the prevalent ideas of the day? Who dreams now of warfare in the cause
of Christian truth? Is not Christianity pre-eminently the religion of
peace and love? Must we reject and oppose, as unsound or heretical,
every thing that does not happen to fall within the limits of our own
particular belief? May not every man hold his own opinion without
assailing that of another man? Is not the gospel platform broad enough
to afford room for all? Earnestly contend? "This is a hard saying; who
can hear it?" I answer: there is one faith delivered, not many faiths;
there is one system of divine truth revealed, not many systems. That
one faith, that one system, whatever it is, we are required to adopt
and maintain, to keep as we would keep a treasure, to guard as we would
guard the crown-jewels of our King, to fight for as we would fight for
what is dearer to us than life, and devote ourselves with the zeal of
martyrs to its propagation among those who are ignorant of the
blessing. The apostles knew nothing of compromise in matters of faith,
and they bequeathed an unfinished warfare to their followers; who
maintained the cause heroically, among sages and savages, in temples
and dungeons, before thrones and tribunals, on the rack and amid the
flames. All this, we know, is the very opposite of the popular
sentiment of the age. Few among us seem to have any conception of a
Christian's duty to defend the truth as it is in Jesus "to the last of
their blood and their breath," battling and dying for a creed. The
spear and the shield of the warrior are laid aside, and the trumpet no
longer sounds for the battle, because peace is deemed more precious
than purity, and controversy is more deprecated than false doctrine,
and a man's belief is regarded as having nothing to do with his conduct
and his character. But the apostles knew that the Church held a trust
which involved inevitable warfare, and would turn the world into a
battle-ground. This trust they transmitted, through their successors,
from generation to generation, to us; and we are signed with the sign
of the cross in baptism, as a token of our consecration to "the good
fight of faith." The struggle may be strenuous as that of the wrestler
in the arena, or fierce as that of the hero in the marshalled host; but
this is every man's duty, to maintain the faith against all assailants,
and strive to win for it a home in every human heart. Do men light a
candle to put it under a bushel or a bed? Does the sun refuse to shine
lest he should offend the bat or blind the owl? And shall the Christian
conceal his faith or suppress his convictions to please those who hate
the light because their deeds are evil? Nay, let him proclaim it boldly
and defend it bravely, like a knight-banneret in the army of the Lord
of hosts; and, whatever the cost, let him urge its claims with becoming
zeal upon all whom his voice can reach. To neglect this is not charity,
but apathy; not humility, but lukewarmness; not liberality of opinion,
but infidelity to Christ. "The Lord hath spoken; who can but prophesy?"
Christ hath commanded us to proselyte all nations; shall we be recreant
to our responsibility? What value do we set upon the faith which we are
not willing to defend--which we attempt not to teach to the world?
Where is his love for man, or his loyalty to Christ, who says nothing,
does nothing, gives nothing, for the diffusion of this heavenly light?
His creed may be right, but his life is wrong. He may have a Christian
head, but he has no Christian heart. He entertains the faith as a
guest, but he does not fight for it as a prize.
Here, then, is the lesson of the text: our duty, the duty of all
Christians, to contend earnestly for the dogmatic faith of the Church.
Amid the deluge of ignorance and error and sin, this is the only ark of
safety. Amid the mighty conflict of human speculations and
philosophies, this is the only evangel of hope. From the beginning the
faith has ever had its enemies and assailants. Wherever angels lodge,
the Sodomites will batter at the door. All along through the ages, the
saints have had to fight for the one faith, and they must fight for it
to the end. Oh! not of peaceful homes, and tranquil communities, and
brethren dwelling together in unity, do the words of the apostle
breathe; but of divided tongues, and imbittered spirits, and the
tenderest relations of life bristling around us like the iron front of
battle; and as one who rides along the line of his marshalled host, he
shouts to us across the centuries, and bids us earnestly contend for
the faith. All those sublime verities for which "the noble army of
martyrs" bled, are committed to the vigilance and championship not only
of the clergy, but of each baptized believer. Some are to vindicate
them by argument; all by practical exhibitions of their regenerating
power. Who does not kindle at the thought of being associated in such a
struggle with St. Paul and St. John, with Ignatius and Polycarp, with
Athanasius and Augustine--men whose names yet thrill the hearts of
millions? Now let us have done with concessions. Away with truce and
armistice. The faith is worth the conflict. None can afford to be
neutral. We must all fight or perish. Look practically, then, at the
solemn necessity before you. "Multitudes, multitudes, in the valley of
decision; for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision."
Arise, my brethren, armed with the whole armor of God, and go forth to
battle! Remember that the saints of all ages are with you; that the
victor Lamb is the captain of your host; that the weapons of your
warfare are mighty through God; that your guerdon is an unfading crown
of glory, and your destined home a house eternal in the heavens! Go and
contend for the faith, as those contended who now sleep in Jesus! Go
and battle valiantly under his banner, who hath promised you a seat in
his throne!
[1] Preached at a convocation, Illinois, 1874.
XX.
THE FRUITLESS FIG-TREE.[1]
How soon is the fig-tree withered away!--Matt. xxi. 20.
Next Friday we follow our Saviour to the cross. The last few days
before his death are crowded with some of the most significant acts of
his ministry. One of these we are now called to contemplate--the
withering of the fruitless fig-tree by his word. To-day being the
anniversary of that event, it is appropriately chosen as the theme of
our discourse. Like all the other miracles of our Lord, this is a
parable in action. The fruitless tree represents the Jewish people, and
its fate foreshadows their terrible doom. In this interpretation we are
warranted by a parable of the divine Teacher uttered a few days
earlier--that of the barren fig-tree in the vineyard, for which the
vine-dresser intercedes with the proprietor and obtains a further
probation. The apostles, who had heard the parable and now saw the
miracle, could scarcely fail to connect the one with the other, and to
refer both to the infidelity and fearful punishment of the chosen
people, as they exclaimed--"How soon is the fig-tree withered away!"
Fifteen hundred years before, God had brought a goodly shoot out of
Egypt, and planted it in a very fruitful hill, and hedged it about with
wondrous providences, and watered it with constant dews and seasonable
rains, and enriched the soil around it with a thousand gracious
appliances, and waited on it patiently with a careful and diligent
husbandry. And it sent down its roots deep into the earth, and threw up
its leafy branches high toward heaven, and gave good promise of
abundant fruit. Then he sent his prophets to prune it, and stir the
soil around it, and watch over it night and day. And the wild beast
that gnawed its bark was pierced by the arrow of the Almighty, and the
hand that raised an axe against it fell smitten by the lightning of
heaven. But, instead of producing figs, it wasted its luxuriant life in
leaves. Then came the Proprietor in person, hungering for the fruit of
his labor; and, finding none, he tarried and toiled with it three
years, and watered with frequent tears its deceitful foliage. But all
was in vain, and he was forced at last to pronounce its doom, and leave
it blasted and decaying upon its fruitful hill.
Let us drop the figure. Never before the incarnation was there another
people so highly favored as the Hebrews. God chose them for his own,
and established his covenant with them, and talked with them from
heaven, and dwelt in their midst upon the mercy-seat, and led them
forty years with a pillar of cloud and fire in the wilderness, and
smote every enemy that rose up against them, and exterminated mighty
nations to make room for them in Canaan, and brought them into the
goodly land which he had promised to their fathers--a land flowing with
milk and honey, which he gave them for a perpetual inheritance. But how
often they forgot his covenant, and forsook his ordinances, and turned
aside after other gods, and provoked him to anger with their
inventions! Then he hewed them by the prophets and chastised them by
the heathen, but they would not return from their evil ways. He
permitted their cities to be sacked, their young men to be slain in
battle, their virgins to be carried away captive, and their kings to
serve in chains at the tables of the uncircumcised. When they returned
to him with weeping and supplication, he returned to them with
loving-kindness and tender mercies. "Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he a
pleasant child? For since I spake against him, I do earnestly remember
him still. Therefore my heart is troubled for him. I will surely have
mercy upon him, saith the Lord."
But after all, when Christ came, he found only fruitless foliage upon
his long-cherished fig-tree. Mint, anise, and cummin were scrupulously
tithed; but the weightier matters of the law--judgment, mercy and
faith--were altogether neglected and forgotten. The phylacteries were
large, the prayers were loud and long, the chief seats in the synagogue
were always occupied, and no poor man in vain stretched forth his hand
for alms; but the religion of the Jew ran all to superstitious
observances and ostentatious formalities, divine precepts were
sacrificed to human traditions, a nation of hypocrites could not
produce the fruits of righteousness; and, given up at last to the
grossest self-delusion, they rejected their King and crucified the Lord
of glory. How graciously he had labored! how anxiously he had watched
and waited! and yet there was no grateful return for all his arduous
toil and loving care. But is he willing to cut down the worthless tree,
or blast it with his curse? See! he is crossing the ridge of Olivet on
his way to Jerusalem, riding in triumph amidst the acclamations of the
multitude who have witnessed his miracles and confessed his
Messiahship, his path carpeted with their garments and covered with
branches of the palm. Reaching the brow of the hill, he looks down upon
the beautiful city, lying like a jewelled crown before him. He thinks
of all his labor for her children, and all their base ingratitude and
suicidal unbelief. He knows that those who are now shouting him on his
way with hosannahs will soon be clamoring for his crucifixion and
mocking around his cross. Full well he knows that the chosen race will
shortly have filled up the measure of their guilt, and wrath will come
upon them to the uttermost. And as the vision of their ruin rises upon
the eye of his spirit, with the long ages of unparalleled tribulation
and despair which must succeed the catastrophe of the beloved city, he
weeps as only Infinite Compassion can weep, and laments as only an
incarnate God can lament:--"Oh that thou hadst known, even thou, at
least in this thy day, the things which belong to thy peace! but now
they are hid from thine eyes; for the days shall come upon thee, when
thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and shall keep thee in on
every side, and shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children
within thee, and shall not leave in thee one stone upon another,
because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation." In about sixty
years all is fulfilled--the temple burned, the streets heaped with the
dead, the plough driven over the ruins, and the hopeless remnant of a
reprobate race scattered in isolated exile over the face of the earth.
The curse has fallen, and "how soon is the fig-tree withered away!"
And we, my brethren--shall we not take warning from the fate of the
unfaithful people? "Dried up from the roots," the old Jewish tree has
been torn from the soil and cast into the fire; and we--alien shoots
from without the enclosure--have been transplanted into the vineyard of
the Lord. Disinherited and undone, the murderers of God's Messiah are
strangers and fugitives to-day over the face of the planet; but we have
succeeded to their inheritance, glorified with new revelations of grace
and truth. Baptized into a better covenant, with a better Mediator than
Moses, we rejoice in the mercies and immunities of a better theocracy
than Israel ever knew. In the midst of our camp Jehovah has pitched his
tabernacle; and by the more glorious ministration of the Spirit,
through the word and sacraments of an everlasting testament, he is
seeking to make us fruitful in righteousness and true holiness. Brought
nigh to God by adoption and regeneration, we become heirs of his
kingdom and joint-heirs with his first-born--partakers of his life and
expectants of his immortality. And now we have enjoyed another season
of merciful visitation, and the daily services of Lent have been like
vernal sun and shower to the fig-tree. Have we borne fruit, or only
leaves? Has our penitential humiliation been real and effectual, or
only feigned and perfunctory? Have these thirty-six days in the holy
mount deepened our communion with God and intensified our love of
holiness? Are we purer and wiser than we were on
Ash-Wednesday--stronger to resist evil and do good--more like Christ in
meekness and charity and self-denial? Be assured, my dear brethren,
that your privileges bring with them a fearful responsibility. If you
have received the grace of God in vain, your Lent has been a curse, and
not a blessing; and the mercies by which you have failed to profit have
enhanced unspeakably your condemnation. "He that knoweth his master's
will, and doeth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes;" and "he
that, being often reproved, hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be
destroyed, and that without remedy." Ah! how many of us have no heart
for the service of God--no pleasure in that which enraptures the
seraphim! Conscience impels them one way, but inclination draws them
more powerfully the other; and duty is constantly sacrificed to carnal
gratifications, worldly interests, and vain ambitions. They fear God,
but love him not; and though they cannot sin without a tremor, the
tremor is not strong enough to repress the sin. Generally at church,
they do all they can to support the public worship and encourage the
heart of the clergy; but here ends their all of duty, their all of
practical religion, their all of gratitude for the unspeakable love of
Christ--mere foliage without any satisfying fruit.
And what can the end be but a blasting malediction from the Master?
Long, indeed, may he continue his merciful efforts to make such
Christians fruitful; but when his grace is habitually rejected or
perverted--when his Holy Spirit is forced to strive in vain with an
obdurate heart and a will obstinately set on evil--he will withhold his
favors, or grant them less frequently and in inferior measure.
Meanwhile sins multiply, bad habits grow stronger, the roots of vice
strike deeper, and its branches grow broader and higher; till at length
comes the hot wind from the desert, beneath which every green thing
becomes crisp and sear. Christ rejected, there remaineth no more
sacrifice for sin, and he who has lived in impenitence dies in despair.
Oh! when conscience presents the long catalogue of uncancelled crimes,
and only a few moments of wasted life remain, what can the dying sinner
do? When his broken vows, abused mercies, and neglected opportunities,
through all the corridors of memory come trooping up like the vengeful
ghosts of the murdered, whither will he fly for refuge? Or the advent
of the last enemy may be a sudden surprise, unexpected as the crash of
a ship under full sail upon some sunken rock; launching the poor soul,
all unprovided, with a shudder and a shriek into an unsounded sea. Or
if a little space be given the delinquent, yet through the violence of
his disorder the mind may be quite incapable of a rational repentance,
drifting like the wrecked mariner upon a spar at the mercy of wind and
wave. But in whatever form and with whatever circumstances Death may
come, he comes ever to the impenitent as an avenger--avenger of God's
neglected mercy--avenger of Christ's insulted love; and a fearful thing
it is--fearful beyond all power of language to express--to die without
hope in Christ and unreconciled to God. Oh! to be forced out at
midnight, amidst howling tempests and roaring billows--no compass to
guide nor star to cheer--on the eternal voyage! Beware, then, beloved,
lest that come upon you which our blessed Lord foretold of those who
rejected his mission: "Ye shall die in your sins, and where I am ye
cannot come."
With only two exceptions, Christ's recorded miracles are all works of
mercy, wrought for the relief of suffering and the consolation of
sorrow; and even these exceptions, which may be called miracles of
judgment--performed, the one upon irrational animals, and the other on
an insensible tree--show the aversion of his tender heart to severity
and vengeance. He is long-suffering, unwilling that any should perish,
desiring that all should be saved and come to the knowledge of the
truth. He smites only where he cannot cure. As long as there is any
hope of reformation, he spares the unthankful and the evil; and never,
till all possibility of salvation is past, does he visit the
incorrigible with punishment. Justice must have its claim as well as
mercy; and, mercy rejected, justice must avenge. The terribleness of
the retribution makes nothing against its righteousness; and though it
send a tremor through all the worlds of God, the obstinate transgressor
shall not go unpunished. Very terrible indeed it is, and imagination
staggers beneath the apprehension of the wrath of the Lamb; but
terrible also was the deluge, and the fate of Sodom, and the slaughter
of the Egyptian first-born, and the overthrow of Pharaoh and his host,
and the end of Korah and his mutinous company, and the destruction of
seventy thousand Israelites at a stroke, and the death of a hundred and
eighty-five thousand Assyrians in a single night, and the sudden
catastrophe of Nineveh and Babylon with all their pomp and their power,
and the wrath which fell in its manifold final infliction upon the
chosen people when the day of their merciful visitation was over and
ended; but the terribleness of the vengeance did not stay the avenging
hand of Justice, when Mercy, with broken heart, retired and left the
guilty to their fate. And the dawn of the last day will be terrible,
and the coming of the Son of man will be terrible, and the destruction
of the Antichrist will be terrible, and the conflagration of the
universe will be terrible, and terrible beyond all precedent the
punishment of reprobate impenitence when the Lord Jesus with his holy
angels shall be revealed from heaven in flaming fire! The tree may long
lift its green boughs to the sun and toss its gay blossoms to the
breeze; but when the Master comes for fruit and finds nothing but a
deceitful promise, smitten with his curse it shall quickly wither away.
Let us make haste to avert the vengeance. In this our gracious
day--this clement mediatorial hour--let us invoke the Holy Spirit to
aid us in bringing forth fruit meet for repentance. Think not that the
work will be easier in coming years, when passion is weakened, and
temptation is lessened, and coercive grace comes to conquer the rebel
will and reclaim the alien heart. Alas! by every hour's delay you are
riveting the fetters of evil habit, and multiplying and consolidating
the barriers to your salvation; and the special grace for which you
wait will never come till God shall revise his evangel and Christ
change the whole economy of his kingdom. Now is your time for
conversion, and a better moment will never occur between this and
eternity. Hark! it is the voice of the Master: "Cut it down! why
cumbereth it the ground?" Hark! it is the voice of the Vine-dresser:
"Lord! let it alone till another Lent! I will renew my efforts; I will
redouble my endeavors; I will try some new expedients; peradventure
next year will reward thy forbearance with the long-expected fruit!"
Oh! prayer of crucified compassion! shall it not be answered? Oh!
prophecy of ill-requited mercy! shall it not be fulfilled? Beloved, it
is for you to say. God hath spoken, and uttered all his heart.
Henceforth all depends upon yourselves. Answer your Saviour's prayer,
fulfil your Saviour's prophecy, and so avert the judgment of
unfruitfulness; or else prepare for the unutterable alternative--your
Saviour's blighting curse!
[1] Preached at a parochial mission in Memphis, Tenn., 1876.
XXI.
CHRISTIAN CONTENTMENT.[1]
I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be
content.--Phil. iv. 11.
An instance of the moral sublime, which none can fail to admire, and
all should endeavor to emulate. What an ornament of the gospel is such
a spirit! What a commendation of Christianity is such a testimony! No
human philosophy, no stoical indifference, no diligence of
self-discipline, ever elevated the soul of man to so serene and pure an
atmosphere--nothing but that religion which the Son of God brought with
him from heaven to earth, the tendency and design of which is to raise
its human subjects from earth to heaven. "I have learned, in whatsoever
state I am, therewith to be content."
Contentment is satisfaction with one's lot or condition. The word
conveys the idea of fulness and sufficiency. It is opposed to envy,
which is displeased with the prosperity of others. It is opposed to
ambition, which is not satisfied with equality, but aspires to
superiority. It is opposed to avarice, which grasps all it can reach,
keeps all it obtains, and "sayeth not it is enough." It is opposed to
anxiety, which is always taking needless thought for the morrow,
saying, "What shall we eat? what shall we drink? and wherewithal shall
we be clothed?" It is opposed to murmuring and repining, which is an
ungrateful distrust of God, an unjust arraignment of his providence, an
impious impeachment of his wisdom and goodness, a presumptuous spirit
of rebellion against his righteous government.
St. Paul's statement seems to express complete and perfect
satisfaction. In the highest sense this is applicable only to Jehovah,
who is El Shaddai, God All-sufficient. But in a lower sense it is true,
to a greater or less degree, of all good men. They have no sufficiency
in themselves, but their sufficiency is of God. Of his fulness they
have all received--the unsearchable riches of Christ. With the fatness
of his house they are abundantly satisfied, and he makes them drink
from the river of his pleasures. This is the only satisfying portion of
the soul. Without this, men may be indifferent--may be jovial and
reckless; but these are not contentment--are perhaps the very opposites
of contentment; indifference, the sullen obstinacy of a perverse and
rebellious will, as far from contentment as it is from submission;
jovial recklessness, the effort of a restless heart to throw off its
burden of care and trouble--the revolt of the whole man against
Providence and against conscience. But when Divine Love brings us to
its banqueting-house, and God becomes our shield and exceeding great
reward, then the fluctuating soul returns to its native rest, like
Naphthali satisfied with favor and full with the blessing of the Lord.
When the apostle says--"I have learned, in whatsoever state I am,
therewith to be content," no one can imagine that he refers to his
former state of sin; for of that he constantly speaks in terms of
strong regret, and as long as he lived he never ceased to sorrow for
the evil he had done. Nor are we to suppose that he means to express
his full satisfaction with his present state of grace; for he is always
hungering and thirsting after the fulness of God; and no Christian can
be fully satisfied with his spiritual attainments till he awakes in the
likeness of his Lord.
If there can be any doubt of the apostle's meaning, the verses
immediately following may solve it: "I know both how to be abased and
how to abound; everywhere, and in all things, I am instructed both to
be full and to be hungry, to abound and to suffer need; I can do all
things through Christ which strengtheneth me." These several conditions
he had tested by experience; and found himself able, by the grace of
God, to maintain a calm and unperturbed spirit amidst all their trying
vicissitudes: thoroughly assured that all were ordered or overruled by
Infinite Wisdom and Love, and must therefore work together for his good.