surely a
mistaken one. For it is to be remembered that moral qualities reside
not in actions, but in the agent who performs them, and that it is
the spirit or motive from which we do any work that constitutes it
base or noble, worldly or spiritual, secular or sacred. The actions
of an automaton may be outwardly the same as those of a moral agent,
but who attributes to them goodness or badness? A musical instrument
may discourse sacred melodies better than the holiest lips can sing
them, but who thinks of commending it for its piety? It is the same
with actions as with places. Just as no spot or scene on earth is
in itself more or less holy than another, but the presence of a
holy heart may hallow--or a base one desecrate--any place where it
dwells; so with actions. Many actions, materially great and noble,
may yet, because of the spirit that prompts and pervades them,
be really ignoble and mean; and, on the other hand, many actions
externally mean and lowly, may, because of the state of his heart
who does them, be truly exalted and honorable. It is possible to
fill the highest station on earth, and go through the actions
pertaining to it in a spirit that degrades all its dignities, and
renders all its high and courtly doings essentially sordid and
vulgar. And it is no mere sentimentality to say that there may dwell
in a lowly mechanic's or household servant's breast a spirit that
dignifies the coarsest toils and "renders drudgery divine." Herod of
old was a slave, tho he sat upon a throne; but who will say that the
work of that carpenter's shop at Nazareth was not noble and kingly
work indeed!
A life spent amidst holy things may be intensely secular; a life,
the most of which is passed in the thick and throng of the world,
may be holy and divine. A minister, for instance, preaching,
praying, ever speaking holy words and performing sacred acts, may be
all the while doing actions no more holy than those of the printer
who prints Bibles, or of the bookseller who sells them; for, in both
cases alike, the whole affair may be nothing more than a trade. Nay,
the comparison tells worse for the former, for the secular trade is
innocent and commendable, but the trade which traffics and tampers
with holy things is, beneath all its mock solemnity, "earthly,
sensual, devilish."
So, to adduce one other example, the public worship of God is holy
work: no man can be living a holy life who neglects it. But the
public worship of God may be--and with multitudes who frequent our
churches is--degraded into work most worldly, most distasteful to
the great Object of our homage. He "to whom all hearts be open, all
desires known," discerns how many of you have come hither to-day
from the earnest desire to hold communion with the Father of
Spirits, to open your hearts to Him, to unburden yourselves in His
loving presence of the cares and crosses that have been pressing
hard upon you through the past week, and by common prayer and
praise, and the hearing of His holy Word, to gain fresh incentive
and energy for the prosecution of His work in the world; and how
many, on the other hand, from no better motive, perhaps, than
curiosity or old habit, or regard to decency and respectability, or
the mere desire to get rid of yourselves, and pass a vacant hour
that would hang heavy on your hands. And who can doubt that, where
such motives as these prevail, to the piercing, unerring inspection
of Him whom outwardly we seem to reverence, not the market-place,
the exchange, the counting-room appears a place more intensely
secular--not the most reckless and riotous festivity, a scene of
more unhallowed levity, than is presented by the house of prayer?
But, on the other hand, carry holy principles with you into the
world, and the world will become hallowed by their presence. A
Christ-like spirit will Christianize everything it touches. A meek
heart, in which the altar-fire of love to God is burning, will lay
hold of the commonest, rudest things in life, and transmute them,
like coarse fuel at the touch of fire, into a pure and holy flame.
Religion in the soul will make all the work and toil of life--its
gains and losses, friendships, rivalries, competitions--its manifold
incidents and events--the means of religious advancement. Marble
or coarse clay, it matters not much with which of these the artist
works, the touch of genius transforms the coarser material into
beauty, and lends to the finer a value it never had before. Lofty
or lowly, rude or refined, as our earthly work may be, it will
become to a holy mind only the material for something infinitely
nobler than all the creations of genius--a pure and godlike life. To
spiritualize what is material, to Christianize what is secular--this
is the noble achievement of Christian principle. If you are a
sincere Christian, it will be your great desire, by God's grace, to
bring every gift, talent, occupation of life, every word you speak,
every action you do, under the control of Christian motive. Your
conversation may not always--nay, may seldom, save with intimate
friends--consist of formally religious words; you may perhaps shrink
from the introduction of religious topics in general society; but
it demands a less amount of Christian effort occasionally to speak
religious words, than to infuse the spirit of religion into all
our words; and if the whole tenor of your common talk be pervaded
by a spirit of piety, gentleness, earnestness, sincerity, it will
be Christian conversation not the less. If God has endowed you
with intellectual gifts, it may be well if you directly devote
them to His service in the religious instruction; but a man may
be a Christian thinker and writer as much when giving to science,
or history, or biography, or poetry, a Christian tone and spirit,
as when composing sermons or writing hymns. To promote the cause
of Christ directly, by furthering every religious and missionary
enterprise at home and abroad, is undoubtedly your duty; but
remember that your duty terminates not when you have done all this,
for you may promote Christ's cause even still more effectually when
in your daily demeanor--in the family, in society, in your business
transactions, in all your common intercourse with the world--you
are diffusing the influence of Christian principle around you by
the silent eloquence of a holy life. Rise superior, in Christ's
strength, to all equivocal practises and advantages in trade;
shrink from every approach to meanness or dishonesty; let your eye,
fixed on a reward before which earthly wealth grows dim, beam with
honor; let the thought of God make you self-restrained, temperate,
watchful over speech and conduct; let the abiding sense of Christ's
redeeming love to you make you gentle, self-denying, kind, and
loving to all around you;--then indeed will your secular life become
spiritualized, whilst, at the same time, your spiritual life will
grow more fervent; then not only will your prayers become more
devout, but when the knee bends not, and the lip is silent, the
life in its heavenward tone will "pray without ceasing;" then from
amidst the roar and din of earthly toil the ear of God will hear the
sweetest anthems rising; then, finally, will your daily experience
prove that it is no high and unattainable elevation of virtue, but
a simple and natural thing, to which the text points, when it bids
us to be both "diligent in business" and "fervent in spirit, serving
the Lord."
As a last illustration of the possibility of blending religion with
the business of common life, let me call your attention to what may
be described as the mind's power of acting on latent principles.
In order to live a religious life in the world, every action must
be governed by religious motives. But in making this assertion, it
is not by any means implied that in all the familiar actions of
our daily life religion must form a direct and conscious object of
thought. To be always thinking of God, and Christ, and eternity
amidst our worldly work, and, however busy, eager, interested we
may be in the special business before us, to have religious ideas,
doctrines, beliefs, present to the mind,--this is simply impossible.
The mind can no more consciously think of heaven and earth at the
same moment than the body can be in heaven and earth at the same
moment. Moreover there are few kinds of work in the world that, to
be done well, must not be done heartily, many that require, in order
to excellence, the whole condensed force and energy of the highest
mind.
But tho it be true that we can not, in our worldly work, be
always consciously thinking of religion, yet it is also true that
unconsciously, we may be acting under its ever-present control. As
there are laws and powers in the natural world of which, without
thinking of them, we are ever availing ourselves,--as I do not think
of gravitation when I move my limbs, or of atmospheric laws when,
by means of them, I breathe, so in the routine of daily work, tho
comparatively seldom do I think of them, I may yet be constantly
swayed by the motives, sustained by the principles, living,
breathing, acting in the invisible atmosphere of true religion.
There are under-currents in the ocean which act independently of the
movements of the waters on the surface; far down too in its hidden
depths there is a region where, even tho the storm be raging on the
upper waves, perpetual calmness and stillness reign. So there may be
an under-current beneath the surface-movements of your life--there
may dwell in the secret depths of your being the abiding peace
of God, the repose of a holy mind, even tho, all the while, the
restless stir and commotion of worldly business may mark your outer
history.