manifestation of power--it is the peace which comes from an inward
power: "Let the peace of God," says the Apostle, "rule within your
hearts." For it is a power, the manifestation of strength. There is no
peace except there is the possibility of the opposite of peace
although now restrained and controlled. You do not speak of the peace
of a grain of sand, because it cannot be otherwise than merely
insignificant, and at rest. You do not speak of the peace of a mere
pond; you speak of the peace of the sea, because there is the opposite
of peace implied, there is power and strength. And this brethren, is
the real character of the peace in the mind and soul of man. Oh! we
make a great mistake when we say there is strength in passion, in the
exhibition of emotion. Passion, and emotion, and all those outward
manifestations, prove, not strength, but weakness. If the passions of
a man are strong, it proves the man himself is weak, if he cannot
restrain or control his passions. The real strength and majesty of the
soul of man is calmness, the manifestation of strength; "the peace of
God" ruling; the word of Christ saying to the inward storms "Peace!"
and there is "a great calm."
Lastly, the peace of which the apostle speaks is the peace that is
received--the peace of reception. You will observe, throughout this
passage the apostle speaks of a something received, and not done: "Let
the peace of God rule in your hearts." It is throughout receptive, but
by no means inactive. And according to this, there are two kinds of
peace; the peace of obedience--"Let the peace of God rule" you--and
there is the peace of gratefulness--"Be ye thankful." Very great,
brethren, is the peace of obedience: when a man has his lot fixed, and
his mind made up, and he sees his destiny before him, and quietly
acquiesces in it; his spirit is at rest. Great and deep is the peace
of the soldier to whom has been assigned even an untenable position,
with the command, "Keep that, even if you die," and he obediently
remains to die.
Great was the peace of Elisha--very, very calm are those words by
which he expressed his acquiescence in the divine will. "Knowest
thou," said the troubled, excited, and restless men around
him--"Knowest thou that the Lord will take away thy master from thy
head to-day?" He answered, "Yea, I know it; hold ye your peace." Then
there is the other peace, it is the peace of gratefulness: "Be ye
thankful." It is that peace which the Israelites had when these words
were spoken to them on the shores of the Red Sea, while the bodies of
their enemies floated past them, destroyed, but not by them: "Stand
still and see the salvation of the Lord."
And here brethren, is another mistake of ours: we look on salvation as
a thing to be done, and not received. In God's salvation we can do but
little, but there is a great deal to be received. We are here, not
merely to act, but to be acted upon. "Let the peace of God rule in
your hearts;" there is a peace that will enter there, if you do not
thwart it; there is a Spirit that will take possession of your soul,
provided that you do not quench it. In this world we are recipients,
not creators. In obedience and in gratefulness, and the infinite peace
of God in the soul of man, is alone to be found deep calm repose.
XII.
_Preached January 4, 1852._
THE CHRISTIAN AIM AND MOTIVE.
"Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven
is perfect."--Matthew v. 48.
There are two erroneous views held respecting the character of the
Sermon on the Mount. The first may be called an error of
worldly-minded men, the other an error of mistaken religionists.
Worldly-minded men--men that is, in whom the devotional feeling is but
feeble--are accustomed to look upon morality as the whole of religion;
and they suppose that the Sermon on the Mount was designed only to
explain and enforce correct principles of morality. It tells of human
duties and human proprieties, and an attention to these, they
maintain, is the only religion which is required by it. Strange my
Christian brethren, that men, whose lives are least remarkable for
superhuman excellence, should be the very men to refer most frequently
to those sublime comments on Christian principle, and should so
confidently conclude from thence, that themselves are right and all
others are wrong. Yet so it is.
The other is an error of mistaken religionists. They sometimes regard
the Sermon on the Mount as if it were a collection of moral precepts,
and consequently, strictly speaking, not Christianity at all. To them
it seems as if the chief value, the chief intention of the discourse,
was to show the breadth and spirituality of the requirements of the
law of Moses--its chief religious significance, to show the utter
impossibility of fulfilling the law, and thus to lead to the necessary
inference that justification must be by faith alone. And so they would
not scruple to assert that, in the highest sense of that term, it is
not Christianity at all, but only preparatory to it--a kind of
spiritual Judaism; and that the higher and more developed principles
of Christianity are to be found in the writings of the apostles.
Before we proceed further, we would remark here that it seems
extremely startling to say that He who came to this world expressly to
preach the Gospel, should, in the most elaborate of all His
discourses, omit to do so: it is indeed something more than startling,
it is absolutely revolting to suppose that the letters of those who
spoke _of_ Christ, should contain a more perfectly-developed, a freer
and fuller Christianity than is to be found in Christ's own words.
Now you will observe that these two parties, so opposed to each other
in their general religious views, are agreed in this--that the Sermon
on the Mount is nothing but morality. The man of the world says--"It
is morality only, and that is the whole of religion." The mistaken
religionist says--"It is morality only, not the entire essence of
Christianity." In opposition to both these views, we maintain that the
Sermon on the Mount contains the sum and substance of
Christianity--the very chief matter of the gospel of our Redeemer.
It is not, you will observe, a pure and spiritualized Judaism; it is
contrasted with Judaism again and again by Him who spoke it. Quoting
the words of Moses, he affirmed, "So was it spoken by them of old
time, but _I say unto you_--" For example, "Thou shalt not forswear
thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths." That is
Judaism. "But I say unto you swear not at all, but let your yea be
yea, and your nay nay." That is Christianity. And that which is the
essential peculiarity of this Christianity lies in these two things.
First of all, that the morality which it teaches is _disinterested_
goodness--goodness not for the sake of the blessing that follows it,
but for its own sake, and because it is right. "Love your enemies," is
the Gospel precept. Why?--Because if you love them you shall be
blessed; and if you do not cursed? No; but "Love your enemies, bless
them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them
which despitefully use you and persecute you, that ye may be the
children of"--that is, may be like--"your Father which is in Heaven."
The second essential peculiarity of Christianity--and this, too, is an
essential peculiarity of this Sermon--is, that it teaches and enforces
the law of self-sacrifice. "If thy right eye offend thee pluck it out;
if thy right hand offend thee cut it off." This, brethren, is the law
of self-sacrifice--the very law and spirit of the blessed cross of
Christ.
How deeply and essentially Christian, then, this Sermon on the Mount
is, we shall understand if we are enabled in any measure to reach the
meaning and spirit of the single passage which I have taken as my
text. It tells two things--the Christian aim and the Christian motive.
1st. The Christian aim--perfection. 2nd. The Christian
motive--because it is right and Godlike to be perfect.
I. The Christian aim is this--to be perfect. "Be ye therefore
perfect." Now distinguish this, I pray you, from mere worldly
morality. It is not conformity to a creed that is here required, but
aspiration after a _state_. It is not demanded of us to perform a
number of duties, but to yield obedience to a certain spiritual law.
But let us endeavour to explain this more fully. What is the meaning
of this expression, "Be ye perfect?" Why is it that in this discourse,
instead of being commanded to perform religious duties, we are
commanded to think of being like God? Will not that inflame our pride,
and increase our natural vainglory? Now the nature and possibility of
human perfection, what it is and how it is possible, are both
contained in one single expression in the text. "Even as your Father
which is in Heaven is perfect." The relationship between father and
son implies consanguinity, likeness, similarity of character and
nature. God _made_ the insect, the stone, the lily; but God is not the
Father of the caterpillar, the lily, or the stone.
When therefore, God is said to be our Father, something more is
implied in this than that God created man. And so when the Son of Man
came proclaiming the fact that we are the children of God, it was in
the truest sense a revelation. He told us that the nature of God
resembles the nature of man, that love in God is not a mere figure of
speech, but means the same thing as love in us, and that divine anger
is the same thing as human anger divested of its emotions and
imperfections. When we are commanded to be like God, it implies that
God has that nature of which we have already the germs. And this has
been taught by the incarnation of the Redeemer. Things absolutely
dissimilar in their nature cannot mingle. Water cannot coalesce with
fire--water cannot mix with oil. If, then, Humanity and Divinity were
united in the person of the Redeemer, it follows that there must be
something kindred between the two, or else the incarnation had been
impossible. So that the incarnation is the realization of man's
perfection.
But let us examine more deeply this assertion, that _our_ nature is
kindred with that of God--for if man has not a nature kindred to
God's, then a demand such as that, "Be ye the children of"--that is,
like--"God," is but a mockery of man. We say then, in the first place,
that in the truest sense of the word man can be a creator. The beaver
_makes_ its hole, the bee _makes_ its cell; man alone has the power of
_creating_. The mason _makes_, the architect _creates_. In the same
sense that we say God created the universe, we say that man is also a
creator. The creation of the universe was the Eternal Thought taking
reality. And thought taking expression is also a creation. Whenever
therefore, there is a living thought shaping itself in word or in
stone, there is there a creation. And therefore it is, that the
simplest effort of what we call genius is prized infinitely more than
the most elaborate performances which are done by mere workmanship,
and for this reason: that the one is produced by an effort of power
which we share with the beaver and the bee, that of _making_, and the
other by a faculty and power which man alone shares with God.
Here however, you will observe another difficulty. It will be said at
once--there is something in this comparison of man with God which
looks like blasphemy, because one is finite and the other
infinite--man is bounded, God boundless; and to speak of resemblance
and kindred between these two, is to speak of resemblance and kindred
between two natures essentially different. But this is precisely the
argument which is brought by the Socinians against the doctrine of
the incarnation; and we are bound to add that the Socinian argument is
right, unless there be the similarity of which we have been speaking.
Unless there be something in man's nature which truly and properly
partakes of the divine nature, there could be no incarnation, and the
demand for perfection would be a mockery and an impossibility.
Let us then endeavour to find out the evidences of this infinitude in
the nature of man. First of all we find it in this--that the desires
of man are for something boundless and unattainable. Thus speaks our
Lord--"What shall it profit a man if he should gain the whole world
and lose his own soul?" Every schoolboy has heard the story of the
youthful prince who enumerated one by one the countries he meant to
conquer year after year; and when the enumeration was completed, was
asked what he meant to do when all those victories were achieved, and
he replied--to sit down, to be happy, to take his rest. But then came
the ready rejoinder--Why not do so now? But it is not every schoolboy
who has paused to consider the folly of the question. He who asked his
son why he did not at once take the rest which it was his ultimate
purpose to enjoy, knew not the immensity and nobility of the human
soul. He could not _then_ take his rest and be happy. As long as one
realm remained unconquered, so long rest was impossible; he would weep
for fresh worlds to conquer. And thus, that which was spoken by our
Lord of one earthly gratification, is true of all--"Whosoever drinketh
of this water shall thirst again." The boundless, endless, infinite
void in the soul of man can be satisfied with nothing but God.
Satisfaction lies not in _having_, but in _being_. There is no
satisfaction even in _doing_. Man cannot be satisfied with his own
performances. When the righteous young ruler came to Christ, and
declared that in reference to the life gone by, he had kept all the
commandments and fulfilled all the duties required by the Law, still
came the question--"What lack I yet?"
The Scribes and Pharisees were the strictest observers of the
ceremonies of the Jewish religion, "touching the righteousness which
is by the Law" they were blameless, but yet they wanted something more
than that, and they were found on the brink of Jordan imploring the
baptism of John, seeking after a new and higher state than they had
yet attained to,--a significant proof that man cannot be satisfied
with his own works. And again, there is not one of us who has ever
been satisfied with his own performances. There is no man whose doings
are worth anything, who has not felt that he has not yet done that
which he feels himself able to do. While he was doing it, he was kept
up by the spirit of hope; but when done the thing seemed to him
worthless. And therefore it is that the author cannot read his own
book again, nor the sculptor look with pleasure upon his finished
work. With respect to one of the greatest of all modern sculptors, we
are told that he longed for the termination of his earthly career,
for this reason--that he had been satisfied with his own performance:
satisfied for the first time in his life. And this expression of his
satisfaction was but equivalent to saying that he had reached the
goal, beyond which there could be no progress. This impossibility of
being satisfied with his own performances is one of the strongest
proofs of our immortality--a proof of that perfection towards which we
shall for ever tend, but which we can never attain.
A second trace of this infinitude in man's nature we find in the
infinite capacities of the soul. This is true intellectually and
morally. With reference to our intellectual capacities, it would
perhaps be more strictly correct to say that they are indefinite,
rather than infinite; that is we can affix to them no limit. For there
is no man, however low his intellectual powers may be, who has not at
one time or another felt a rush of thought, a glow of inspiration,
which seemed to make all things possible, as if it were merely the
effect of some imperfect organization which stood in the way of his
doing whatever he desired to do. With respect to our moral and
spiritual capacities, we remark that they are not only indefinite, but
absolutely infinite. Let that man answer who has ever truly and
heartily loved another. That man knows what it is to partake of the
infinitude of God. Literally, in the emphatic language of the Apostle
John, he has felt his immortality--"God in him and he in God." For
that moment, infinitude was to him not a name, but a reality. He
entered into the infinite of time and space, which is not measured by
days, or months, or years, but is alike boundless and eternal.
Again, we perceive a third trace of this infinitude in man, in the
power which he possesses of giving up self. In this, perhaps more than
in anything else, man may claim kindred with God. Nor is this power
confined to the best of mankind, but is possessed, to some extent at
least, by all. There is no man, how low soever he may be, who has not
one or two causes or secrets, which no earthly consideration would
induce him to betray. There is no man who does not feel towards one or
two at least, in this world, a devotion which all the bribes of the
universe would not be able to shake. We have heard the story of that
degraded criminal who, when sentence of death was passed upon him,
turned to his accomplice in guilt, in whose favour a verdict of
acquittal was brought in, and in glorious self-forgetfulness
exclaimed--"Thank God, _you_ are saved!" The savage and barbarous
Indian whose life has been one unbroken series of cruelty and crime,
will submit to a slow, lingering, torturing death, rather than betray
his country. Now, what shall we say to these things? Do they not tell
of an indestructible something in the nature of man, of which the
origin is divine?--the remains of a majesty which, though it may be
sullied, can never be entirely lost?
Before passing on let us observe, that were it not for this conviction
of the divine origin, and consequent perfectibility of our nature,
the very thought of God would be painful to us. God is so great, so
glorious, that the mind is overwhelmed by, and shrinks from, the
contemplation of His excellence, unless there comes the tender,
ennobling thought that we are the children of God, who are to become
like our Father in Heaven, whose blessed career it is to go on in an
advance of love and duty towards Him, until we love Him as we are
loved, and know Him almost as we are known.
II. We pass on, in the second place, to consider the Christian
motive--"Even as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect." Brethren,
worldly prudence, miscalled morality, says--"Be honest; you will find
your gain in being so. Do right; you will be the better for it--even
in this world you will not lose by it." The mistaken religionist only
magnifies this on a large scale. "Your duty," he says, "is to save
your soul. Give up this world to have the next. Lose _here_, that you
may gain _hereafter_." Now this is but prudence after all--it is but
magnified selfishness, carried on into eternity,--none the more noble
for being _eternal_ selfishness. In opposition to all such sentiments
as these, thus speaks the Gospel--"Be ye perfect." Why? "Because your
Father which is in Heaven is perfect." Do right, because it is Godlike
and right so to do. Here however, let us be understood. We do not mean
to say that the Gospel ignores altogether the personal results of
doing right. This would be unnatural--because God has linked together
well-doing and blessedness. But we do say that this blessedness is not
the motive which the Gospel gives us. It is true the Gospel
says--"Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth; blessed
are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy; blessed are they which
do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled."
But when these are made our motives--when we become meek in order that
we may inherit here--then the promised enjoyment will not come. If we
are merciful merely that we may ourselves obtain mercy, we shall not
have that in-dwelling love of God which is the result and token of His
forgiveness. Such was the law and such the example of our Lord and
Master.
True it is that in the prosecution of the great work of redemption He
had "respect to the recompense of reward." True it is He was
conscious--how could He but be conscious--that when His work was
completed He should be "glorified with that glory which He had with
the Father before the world began;" but we deny that this was the
_motive_ which induced Him to undertake that work; and that man has a
very mistaken idea of the character of the Redeemer, and understands
but little of His spirit, who has so mean an opinion of Him as to
suppose that it was any consideration of personal happiness and
blessedness which led the Son of God to die. "For this end was He
born, and for this end came He into the world to bear witness unto the
Truth," and "to finish the work which was given Him to do."
If we were asked, Can you select one text in which more than in any
other this unselfish, disinterested feature comes forth, it should be
this, "Love ye your enemies, do good and lend, hoping for nothing
again." This is the true spirit of Christianity--doing right
disinterestedly, not from the hope of any personal advantage or
reward, either temporal or spiritual, but entirely forgetting self,
"hoping for nothing again." When that glorious philanthropist, whose
whole life had been spent in procuring the abolition of the
slave-trade, was demanded of by some systematic theologian, whether in
his ardour in this great cause he had not been neglecting his personal
prospects, and endangering his own soul, this was his magnanimous
reply--one of those which show the light of truth breaking through
like an inspiration. He said, "I did not think about my own soul, I
had no time to think about myself, I had forgotten all about my soul."
The Christian is not concerned about his own happiness; he has not
time to consider himself; he has not time to put that selfish question
which the disciples put to their Lord, when they were but half
baptized with His spirit, "Lo, we have left all and followed Thee,
what shall we have therefore?"
In conclusion we observe, there are two things which are to be learned
from this passage. The first is this, that happiness is not our end
and aim. It has been said, and has since been repeated as frequently
as if it were an indisputable axiom, that "Happiness is our being's
end and aim." Brethren, happiness is _not_ our being's end and aim.
The Christian's aim is perfection, not happiness, and every one of the
sons of God must have something of that spirit which marked their
Master; that holy sadness, that peculiar unrest, that high and lofty
melancholy which belongs to a spirit which strives after heights to
which it can never attain.
The second thing we have to learn is this, that on this earth there
can be no rest for man. By rest we mean the attainment of a state
beyond which there can be no change. Politically, morally,
spiritually, there can be no rest for man here. In one country alone
has that system been fully carried out which, conservative of the
past, excludes all desire of progress and improvement for the future:
but it is not to China that we should look for the perfection of human
society. There is one ecclesiastical system which carries out the same
spirit, looking rather to the Church of the past than to the Church of
the future; but it is not in the Romish that we shall find the model
of a Christian Church. In Paradise it may have been right to be at
rest, to desire no change, but ever since the Fall every system that
tends to check the onward progress of mankind is fatally, radically,
curelessly wrong. The motto on every Christian banner is "Forwards."
There is no resting in the present, no satisfaction in the past.
The last thing we learn from this is the impossibility of obtaining
that of which some men speak--the satisfaction of a good conscience.
Some men write and speak as if the difference between the Christian
and the worldly man was this, that in the one conscience is a
self-reproaching hell, and in the other a self-congratulating heaven.
Oh, brethren, is this the fact? Think you that the Christian goes home
at night counting up the noble deeds done during the day, saying to
himself, "Well done, good and faithful servant?" Brethren, that habit
of looking forwards to the future prevents all pride and
self-righteousness, and makes our best and only rest and satisfaction
to consist in contemplating the future which is bringing us nearer and
nearer home. Our motto, therefore, must be that striking one of the
Apostle Paul, "Forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching
forth to those things which are before, I press towards the mark for
the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."
XIII.
_Preached January 4, 1852._
CHRISTIAN CASUISTRY.