CHARITY.
And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest
of these is charity.--1 COR. xiii. 13.
It must be a precious thing to be greater than _faith_, and
greater than _hope_--it must, indeed, be precious!--and, just in
proportion as things are valuable and precious amongst men, so much
trouble and risk will human speculators take to counterfeit them. I
suppose that in no department of roguery in this roguish world, has
there been more time and ingenuity expended, than in making
counterfeit money, especially bank notes. Just as wicked men have
tried to imitate the most valuable of human productions for their own
profit, so the devil has been trying to counterfeit God's most
precious things from the beginning, and to produce something so like
them that mankind at large should not see the difference, and,
perhaps, in no direction has he been so successful as in producing a
_Spurious Charity_.--I almost think he has got it to perfection
in these days. I don't think he can very well improve on the present
copy. This Charity--this love--is God's most precious treasure; it is
dearer to His heart than all the vast domains of His universe--dearer
than all the glorious beings He has created. So much so, that when
some of the highest spirits amongst the angelic bands violated this
love, He hurled them from the highest Heaven to the nethermost hell!
Why? Not because He did not value those wonderful beings, but because
He valued this _love more_. Because He saw that it was more
important to the well-being of His universe to maintain the harmony
of love in Heaven than to save those spirits who had allowed
selfishness to interfere with it. So our Lord says, "I beheld Satan
as lightning fall from Heaven."
The day is coming when He will behold all the dire progeny of this
first rebellion fall also. Haste, happy day!
But, let us look for a few minutes at this precious, beautiful
Charity. Let us try, first, to define it. What is it?
_First_.--_It is Divine_. It must be shed abroad in the heart by the
Holy Ghost.
In vain do we look for this heavenly plant amongst the unrenewed
children of men--it grows not on the corrupt soil of human nature; it
springs only where the ploughshare of true repentance has broken up
the fallow ground of the heart, and where faith in a crucified
Saviour has purified it, and where the blessed Holy Spirit has taken
permanent possession. It is the love _of_ God--not only love _to_ God,
but _like_ God, _from_ God, and fixed on the same objects and ends which
He loves. It is a Divine implantation by the Holy Ghost. Perhaps some of
you are saying, "Then it is useless for me to try to cultivate it,
because I have not got it,--exactly!" You may cut and prune and water
forever, but you can never cultivate that which is not planted. Your
first work is to get this love shed abroad in your heart. It is one of
the delusions of this age that human nature only wants pruning,
improving, developing, and it come out right. No, no! Every plant which
my Heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted up. If you want this
Divine love, you must break up the fallow ground of your hearts, and
invite the Heavenly Husbandman to come and sow it--shed it abroad in
your soul.
_Secondly_, I want you to note that this love is a Divine principle, in
contradistinction to the mere love of instinct. All men have love as an
instinct; mere natural love towards those whom they like, or who do well
for them. "If ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not
even publicans the same?" Wicked men love one another from mere natural
affinity, as the tiger loves its cubs. There is great confusion amongst
professors of religion on this subject. They feel sentiments of pity and
generosity towards their fellow-men, and they may even give their goods
to feed the poor, and yet not have a spark of Divine Charity in their
hearts. Saul, after God departed from him, was not wholly destitute of
generous feeling respecting his family and kingdom. Dives in hell had
some pity for his brethren! But neither of them had a spark of this
Divine Charity. Mind you are not deceived; millions are!
Let us note one or two points wherein a spurious and Divine Charity
utterly and forever diverge--disagree in nature.
_First._--Spurious Charity is selfish--is never exercised but
to gratify some selfish principle in human nature. Thousands of
motives inspire it--too many to enumerate; but we will glance at two
or three. We read in the context that a man might give his goods to
feed the poor, and his body to be burned, and yet be destitute of
true Charity.
Now what an anomaly. But we have wonderful illustrations that such a
thing is possible. First, a man may do this to support and carry out
a favorite system of intellectual belief of which he has become
enamored, just as men become absorbed, in politics, or in what they
consider the good of their nation, so that they will even go to the
cannon's mouth to promote it.
Further, a man may do it in order to merit eternal life. Paul did
this when he went about to establish his own righteousness. He tells
us afterwards that self was the mainspring of all his zeal. It was
all his own exaltation; there was no Divine love; he was an utterly
unrenewed, Christless, and selfish man, at the very time he was doing
this.
Or, it may be, in the third place, to gratify a naturally generous
disposition. I used to say to a generous friend of mine, when he was
talking in a confidential way about his giving, and the delight it
gave him, attributing it to Divine grace--I used to put my hand on
his, and say, "Hold! my friend; I am not so sure it is all grace. You
like giving better than other people do receiving. Look out that you
do not lose your reward through not taking the trouble to see what
you give to; don't give your money to every scheme that comes across
you. Remember that you are answerable to God for your wealth, and
that God will demand of you HOW you have bestowed your goods." That
is true Charity that takes the trouble to investigate relative
claims, and tries to find out the best channels in which to give for
God's glory and the salvation of men. Don't you put down your
generosity to the Holy Ghost if it is not of that kind, for you will
never receive a bit of interest for it, here or hereafter--not a
fraction!
A false Charity begins in self and ends on earth. Here is a mark for
you to distinguish between it and God's Charity. The devil's Charity
always contemplates the earthy part of man in a superior degree to
the spiritual part; and here it exactly crosses and contradicts the
Divine Charity, which always contemplates man in the entirety of his
being, and always gives the first importance to the soul.
We have plenty of spurious Charity in these days. The other day when
I took up a so-called "religious print," and saw some fulsome things
it had been saying about a certain individual, lately dead, I
thought, really, would one ever imagine this were a Christian paper,
in a Christian country? There is not the slightest recognition of a
soul, no reference to the man's spiritual condition or his future
state. Here are one or two of the most ordinary human qualifications
seized on, and made the most of, to make it out that he was something
beyond his fellows, but, as to any recognition of a soul, or of a God
who will judge him, of a Heaven or hell, nothing!
Oh, people say, when speaking of Godless, and even wicked men, "You
must be _charitable,_ you must not judge." Satan does not care
how much of this one-sided Charity there is; the more the better for
his purpose; it will make people all the more comfortable in their
sins, and get them all the more easily down to hell.
My friends, are you more concerned about relieving temporal distress
than you are about feeding famished souls? If you are, you may know
where your charity comes from! Don't misrepresent me, and say that I
teach all of one, and none of the other. God forbid, for, if any man
"hath this world's good, and seeth his brother have need, and
shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love
of God in him?" But, on the other side, if he sees him spiritually
famishing--dying for want of the bread of life--how dwelleth the love
of Christ in him, if he does not minister to this spiritual
destitution? I know that real Christianity cares for body and soul.
Bless God, it does; but, always mind that it sets the soul FIRST. I
know the Master fed the multitude; but, before that, He had them with
Him three days, trying to save their souls, and when they got hungry
in the process, then He made them sit down, and fed their bodies. He
always looked after the soul first, and so does everyone possessed of
Divine Charity.
Why? Because Divine Charity has opened his eyes. He realizes the
value of souls. He sees them famishing. He sees them being damned,
and he cannot help himself. His desire to save them rushes out of him
like a torrent; he beholds them, and has compassion on them. Try your
Charity by this mark: Do you contemplate the dying, famishing,
half-damned souls of your fellow-men? Do you look abroad on the state of
the world, and the state of the church? Do you think about it? Do you
go into your closet, and spread it before the Lord, as Hezekiah and
Jeremiah and Hosea did? Do you look at it, and turn it over, and weep
over it, and pray and cry, as Daniel and Paul did? Try yourselves, my
brethren, my sisters, by this mark.
Divine Charity is always revolving round that great problem of
infinite love. "What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole
world, and lose his own soul?" Oh, I can never get it out of my ears
or away from my heart! Oh, how I see the emptiness and vanity of
everything compared with the salvation of the soul! What does it
matter, if a man dies in the work-house--if he dies on a door-step,
covered with wounds, like Lazarus--what does it matter, if his soul
is saved? It is your creed as much as mine, that the soul is
immortal, and that the death of the body is only its introduction, if
it be saved, to a glorious future of everlasting felicity, progress,
and holiness. Does the child remember how he used to cry over his
lessons, when he becomes a man? Does he remember all the little
difficulties of his school days, when he is inheriting the fruits of
them? Just so; ten thousand times less important will be all our
sufferings, trials, and griefs here, if we save our souls, and the
souls of others.
This Divine Charity makes everything else subservient to the
salvation of souls; it uses everything else to save and bless the
inner and spiritual man. Do you remember, on one occasion, when the
Master had fed the multitudes, and when they came to Him again to be
fed, He said, "Ye seek Me, not because ye saw the miracles, but
because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled." You would have
said, "Quite right; the people want to be fed; they are hungry." But
do you hear the Divine lament that comes out in these words, that
they were so spiritually obtuse, that they valued the earthly bread
more than the heavenly! Give them as much temporal bread as you like,
but mind you give them the spiritual bread first, for this is
characteristic of true Charity.
Have you got this Charity? Every soul knows whether it has or not.
People are so unphilosophical in religion; they talk about not
knowing; but you can find out in two minutes whether you love God or
yourself best. Tell me that woman does not know whether she loves her
husband or herself best! Nonsense! What is the proof?--she seeks to
please him, and is willing to sacrifice herself for him--in fact,
merges her interests altogether in his. Do you love God best? Are you
willing to forego your interests, and to seek His? Have you this
Divine Charity, born of Heaven, tending to Heaven? If not, my friend,
resolve you will have it now. Begin to cry mightily to God, for the
Holy Spirit to shed it abroad in your heart; give up your quibblings
and reasonings, and go down at the foot of the cross and ask
Him,--"Come, Lord, and break up this poor, wicked heart of mine, and shed
this beautiful, pure, Divine Charity abroad in it," and then you will
not, henceforth, seek your own, but the things that are Jesus Christ's.