the lips of persons who permit themselves much license, than the text,
"To the pure, all things are pure." Yes, all things natural, but not
artificial--scenes which pamper the tastes, which excite the senses.
Innocence feels healthily. To it all nature is pure. But, just as the
dove trembles at the approach of the hawk, and the young calf shudders
at the lion never seen before, so innocence shrinks instinctively from
what is wrong by the same divine instinct. If that which is wrong
seems pure, then the heart is not pure but vitiated. To the right
minded all that is right in the course of this world seems pure.
Abraham, looking forward to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah,
entreated that it might be averted, and afterwards acquiesced! To the
disordered mind "all things are out of course." This is the spirit
which pervades the whole of the Ecclesiastes. There were two things
which were perpetually suggesting themselves to the mind of Solomon;
the intolerable sameness of this world, and the constant desire for
change. And yet that same world, spread before the serene eye of God,
was pronounced to be all "very good."
This disordered universe is the picture of your own mind. We make a
wilderness by encouraging artificial wants, by creating sensitive and
selfish feelings; then we project everything stamped with the impress
of our own feelings, and we gather the whole of creation into our own
pained being--"the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain
together until now." The world you complain of as impure and wrong is
not God's world, but your world; the blight, the dullness, the blank,
are all your own. The light which is in you has become darkness, and
therefore the light itself is dark.
Again, to the pure, all things not only seem pure, but are really so
because they are made such.
1. As regards persons. It is a marvellous thing to see how a pure and
innocent heart purifies all that it approaches. The most ferocious
natures are soothed and tamed by innocence. And so with human beings,
there is a delicacy so pure, that vicious men in its presence become
almost pure; all of purity which is in them is brought out; like
attaches itself to like. The pure heart becomes a centre of
attraction, round which similar atoms gather, and from which
dissimilar ones are repelled. A corrupt heart elicits in an hour all
that is bad in us; a spiritual one brings out and draws to itself all
that is best and purest. Such was Christ. He stood in the world, the
Light of the world, to which all sparks of light gradually gathered.
He stood in the presence of impurity, and men became pure. Note this
in the history of Zaccheus. In answer to the invitation of the Son of
man, he says, "Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor,
and if I have done wrong to any man I restore him fourfold." So also
the Scribe, "Well, Master, thou hast well said, there is one God, and
there is none other than He." To the pure Saviour, all was pure. He
was lifted up on high, and drew all men unto Him.
Lastly, all situations are pure to the pure. According to the world,
some professions are reckoned honourable, and some dishonourable. Men
judge according to a standard merely conventional, and not by that of
moral rectitude. Yet it was in truth, the men who were in these
situations which made them such. In the days of the Redeemer, the
publican's occupation was a degraded one, merely because low base men
filled that place. But since He was born into the world a poor,
labouring man, poverty is noble and dignified, and toil is honourable.
To the man who feels that "the king's daughter is all glorious
within," no outward situation can seem inglorious or impure.
There are three words which express almost the same thing, but whose
meaning is entirely different. These are, the gibbet, the scaffold,
and the cross. So far as we know, none die on the gibbet but men of
dishonourable and base life. The scaffold suggests to our minds the
noble deaths of our greatest martyrs. The cross was once a gibbet, but
it is now the highest name we have, because He hung on it. Christ has
purified and ennobled the cross. This principle runs through life. It
is not the situation which makes the man, but the man who makes the
situation. The slave may be a freeman. The monarch may be a slave.
Situations are noble or ignoble, as we make them.
From all this subject we learn to understand two things. Hence we
understand the Fall. When man fell, the world fell with him. All
creation received a shock. Thorns, briars, and thistles, sprang up.
They were there before, but to the now restless and impatient hands of
men they became obstacles and weeds. Death, which must ever have
existed as a form of dissolution, a passing from one state to another,
became a curse; the sting of death was sin--unchanged in itself, it
changed in man. A dark, heavy cloud, rested on it--the shadow of his
own guilty heart.
Hence too, we understand the Millennium. The Bible says that these
things are not to be for ever. There are glorious things to come. Just
as in my former illustration, the alteration of the eye called new
worlds into being, so now nothing more is needed than to re-create the
soul--the mirror on which all things are reflected. Then is realized
the prophecy of Isaiah, "Behold, I create all things new," "new
heavens and a new earth."
The conclusion of this verse proves to us why all these new creations
were called into being--"wherein dwelleth righteousness." To be
righteous makes all things new. We do not want a new world, we want
_new hearts_. Let the Spirit of God purify society, and to the pure
all things will be pure. The earth will put off the look of weariness
and gloom which it has worn so long, and then the glorious language of
the prophets will be fulfilled--"The forests will break out with
singing, and the desert will blossom as the rose."
XI.
_Preached February 9, 1851._
UNITY AND PEACE.
"And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also
ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful."--Colossians iii.
15.
There is something in these words that might surprise us. It might
surprise us to find that peace is urged on us as a duty. There can be
no duty except where there is a matter of obedience; and it might seem
to us that peace is a something over which we have no power. It is a
privilege to have peace, but it would appear as if there were no power
of control within the mind of a man able to ensure that peace for
itself. "Yet," says the apostle, "let the peace of God rule in your
hearts."
It would seem to _us_ as if peace were as far beyond our own control
as happiness. Unquestionably, we are not masters on our own
responsibility of our own happiness. Happiness is the gratification
of every innocent desire; but it is not given to us to ensure the
gratification of every desire; therefore, happiness is not a duty, and
it is nowhere written in the Scripture, "You must be happy." But we
find it written by the apostle Paul, "Be ye thankful," implying
therefore, that peace is a duty. The apostle says, "Let the peace of
God rule in your hearts;" from which we infer that peace is
attainable, and within the reach of our own wills; that if there be
not repose there is blame; if there be not peace but discord in the
heart, there is something wrong.
This is the more surprising when we remember the circumstances under
which these words were written. They were written from Rome, where the
apostle lay in prison, daily and hourly expecting a violent death.
They were written in days of persecution, when false doctrines were
rife, and religious animosities fierce; they were written in an
epistle abounding with the most earnest and eager controversy, whereby
it is therefore implied, that according to the conception of the
Apostle Paul, it is possible for a Christian to live at the very point
of death, and in the very midst of danger--that it is possible for him
to be breathing the atmosphere of religious controversy--it is
possible for him to be surrounded by bitterness, and even take up the
pen of controversy himself--and yet his soul shall not lose its own
deep peace, nor the power of the infinite repose and rest of God.
Joined with the apostle's command to be at peace, we find another
doctrine, the doctrine of the unity of the Church of Christ. "To the
which ye are called in one body," in order that ye may be at peace; in
other words, the unity of the Church of Christ is the basis on which,
and on which alone, can be built the possibility of the inward peace
of individuals.
And thus, my Christian brethren, our subject divides itself into these
two simple branches: in the first place, the unity of the Church of
Christ; in the second place, the inward peace of the members of that
Church.
The first subject then, which we have to consider, is the Unity of the
Church of Christ.
And the first thing we have to do is both clearly to define and
understand the meaning of that word "unity." I distinguish the unity
of comprehensiveness from the unity of mere singularity. The word one,
as oneness, is an ambiguous word. There is a oneness belonging to the
army as well as to every soldier in the army. The army is one, and
that is the oneness of unity; the soldier is one, but that is the
oneness of the unit. There is a difference between the oneness of a
body and the oneness of a member of that body. The body is many, and a
unity of manifold comprehensiveness. An arm or a member of a body is
one, but that is the unity of singularity. Without unity my Christian
brethren, peace must be impossible. There can be no peace in the one
single soldier of an army. You do not speak of the harmony of one
member of a body. There is peace in an army, or in a kingdom joined
with other kingdoms; there is harmony in a member united with other
members. There is no peace in a unit, there is no possibility of the
harmony of that which is but one in itself. In order to have peace you
must have a higher unity, and therein consists the unity of God's own
Being. The unity of God is the basis of the peace of God--meaning by
the unity of God the comprehensive manifoldness of God, and not merely
the singularity in the number of God's Being. When the Unitarian
speaks of God as one, he means simply singularity of number. We mean
that He is of manifold comprehensiveness--that there is unity between
His various powers. Amongst the personalities or powers of His Being
there is no discord, but perfect harmony, entire union; and that
brethren, is repose, the blessedness of infinite rest, that belongs to
the unity of God--"I and my Father are one."
The second thing which we observe respecting this unity, is that it
subsists between things not similar or alike, but things dissimilar or
unlike. There is no unity in the separate atoms of a sand-pit; they
are things similar; there is an aggregate or collection of them. Even
if they be hardened in a mass they are not one, they do not form a
unity: they are simply a mass. There is no unity in a flock of sheep:
it is simply a repetition of a number of things similar to each other.
If you strike off from a thousand five hundred, or if you strike off
nine hundred, there is nothing lost of unity, because there never was
unity. A flock of one thousand or a flock of five is just as much a
flock as any other number.
On the other hand, let us turn to the unity of peace which the apostle
speaks of, and we find it is something different; it is made up of
dissimilar members, without which dissimilarity there could be no
unity. Each is imperfect in itself, each supplying what it has in
itself to the deficiencies and wants of the other members. So, if you
strike off from this body any one member, if you cut off an arm, or
tear out an eye, instantly the unity is destroyed; you have no longer
an entire and perfect body, there is nothing but a remnant of the
whole, a part, a portion; no unity whatever.
This will help us to understand the unity of the Church of Christ. If
the ages and the centuries of the Church of Christ, if the different
Churches whereof it was composed, if the different members of each
Church, were similar--one in this, that they all held the same views,
all spoke the same words, all viewed truth from the same side, they
would have no unity; but would simply be an aggregate of atoms, the
sand-pit over again--units, multiplied it may be to infinity, but you
would have no real unity, and therefore, no peace. No unity,--for
wherein consists the unity of the Church of Christ? The unity of ages,
brethren, consists it in this--that every age is merely the repetition
of another age, and that which is held in one is held in another?
Precisely in the same way, that is _not_ the unity of the ages of the
Christian Church.
Every century and every age has held a different truth, has put forth
different fragments of the truth. In early ages for example, by
martyrdom was proclaimed the eternal sanctity of truth, rather than
give up which a man must lose his life.... In our own age it is quite
plain those are not the themes which engage us, or the truths which we
put in force now. This age, by its revolutions, its socialisms,
proclaims another truth--the brotherhood of the Church of Christ; so
that the unity of ages subsists on the same principle as that of the
unity of the human body: and just as every separate ray--the violet,
the blue, and the orange--make up the white ray, so these manifold
fragments of truth blended together make up the one entire and perfect
white ray of Truth. And with regard to individuals, taking the case of
the Reformation, it was given to one Church to proclaim that salvation
is a thing received, and not local; to another to proclaim
justification by faith; to another the sovereignty of God; to another
the supremacy of the Scriptures; to another the right of private
judgment, the duty of the individual conscience. Unite these all, and
then you have the Reformation one--one in spite of manifoldness; those
very varieties by which they have approached this proving them to be
one. Disjoint them and then you have some miserable sect--Calvinism,
or Unitarianism; the unity has dispersed. And so again with the unity
of the Churches. Whereby would we produce unity? Would we force on
other Churches our Anglicanism? Would we have our thirty-nine
articles, our creeds, our prayers, our rules and regulations, accepted
by every Church throughout the world? If that were unity, then in
consistency you are bound to demand that in God's world there shall be
but one colour instead of the manifold harmony and accordance of which
this universe is full; that there should be but one chaunted note--the
one which we conceive most beautiful. This is not the unity of the
Church of God. The various Churches advance different doctrines and
truths. The Church of Germany something different from those of the
Church of England. The Church of Rome, even in its idolatry, proclaims
truths which we would be glad to seize. By the worship of the Virgin,
the purity of women; by the rigour of ecclesiastical ordinances, the
sanctity and permanence of eternal order; by the very priesthood
itself, the necessity of the guidance of man by man. Nay, even the
dissenting bodies themselves--mere atoms of aggregates as they
are--stand forward and proclaim at least this truth, the separateness
of the individual conscience, the right of independence.
Peace subsists not between things exactly alike. We do not speak of
peace in a single country. We say peace subsists between different
countries where war _might_ be. There can be no _peace_ between two
men who agree in everything; peace subsists between those who differ.
There is no peace between Baptist and Baptist; so far as they are
Baptists, there is perfect accordance and agreement. There may be
peace between you and the Romanist, the Jew, or the Dissenter, because
there are angles of sharpness which might come into collision if they
were not subdued and softened by the power of love. It was given to
the Apostle Paul to discern that this was the ground of unity. In the
Church of Christ he saw men with different views, and he said So far
from that variety destroying unity, it was the only ground of unity.
There are many doctrines, all of them different, but let those
varieties be blended together--in other words, let there be the peace
of love, and then you will have unity.
Once more this unity, whereof the apostle speaks, consists in
submission to one single influence or spirit. Wherein consists the
unity of the body? Consists it not in this,--that there is one life
uniting, making all the separate members one? Take away the life, and
the members fall to pieces: they are no longer one; decomposition
begins, and every element separates, no longer having any principle of
cohesion or union with the rest.
There is not one of us who, at some time or other, has not been struck
with the power there is in a single living influence. Have we never
for instance, felt the power wherewith the orator unites and holds
together a thousand men as if they were but one; with flashing eyes
and throbbing hearts, all attentive to his words, and by the
difference of their attitudes, by the variety of the expressions of
their countenances testifying to the unity of that single living
feeling with which he had inspired them? Whether it be indignation,
whether it be compassion, or whether it be enthusiasm, that one living
influence made the thousand for the time, one. Have we not heard how,
even in this century in which we live, the various and conflicting
feelings of the people of this country were concentrated into one,
when the threat of foreign invasion had fused down and broken the
edges of conflict and variance, and from shore to shore was heard one
cry of terrible defiance, and the different classes and orders of this
manifold and mighty England were as one? Have we not heard how the
mighty winds hold together, as if one, the various atoms of the
desert, so that they rush like a living thing, across the wilderness?
And this, brethren, is the unity of the Church of Christ, the
subjection to the one uniting spirit of its God.
It will be said, in reply to this, "Why this is mere enthusiasm. It
may be very beautiful in theory, but it is impossible in practice. It
is mere enthusiasm to believe, that while all these varieties of
conflicting opinion remain, we can have unity; it is mere enthusiasm
to think that so long as men's minds reckon on a thing like unity,
there can be a thing like oneness." And our reply is, Give us the
Spirit of God, and we shall be one. You cannot produce a unity by all
the rigour of your ecclesiastical discipline. You cannot produce a
unity by consenting in some form of expression such as this, "Let us
agree to differ." You cannot produce a unity by Parliamentary
regulations or enactments, bidding back the waves of what is called
aggression. Give us the living Spirit of God, and we shall be one.
Once on this earth was exhibited, as it were, a specimen of perfect
anticipation of such an unity, when the "rushing mighty wind" of
Pentecost came down in the tongues of fire and sat on every man; when
the Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in
Mesopotamia, the "Cretes and Arabians," the Jew and the Gentile, each
speaking one language, yet blended and fused into one unity by
enthusiastic love, heard one another speak as it were, in one
language, the manifold works of God; when the spirit of giving was
substituted for the spirit of mere rivalry and competition, and no man
said the things he had were his own, but all shared in common. Let
that spirit come again, as come it will, and come it must; and then,
beneath the influences of a mightier love, we shall have a nobler and
a more real unity.
We pass on now, in the second place, to consider the _individual
peace_ resulting from this unity. As we have endeavoured to explain
what is meant by unity, so now, let us endeavour to understand what is
meant by peace. Peace then, is the opposite of passion, and of labour,
toil, and effort. Peace is that state in which there are no desires
madly demanding an impossible gratification; that state in which there
is no misery, no remorse, no sting. And there are but three things
which can break that peace. The first is discord between the mind of
man and the lot which he is called on to inherit; the second is
discord between the affections and powers of the soul; and the third
is doubt of the rectitude, and justice, and love, wherewith this world
is ordered. But where these things exist not, where a man is contented
with his lot, where the flesh is subdued to the spirit, and where he
believes and feels with all his heart that all is right, there is
peace, and to this says the apostle, "ye are called,"--the grand,
peculiar call of Christianity,--the call, "Come unto Me, all ye that
labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."
This was the dying bequest of Christ: "Peace I leave with you, my
peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth give I unto you:" and
therein lies one of the greatest truths of the blessed and eternal
character of Christianity, that it applies to, and satisfies the very
deepest want and craving of our nature. The deepest want of man is not
a desire for happiness, but a craving for peace; not a wish for the
gratification of every desire, but a craving for the repose of
acquiescence in the will of God; and it is this which Christianity
promises. Christianity does not promise happiness, but it does promise
peace. "In the world ye shall have tribulation," saith our Master,
"but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." Now, let us look
more closely, into this peace.
The first thing we see respecting it is, that it is called God's
peace. God is rest: the infinite nature of God is infinite repose. The
"_I am_" of God is contrasted with the _I am become_ of all other
things. Everything else is in a state of _becoming_, God is in a state
of _Being_. The acorn has become the plant, and the plant has become
the oak. The child has become the man, and the man has become good, or
wise, or whatever else it may be. God ever _is_; and I pray you once
more to observe, that this peace of God, this eternal rest in the
Almighty Being, arises out of His unity. Not because He is an unit,
but because He is an unity. There is no discord between the powers and
attributes of the mind of God; there is no discord between His justice
and His love; there is no discord demanding some miserable expedient
to unite them together, such as some theologians imagined when they
described the sacrifice and atonement of our Redeemer by saying, it is
the clever expedient whereby God reconciles His justice with His love.
God's justice and love are one. Infinite justice must be infinite
love. Justice is but another sign of love. The infinite rest of the
"_I am_" of God arises out of the harmony of His attributes.
The next thing we observe respecting this divine peace which has come
down to man on earth is, that it is a _living peace_. Brethren, let us
distinguish. There are several things called peace which are by no
means divine or Godlike peace. There is peace, for example, in the man
who lives for and enjoys self, with no nobler aspiration goading him
on to make him feel the rest of God; that is peace, but that is merely
the peace of toil. There is rest on the surface of the caverned lake,
which no wind can stir; but that is the peace of stagnation. There is
peace amongst the stones which have fallen and rolled down the
mountain's side, and lie there quietly at rest; but that is the peace
of inanity. There is peace in the hearts of enemies who lie together,
side by side, in the same trench of the battle-field, the animosities
of their souls silenced at length, and their hands no longer clenched
in deadly enmity against each other; but that is the peace of death.
If our peace be but the peace of the sensualist satisfying pleasure,
if it be but the peace of mental torpor and inaction, the peace of
apathy, or the peace of the soul dead in trespasses and sins, we may
whisper to ourselves, "Peace, peace," but there will be no peace;
_there_ is not the peace of unity nor the peace of God, for the peace
of God is the living peace of love.