sentence--for ideas cannot be properly contrasted which have not some
connection--but what that connection is, is not at first sight clear.
It almost appears like a profane and irreverent juxtaposition to
contrast fulness of the Spirit with fulness of wine. Moreover, the
structure of the whole context is antithetical. Ideas are opposed to
each other in pairs of contraries; for instance, "fools" is the exact
opposite to "wise;" "unwise," as opposed to "understanding," its
proper opposite.
And here again, there must be the same true antithesis between
drunkenness and spiritual fulness. The propriety of this opposition
lies in the intensity of feeling produced in both, cases. There is one
intensity of feeling produced by stimulating the senses, another by
vivifying the spiritual life within. The one commences with impulses
from without, the other is guarded by forces from within. Here then is
the similarity, and here the dissimilarity, which constitutes the
propriety of the contrast. One is ruin, the other salvation. One
degrades, the other exalts. This contrast then is our subject for
to-day.
I. The effects are similar. On the day of Pentecost, when the first
influences of the Spirit descended on the early Church, the effects
resembled intoxication. They were full of the Spirit, and mocking
bystanders said, "These men are full of new wine;" for they found
themselves elevated into the ecstasy of a life higher than their
own, possessed of powers which they could not control; they spoke
incoherently and irregularly; to the most part of those assembled,
unintelligibly.
Now compare with this the impression produced upon savage
nations--suppose those early ages in which the spectacle of
intoxication was presented for the first time. They saw a man under
the influence of a force different from and in some respects inferior
to, their own. To them the bacchanal appeared a being half inspired;
his frenzy seemed a thing for reverence and awe, rather than for
horror and disgust; the spirit which possessed him must be they
thought, divine; they deified it, worshipped it under different names
as a god; even to a clearer insight the effects are wonderfully
similar. It is almost proverbial among soldiers that the daring
produced by wine is easily mistaken for the self-devotion of a brave
heart.
The play of imagination in the brain of the opium-eater is as free as
that of genius itself, and the creations produced in that state by the
pen or pencil are as wildly beautiful as those owed to the nobler
influences. In years gone by, the oratory of the statesman in the
senate has been kindled by semi-intoxication, when his noble
utterances were set down by his auditors to the inspiration of
patriotism.
It is this very resemblance which deceives the drunkard: he is led on
by his feelings as well as by his imagination. It is not the sensual
pleasure of the glutton that fascinates him; it is those fine thoughts
and those quickened sensibilities which were excited in that state,
which he is powerless to produce out of his own being, or by his own
powers, and which he expects to reproduce by the same means. The
experience of our first parent is repeated in him: at the very moment
when he expects to find himself as the gods, knowing good and evil, he
discovers that he is unexpectedly degraded, his health wrecked, and
his heart demoralized. Hence it is almost as often the finer as the
baser spirits of our race which are found the victims of such
indulgence. Many will remember while I speak, the names of the gifted
of their species, the degraded men of genius who were the victims of
these deceptive influences. The half-inspired painter, poet, musician,
who began by soothing opiates to calm the over-excited nerves, or
stimulate the exhausted brain, who mistook the sensation for somewhat
half divine, and became morally and physically wrecks of manhood,
degraded even in their mental conceptions. It was therefore, no mere
play of words which induced the apostle to bring these two things
together. That which might else seem irreverent appears to have been
a deep knowledge of human nature; he contrasts, because his rule was
to distinguish two things which are easily mistaken for each other.
2. The second point of resemblance is the necessity of intense
feeling. We have fulness--fulness, it may be, produced by outward
stimulus, or else by an inpouring of the Spirit. What we want is life,
"more life, and fuller." To escape from monotony, to get away from the
life of mere routine and habits, to feel that we are alive--with more
of surprise and wakefulness in our existence. To have less of the
gelid, torpid, tortoise-like existence. "To feel the years before us."
To be consciously existing.
Now this desire lies at the bottom of many forms of life which are
apparently as diverse as possible. It constitutes the fascination of
the gambler's life: money is not what he wants--were he possessed of
thousands to-day he would risk them all to-morrow--but it is that
being perpetually on the brink of enormous wealth and utter ruin, he
is compelled to realize at every moment the possibility of the
extremes of life. Every moment is one of feeling. This too,
constitutes the charm of all those forms of life in which the gambling
feeling is predominant--where a sense of skill is blended with a
mixture of chance. If you ask the statesman why it is, that possessed
as he is of wealth, he quits his princely home for the dark
metropolis, he would reply, "That he loves the excitement of a
political existence." It is this too, which gives to the warrior's and
the traveller's existence such peculiar reality; and it is this in a
far lower form which stimulates the pleasure of a fashionable
life--which sends the votaries of the world in a constant round from
the capital to the watering place, and from the watering place to the
capital; what they crave for is the power of feeling intensely.
Now the proper and natural outlet for this feeling is the life of the
Spirit. What is religion but fuller life? To live in the Spirit, what
is it but to have keener feelings and mightier powers--to rise into a
higher consciousness of life? What is religion's self but feeling? The
highest form of religion is charity. Love is of God, and he that
loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. This is an intense feeling,
too intense to be excited, profound in its calmness, yet it rises at
times in its higher flights into that ecstatic life which glances in a
moment intuitively through ages. These are the pentecostal hours of
our existence, when the Spirit comes as a mighty rushing wind, in
cloven tongues of fire, filling the soul with God.
II. The dissimilarity or contrast in St. Paul's idea. The one fulness
begins from without, the other from within. The one proceeds from the
flesh and then influences the emotions. The other reverses this order.
Stimulants like wine, inflame the senses, and through them set the
imaginations and feelings on fire; and the law of our spiritual being
is, that that which begins with the flesh, sensualizes the
Spirit--whereas that which commences in the region of the Spirit,
spiritualizes the senses in which it subsequently stirs emotion. But
the misfortune is that men mistake this law of their emotions; and the
fatal error is, when having found spiritual feelings existing in
connection, and associated with, fleshly sensations, men expect by the
mere irritation of the emotions of the frame to reproduce those high
and glorious feelings.
You might conceive the recipients of the Spirit on the day of
Pentecost acting under this delusion; it is conceiveable that having
observed certain bodily phenomena--for instance, incoherent utterances
and thrilled sensibilities coexisting with those sublime
spiritualities--they might have endeavoured, by a repetition of those
incoherencies, to obtain a fresh descent of the Spirit. In fact, this
was exactly what was tried in after ages of the Church. In those
events of church history which are denominated revivals, in the camp
of the Methodist and the Ranter, a direct attempt was made to arouse
the emotions by exciting addresses and vehement language. Convulsions,
shrieks, and violent emotions, were produced, and the unfortunate
victims of this mistaken attempt to produce the cause by the effect,
fancied themselves, and were pronounced by others, converted. Now the
misfortune is, that this delusion is the more easy from the fact that
the results of the two kinds of causes resemble each other. You may
galvanize the nerve of a corpse till the action of a limb startles the
spectator with the appearance of life. It is not life, it is only a
spasmodic hideous mimicry of life. Men having seen that the spiritual
is always associated with forms, endeavour by reproducing the forms to
recall spirituality; you do produce thereby a something that looks
like spirituality, but it is a resemblance only. The worst case of all
occurs in the department of the affections. That which begins in the
heart ennobles the whole animal being, but that which begins in the
inferior departments of our being is the most entire degradation and
sensualizing of the soul.
Now it is from this point of thought that we learn to extend the
apostle's principle. Wine is but a specimen of a class of stimulants.
All that begins from _without_ belongs to the same class. The stimulus
may be afforded by almost any enjoyment of the senses. Drunkenness may
come from anything wherein is excess: from over-indulgence in society,
in pleasure, in music, and in the delight of listening to oratory,
nay, even from the excitement of sermons and religious meetings. The
prophet tells us of those who are drunken, and not with wine.
The other point of difference is one of effect. Fulness of the Spirit
calms; fulness produced by excitement satiates and exhausts. They who
know the world of fashion tell us that the tone adopted there is,
either to be, or to affect to be, sated with enjoyment, to be proof
against surprise, to have lost all keenness of enjoyment, and to have
all keenness of wonder gone. That which ought to be men's shame
becomes their boast--unsusceptibility of any fresh emotion.
Whether this be real or affected matters not; it is, in truth, the
real result of the indulgence of the senses. The law is this: the
"crime of sense is avenged by sense which wears with time;" for it has
been well remarked that the terrific punishment attached to the
habitual indulgence of the senses is, that the incitements to
enjoyment increase in proportion as the power of enjoyment fades.
Experience at last forbids even the hope of enjoyment; the sin of the
intoxicated soul is loathed, detested, abhorred; yet it is done. The
irritated sense, like an avenging fury, goads on with a restlessness
of craving, and compels a reiteration of the guilt though it has
ceased to charm.
To this danger our own age is peculiarly exposed. In the earlier and
simpler ages, the need of keen feeling finds a natural and safe outlet
in compulsory exertions. For instance, in the excitement of real
warfare, and in the necessity of providing the sustenance of life,
warlike habits and healthy labour stimulate, without exhausting life.
But in proportion as civilization advances, a large class of the
community are exempted from the necessity of these, and thrown upon a
life of leisure. Then it is that artificial life begins, and
artificial expedients become necessary to sharpen the feelings amongst
the monotony of existence; every amusement and all literature become
more pungent in their character; life is no longer a thing proceeding
from powers _within_, but sustained by new impulses from without.
There is one peculiar form of this danger to which I would specially
direct your attention. There is one nation in Europe which, more than
any other, has been subjected to these influences. In ages of
revolution, nations live fast; centuries of life are passed in fifty
years of time. In such a state, individuals become subjected more or
less to the influences which are working around them. Scarcely an
enjoyment or a book can be met with which does not bear the impress of
this intensity. Now, the particular danger to which I allude is French
novels, French romances, and French plays. The overflowings of that
cup of excitement have reached our shores. I do not say that these
works contain anything coarse or gross--better if it were so: evil
which comes in a form of grossness is not nearly so dangerous as that
which comes veiled in gracefulness and sentiment. Subjects which are
better not touched upon at all are discussed, examined, and exhibited
in all the most seductive forms of imagery. You would be shocked at
seeing your son in a fit of intoxication; yet, I say it solemnly,
better that your son should reel through the streets in a fit of
drunkenness, than that the delicacy of your daughter's mind should be
injured, and her imagination inflamed with false fire. Twenty-four
hours will terminate the evil in the one case. Twenty-four hours will
not exhaust the effects of the other; you must seek the consequences
at the end of many, many years.
I speak that which I do know; and if the earnest warning of one who
has seen the dangers of which he speaks realized, can reach the heart
of one Christian parent, he will put a ban on all such works, and not
suffer his children's hearts to be excited by a drunkenness which is
worse than that of wine. For the worst of it is, that the men of our
time are not yet alive to this growing evil; they are elsewhere--in
their studies, counting-houses, professions--not knowing the food, or
rather poison, on which their wives' and daughters' intellectual life
is sustained. It is precisely those who are most unfitted to sustain
the danger, whose feelings need restraint instead of spur, and whose
imaginations are most inflammable, that are specially exposed to it.
On the other hand, spiritual life calms while it fills. True it is
that there are pentecostal moments when such life reaches the stage of
ecstasy. But these were given to the Church to prepare her for
suffering, to give her martyrs a glimpse of blessedness, which might
sustain them afterwards in the terrible struggles of death. True it is
that there are pentecostal hours when the soul is surrounded by a kind
of glory, and we are tempted to make tabernacles upon the Mount, as if
life were meant for rest; but out of that very cloud there comes a
voice telling of the Cross, and bidding us descend into the common
world again, to simple duties and humble life. This very principle
seems to be contained in the text. The apostle's remedy for this
artificial feeling is--"Speaking to one another in psalms and hymns,
and spiritual songs."
Strange remedy! Occupation fit for children--too simple far for men:
as astonishing as the remedy prescribed by the prophet to Naaman--to
wash in simple water, and be clean; yet therein lies a very important
truth. In ancient medical phraseology, herbs possessed of healing
natures were called simples: in God's laboratory, all things that heal
are simple--all natural enjoyments--all the deepest--are simple too.
At night, man fills his banquet-hall with the glare of splendour which
fevers as well as fires the heart; and at the very same hour, as if by
intended contrast, the quiet stars of God steal forth, shedding,
together with the deepest feeling, the profoundest sense of calm. One
from whose knowledge of the sources of natural feeling there lies
almost no appeal, has said that to him,
"The meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that too often lie too deep for tears."
This is exceedingly remarkable in the life of Christ. No contrast is
more striking than that presented by the thought, that that deep and
beautiful Life was spent in the midst of mad Jerusalem. Remember the
Son of man standing quietly in the porches of Bethesda, when the
streets all around were filled with the revelry of innumerable
multitudes, who had come to be present at the annual feast. Remember
Him pausing to weep over his country's doomed metropolis, unexcited,
while the giddy crowd around Him were shouting "Hosanna to the Son of
David!" Remember Him in Pilate's judgment-hall, meek, self-possessed,
standing in the serenity of Truth, while all around Him was
agitation--hesitation in the breast of Pilate, hatred in the bosom of
the Pharisees, and consternation in the heart of the disciples.
And this in truth, is what we want: we want the vision of a calmer
and simpler Beauty, to tranquillize us in the midst of artificial
tastes--we want the draught of a purer spring to cool the flame of our
excited life;--we want in other words, the Spirit of the Life of
Christ, simple, natural, with power to calm and soothe the feelings
which it rouses: the fulness of the Spirit which can never intoxicate!
X.
_Preached August 11, 1850._
PURITY.
"Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled
and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and
conscience is defiled."--Titus i. 15.
For the evils of this world there are two classes of remedies--one is
the world's, the other is God's. The world proposes to remedy evil by
adjusting the circumstances of this life to man's desires. The world
says, give us a perfect set of _circumstances_, and then we shall have
a set of perfect men. This principle lies at the root of the system
called Socialism. Socialism proceeds on the principle that all moral
and even physical evil arises from unjust laws. If the cause be
remedied, the effect will be good. But Christianity throws aside all
that as merely chimerical. It proves that the fault is not in outward
circumstances, but in ourselves. Like the wise physician, who, instead
of busying himself with transcendental theories to improve the
climate, and the outward circumstances of man, endeavours to relieve
and get rid of the tendencies of disease which are from within,
Christianity, leaving all outward circumstances to ameliorate
themselves, fastens its attention on the spirit which has to deal with
them. Christ has declared that the kingdom of heaven is from within.
He said to the Pharisee, "Ye make clean the outside of the cup and
platter, but within ye are full of extortion and excess." The remedy
for all this is a large and liberal charity, so overflowing that "Unto
the pure all things are pure." To internal purity all external things
_become_ pure. The principle that St. Paul has here laid down is, that
each man is the creator of his own world; he walks in a universe of
his own creation.
As the free air is to one out of health the cause of cold and diseased
lungs, so to the healthy man it is a source of greater vigour. The
rotten fruit is sweet to the worm, but nauseous to the palate of man.
It is the same air and the same fruit acting differently upon
different beings. To different men a different world--to one all
pollution--to another all purity. To the noble all things are noble,
to the mean all things are contemptible.
The subject divides itself into two parts.
I. The apostle's principle.
II. The application of the principle.
Here we have the same principle again; each man creates his own world.
Take it in its simplest form. The eye creates the outward world it
sees. We see not things as they are, but as God has made the eye to
receive them.
In its strictest sense, the creation of a new man is the creation of a
new universe. Conceive an eye so constructed as that the planets and
all within them should be minutely seen, and all that is near should
be dim and invisible like things seen through a telescope, or as we
see through a magnifying glass the plumage of the butterfly, and the
bloom upon the peach; then it is manifestly clear that we have called
into existence actually a new _creation_, and not new objects. The
mind's eye creates a world for itself.
Again, the visible world presents a different aspect to each
individual man. You will say that the same things you see are seen by
all--that the forest, the valley, the flood, and the sea, are the same
to all; and yet all these things so seen, to different minds are a
myriad of different universes. One man sees in that noble river an
emblem of eternity; he closes his lips and feels that GOD is
there. Another sees nothing in it but a very convenient road for
transporting his spices, silks, and merchandise. To one this world
appears useful, to another beautiful. Whence comes the difference?
From the soul within us. It can make of this world a vast chaos--"a
mighty maze without a plan;" or a mere machine--a collection of
lifeless forces; or it can make it the Living Vesture of GOD,
the tissue through which He can become visible to us. In the spirit in
which we look on it the world is an arena for mere self-advancement,
or a place for noble deeds, in which self is forgotten, and
GOD is all.
Observe, this effect is traceable even in that produced by our
different and changeful moods. We make and unmake a world more than
once in the space of a single day. In trifling moods all seems
trivial. In serious moods all seems solemn. Is the song of the
nightingale merry or plaintive? Is it the voice of joy or the
harbinger of gloom? Sometimes one, and sometimes the other, according
to our different moods. We hear the ocean furious or exulting. The
thunder-claps are grand, or angry, according to the different states
of our mind. Nay, the very church bells chime sadly or merrily, as our
associations determine. They speak the language of our passing moods.
The young adventurer revolving sanguine plans upon the milestone,
hears them speak to him as God did to Hagar in the wilderness, bidding
him back to perseverance and greatness. The soul spreads its own hue
over everything; the shroud or wedding-garment of nature is woven in
the loom of our own feelings. This universe is the express image and
direct counterpart of the souls that dwell in it. Be noble-minded, and
all Nature replies--I am divine, the child of God--be thou too, His
child, and noble. Be mean, and all Nature dwindles into a contemptible
smallness.
In the second place, there are two ways in which this principle is
true. To the pure, all things and all persons are pure, because their
purity makes all seem pure.
There are some who go through life complaining of this world; they say
they have found nothing but treachery and deceit; the poor are
ungrateful, and the rich are selfish, Yet we do not find such the best
men. Experience tells us that each man most keenly and unerringly
detects in others the vice with which he is most familiar himself.
Persons seem to each man what he is himself. One who suspects
hypocrisy in the world is rarely transparent; the man constantly on
the watch for cheating is generally dishonest; he who suspects
impurity is prurient. This is the principle to which Christ alludes
when he says, "Give alms of such things as he have; and behold all
things are clean unto you."
Have a large charity! Large "charity hopeth all things." Look at that
sublime apostle who saw the churches of Ephesus and Thessalonica pure,
because he saw them in his own large love, and painted them, not as
they were, but as his heart filled up the picture; he viewed them in
the light of his own nobleness, as representations of his own purity.
Once more, to the pure all _things_ are pure, as well as all persons.
That which is natural lies not in things, but in the minds of men.
There is a difference between prudery and modesty. Prudery detects
wrong where no wrong is; the wrong lies in the thoughts, and not in
the objects. There is something of over-sensitiveness and
over-delicacy which shows not innocence, but an inflammable
imagination. And men of the world cannot understand that those
subjects and thoughts which to them are full of torture, can be
harmless, suggesting nothing evil to the pure in heart.