shepherd; for He chooses not the great men of the world. He passes by
the rich and noble; He chooses "the poor, rich in faith, and heirs of
the kingdom which He hath promised to them that love Him[3]," as St.
James says. David was a shepherd. The Angel appeared to the shepherds
as they kept watch over their sheep at night. The most solitary, the
most unlearned, God hears, God looks upon, God visits, God blesses, God
brings to glory, if he is but "rich in faith." Many of you are not
great in this world, my brethren, many of you are poor; but the
greatest king upon earth, even Solomon in all his glory, might well
exchange places with you, if you are God's children; for then you are
greater than the greatest of kings. Our Saviour said, that even the
lilies of the field were more gloriously arrayed than Solomon; for the
lily is a living thing, the work of God; and all the glories of a king,
his purple robe, and his jewelled crown, all this is but the dead work
of man; and the lowest and humblest work of God is far better and more
glorious than the highest work of man. But if this be true, even of
God's lower works, what shall be said of His higher? If even the
lilies of the field, which are cut down and cast into the oven, are
more glorious than this world's greatest glory, what shall be said of
God's nobler works in the soul of man? what shall be said of the
dispensation of the Spirit which "exceeds in glory?" of that new
creation of the soul, whereby He makes us His children, who by birth
were children of Adam, and slaves of the devil, gives us a new and
heavenly nature, implants His Holy Spirit within us, and washes away
all our sins? This is the portion of the Christian, high or low; and
all glories of this world fade away before it; king and subject, man of
war and keeper of sheep, are all on a level in the kingdom of Christ;
for they one and all receive those far exceeding and eternal blessings,
which make this world's distinctions, though they remain distinctions
just as before, yet so little, so unimportant, in comparison of the
"glory that excelleth," that it is not worth while thinking about them.
One person is a king and rules, another is a subject and obeys; but if
both are Christians, both have in common a gift so great, that in the
sight of it, the difference between ruling and obeying is as nothing.
All Christians are kings in God's sight; they are kings in His unseen
kingdom, in His spiritual world, in the Communion of Saints. They seem
like other men, but they have crowns on their heads, and glorious robes
around them, and Angels to wait on them, though our bodily eyes see it
not. Such are all Christians, high and low; all Christians who remain
in that state in which Holy Baptism placed them. Baptism placed you in
this blessed state. God did not wait till you should do some good
thing before He blessed you. No! He knew you could do no good thing
of yourselves. So He came to you first; He loved you before you loved
Him; He gave you a work which He first made you able to do. He placed
you in a new and heavenly state, in which, while you remain, you are
safe. He said not to you, "Obey Me, and I will give you a kingdom;"
but "Lo I give you a kingdom freely and first of all; now obey Me
henceforth, for you can, and you shall remain in it;" not "Obey Me, and
I will then give you the Holy Spirit as a reward," but "I give you that
great gift in order that you may obey Me." He first gives, and then
commands; He tells us to obey Him, not to gain His favour, but in order
not to lose it. We are by nature diseased and helpless. We cannot
please Him; we cannot move hand or foot; He says not to us, "Get well
first, and I will receive you;" but He begins a cure in us, and
receives us, and then says, "Take care not to go back; take care of
yourselves; beware of a relapse; keep out of danger." Such then is
your state, my brethren, unless you have fallen from Christ. If you
are living in His faith and fear, you are kings--kings in God's unseen
and spiritual kingdom; and that, though like David, you are but keeping
sheep, or driving cattle, or, again, working with your hands, or
serving in a family, or at any other lowly labour. God seeth not as
man seeth. He hath chosen you.
3. Next, observe God chose David by means of the Prophet Samuel. He
did not think it enough to choose him silently, but He called him by a
voice. And, in like manner, when God calls us, He does so openly; He
sent His minister, the Prophet Samuel, to David, and He sends His
ministers to us. He said to Samuel, "Fill thy horn with oil, and go,
and I will send thee to Jesse the Bethlehemite; for I have provided Me
a king among his sons." God was looking out for a king, and sent
Samuel to David. And so, in like manner, God is looking out now for
kings to fill thrones in His Son's eternal kingdom, and to sit at His
right hand and His left; and He sends His ministers to those whom He
hath from eternity chosen. He does not say to them, "Fill thy horn
with oil," but "Fill thy font with water;" for as He chose David by
pouring oil upon his head, so does He choose us by Baptism. So far,
then, God chooses now as He did then, by an outward sign. Samuel was
told to do then, what Christ's ministers are told to do now. The one
chose David by means of oil, and the other choose Christians by means
of water. In this, however, there is a difference. Samuel could
choose but one. He was not allowed to choose more than one; him,
namely, whom God pointed out; but now Christ's ministers (blessed be
His name!) may choose and baptize all whom they meet with; there is no
restriction, no narrowness; they need not wait to be told whom to
choose. Christ says, "Compel them to come in." Again, the Prophet
says, "Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters." Now every
one by nature thirsteth; every soul born into the world is in a
spiritual sickness, in a wasting fever of mind; he has no rest, no
ease, no peace, no true happiness. Till he is made partaker of Christ
he is hopeless and miserable. Christ then, in His mercy, having died
for all, gives His ministers leave to apply His saving death to all
whom they can find. Not one or two, but thousands upon thousands are
gifted with His high blessings. "Samuel took the horn of oil, and
anointed" David "in the midst of his brethren." And so Christ's
ministers take water, and baptize; yet not merely one out of a family,
but all; for God's mercies are poured as wide as the sun's light in the
heavens, they enlighten all they fall upon.
4. When Samuel had anointed David, observe what followed. "Samuel took
the horn of oil, and anointed him in the midst of his brethren; and the
Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward." And so,
also, when Christ's ministers baptize, the Spirit of the Lord comes
upon the child baptized henceforth; nay, dwells in him, for the
Christian's gift is far greater even than David's. God's Spirit did
but come upon David, and visit him from time to time; but He vouchsafes
to dwell within the Christian, so as to make his heart and body His
temple. Now what was there in the oil, which Samuel used, to produce
so great an effect? nothing at all. Oil has no power in itself; but
God gave it a power. In like manner the Prophet Elisha told Naaman the
Syrian to bathe in Jordan, and so he was healed of his leprosy. Naaman
said, What is Jordan more than other rivers? how can Jordan heal? It
could not heal, except that God's power made it heal. Did not our
Saviour feed five thousand persons with a few loaves and fishes? how
could that be? by His power. How could water become wine? by His
power. And so now, that same Divine power, which made water wine,
multiplied the bread, gave water power to heal an incurable disease,
and made oil the means of gifting David with the Holy Spirit, that
power now also makes the water of Baptism a means of grace and glory.
The water is like other water; we see no difference by the eye; we use
it, we throw it away; but God is with it. God is with it, as with the
oil which Samuel took with him. Water is something more than water in
its effects in the hand of Christ's Minister, with the words of grace;
it does, what by nature it cannot do; it is heavenly water, not earthly.
5. Further, I would have you observe this. Though David received the
gift of God's Holy Spirit, yet nothing came of it all at once. He
still seemed like any other man. He went back to the sheep. Then Saul
sent for him to play to him on the harp; and then he went back to the
sheep again. Except that he had strength given him to kill a lion and
a bear which came against his flock, he did no great thing. The Spirit
of the Lord had come upon him, yet it did not at once make him a
prophet or a king. All was to come in good time, not at once. So it
is with Christian Baptism. Nothing shows, for some time, that the
Spirit of God is come into, and dwells in the child baptized; it looks
like any other child, it is pained, it frets, is weak, is wayward, like
any other child, for "the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh
at the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart." And "He
who seeth the heart," seeth in the child the presence of the Spirit,
"the mind of the Spirit" "which maketh intercession for the Saints."
God the Holy Ghost leads on the heirs of grace marvellously. You
recollect when our Saviour was baptized, "immediately the Spirit of God
led Him into the wilderness." What happened one way in our Saviour's
course, happens in ours also. Sooner or later that work of God is
manifested, which was at first secret. David went up to see his
brothers, who were in the battle; he had no idea that he was going to
fight the giant Goliath; and so it is now, children are baptized before
they know what is to happen to them. They sport and play as if there
was no sorrow in the world, and no high destinies upon themselves; they
are heirs of the kingdom without knowing it, but God is with those whom
He has chosen, and in His own time and way He fashions His Saints for
His everlasting kingdom; in His own perfect and adorable counsels He
brings them forward to fight with Goliath.
6. And now, let us inquire who is our Goliath? who is it we have to
contend with? The answer is plain; the devil is our Goliath: we have
to fight Satan, who is far more fearful and powerful than ten thousand
giants, and who would to a certainty destroy us were not God with us,
but praised be His Name, He is with us. "Greater is He that is with
us, than he that is in the world." David was first anointed with God's
Holy Spirit, and then, after a while, brought forward to fight Goliath.
We too are first baptized, and then brought forward to fight the devil.
We are not brought to fight him at once; for some years we are almost
without a fight, when we are infants. By degrees our work comes upon
us; as children we have to fight with him a little; as time goes on,
the fight opens; and at length we have our great enemy marching against
us with sword and spear, as Goliath came against David. And when this
war has once begun, it lasts through life.
7. What then ought you to do, my brethren, when thus assailed? How
must you behave when the devil comes against you? he has many ways of
attack; sometimes he comes openly, sometimes craftily, sometimes he
tempts you, sometimes he frightens you, but whether he comes in a
pleasing or a frightful form, be sure, if you saw him himself with your
eyes, he would always be hateful, monstrous, and abominable. Therefore
he keeps himself out of sight. But be sure he is all this; and, as
believing it, take the whole armour of God, that you may be able to
stand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Quit you like
men, be strong. Be like David, very courageous to do God's will.
Think what would have happened had David played the coward, and refused
to obey God's inward voice stirring him up to fight Goliath. He would
have lost his calling, he would have been tried, and have failed. The
Prophet's oil would have profited him nothing, or rather would have
increased his condemnation. The Spirit of God would have departed from
him as He departed from Saul, who also had been anointed. So, also,
our privileges will but increase our future punishment, unless we use
them. _He_ is truly and really born of God in whom the Divine seed
takes root; others are regenerated to their condemnation. Despise not
the gift that is in you: despise not the blessing which by God's free
grace you have, and others have not. There is nothing to boast in,
that you are God's people; rather the thought is an anxious one; you
have much more to answer for.
When, then, Satan comes against you, recollect you are already
dedicated, made over, to God; you are God's property, you have no part
with Satan and his works, you are servants to another, you are espoused
to Christ. When Satan comes against you, fear not, waver not; but pray
to God, and He will help you. Say to Satan with David, "Thou comest
against me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield; but I
come to thee in the name of the Lord of Hosts." Thou comest to me with
temptation; thou wouldest allure me with the pleasures of sin for a
season; thou wouldest kill me, nay, thou wouldest make me kill myself
with sinful thoughts, words, and deeds; thou wouldest make me a
self-murderer, tempting me by evil companions, and light conversation,
and pleasant sights, and strong stirrings of heart; thou wouldest make
me profane the Lord's day by riot; thou wouldest keep me from Church;
thou wouldest make my thoughts rove when they should not; thou wouldest
tempt me to drink, and to curse, and to swear, and to jest, and to lie,
and to steal: but I know thee; thou art Satan, and I come unto thee in
the name of the Living God, in the Name of Jesus Christ my Saviour.
That is a powerful name, which can put to flight many foes: Jesus is a
name at which devils tremble. To speak it, is to scare away many a bad
thought. I come against thee in His All-powerful, All-conquering Name.
David came on with a staff; my staff is the Cross--the Holy Cross on
which Christ suffered, in which I glory, which is my salvation. David
chose five smooth stones out of the brook, and with them he smote the
giant. We, too, have armour, not of this world, but of God; weapons
which the world despises, but which are powerful in God. David took
not sword, spear, or shield; but he slew Goliath with a sling and a
stone. Our weapons are as simple, as powerful. The Lord's Prayer is
one such weapon; when we are tempted to sin, let us turn away, kneel
down seriously and solemnly, and say to God that prayer which the Lord
taught us. The Creed is another weapon, equally powerful, through
God's grace, equally contemptible in the eyes of the world. One or two
holy texts, such as our Saviour used when He was tempted by the devil,
is another weapon for our need. The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper is
another such, and greater; holy, mysterious, life-giving, but equally
simple. What is so simple as a little bread and a little wine? but, in
the hands of the Spirit of God, it is the power of God unto salvation.
God grant us grace to use the arms which He gives us; not to neglect
them, not to take arms of our own! God grant us to use His arms, and
to conquer!
[1] Fifth Sunday after Trinity.
[2] 1 Sam. xvi. 7.
[3] James ii. 6.
SERMON V.
Curiosity a Temptation to Sin.
"_Enter not into the path of the wicked, and go not in the way of evil
men. Avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it, and pass away._"--Proverbs
iv. 14, 15.
The chief cause of the wickedness which is every where seen in the world,
and in which, alas! each of us has more or less his share, is our
curiosity to have some fellowship with darkness, some experience of sin,
to know what the pleasures of sin are like. I believe it is even thought
unmanly by many persons (though they may not like to say so in plain
words), unmanly and a thing to be ashamed of, to have no knowledge of sin
by experience, as if it argued a strange seclusion from the world, a
childish ignorance of life, a simpleness and narrowness of mind, and a
superstitious, slavish fear. Not to know sin by experience brings upon a
man the laughter and jests of his companions: nor is it wonderful this
should be the case in the descendants of that guilty pair to whom Satan
in the beginning held out admittance into a strange world of knowledge
and enjoyment, as the reward of disobedience to God's commandment. "When
the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant
to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the
fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her, and
he did eat[1]." A discontent with the abundance of blessings which were
given, because something was withheld, was the sin of our first parents:
in like manner, a wanton roving after things forbidden, a curiosity to
know what it was to be as the heathen, was one chief source of the
idolatries of the Jews; and we at this day inherit with them a like
nature from Adam.
I say, curiosity strangely moves us to disobedience, in order that we may
have experience of the pleasure of disobedience. Thus we "rejoice in our
youth, and let our heart cheer us in the days of our youth, and walk in
the ways of our heart, and in the sight of our eyes[2]." And we thus
intrude into things forbidden, in various ways; in reading what we should
not read, in hearing what we should not hear, in seeing what we should
not see, in going into company whither we should not go, in presumptuous
reasonings and arguings when we should have faith, in acting as if we
were our own masters where we should obey. We indulge our reason, we
indulge our passions, we indulge our ambition, our vanity, our love of
power; we throw ourselves into the society of bad, worldly, or careless
men; and all the while we think that, after having acquired this
miserable knowledge of good and evil, we can return to our duty, and
continue where we left off; merely going aside a moment to shake
ourselves, as Samson did, and with an ignorance like his, that our true
heavenly strength is departed from us.
Now this delusion arises from Satan's craft, the father of lies, who
knows well that if he can get us once to sin, he can easily make us sin
twice and thrice, till at length we are taken captive at his will[3]. He
sees that curiosity is man's great and first snare, as it was in
paradise; and he knows that, if he can but force a way into his heart by
this chief and exciting temptation, those temptations of other kinds,
which follow in life, will easily prevail over us; and, on the other
hand, that if we resist the beginnings of sin, there is every prospect
through God's grace that we shall continue in a religious way. His plan
of action then lies plain before him--to tempt us violently, while the
world is new to us, and our hopes and feelings are eager and restless.
Hence is seen the Divine wisdom, as well as the merciful consideration,
of the advice contained in so many parts of Scripture, as in the text,
"Enter not into the path of the wicked, and go not into the way of evil
men. Avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it, and pass away."
Let us, then, now for a few moments give our minds to the consideration
of this plain truth, which we have heard so often that for that very
reason we are not unlikely to forget it--that the great thing in religion
is to set off well, to resist the beginnings of sin, to flee temptation,
to avoid the company of the wicked. "Enter not into the path of the
wicked . . . . avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it, pass away."
1. And for this reason, first of all, because it is hardly possible to
delay our flight without rendering flight impossible. When I say, resist
the beginnings of evil, I do not mean the first act merely, but the
rising thought of evil. Whatever the temptation may be, there may be no
time to wait and gaze, without being caught. Woe to us if Satan (so to
say) sees us first; for, as in the case of some beast of prey, for him to
see us is to master us. Directly we are made aware of the temptation, we
shall, if we are wise, turn our backs upon it, without waiting to think
and reason about it; we shall engage our mind in other thoughts. There
are temptations when this advice is especially necessary; but under all
it is highly seasonable.
2. For consider, in the next place, what must in all cases be the
consequence of allowing evil thoughts to be present to us, though we do
not actually admit them into our hearts. This, namely,--we shall make
ourselves familiar with them. Now our great security against sin lies in
being shocked at it. Eve gazed and reflected when she should have fled.
It is sometimes said "Second thoughts are best:" this is true in many
cases, but there are times when it is very false, and when, on the
contrary, first thoughts are best. For sin is like the serpent, which
seduced our first parents. We know that some serpents have the power of
what is called "fascinating." Their eye has the power of subduing--nay,
in a strange way, of alluring--their victim, who is reduced to utter
helplessness, cannot flee away, nay, rather is obliged to approach, and
(as it were) deliver himself up to them; till in their own time they
seize and devour him. What a dreadful figure this is of the power of sin
and the devil over our hearts! At first our conscience tells us, in a
plain straightforward way, what is right and what is wrong; but when we
trifle with this warning, our reason becomes perverted, and comes in aid
of our wishes, and deceives us to our ruin. Then we begin to find, that
there are arguments available in behalf of bad deeds, and we listen to
these till we come to think them true; and then, if perchance better
thoughts return, and we make some feeble effort to get at the truth
really and sincerely, we find our minds by that time so bewildered that
we do not know right from wrong.
Thus, for instance, every one is shocked at cursing and swearing when he
first hears it; and at first he cannot help even showing that he is
shocked; that is, he looks grave and downcast, and feels uncomfortable.
But when he has once got accustomed to such profane talking, and been
laughed out of his strictness, and has begun to think it manly, and has
been persuaded to join in it, then he soon learns to defend it. He says
he means no harm by it; that it does no one any harm; that it is only so
many words, and that every body uses them. Here is an instance in which
disobedience to what we know to be right makes us blind.
Again, this same confusion frequently happens in the case of temptations
from the world. We fear worldly loss or discredit; or we hope some
advantage; and we feel tempted to act so as to secure, at any rate, the
worldly good, or to avoid the evil. Now in all such cases of conduct
there is no end of arguing about right or wrong, if we once begin; there
are numberless ways of acting, each of which may be speciously defended
by argument, but plain, pure-hearted common sense, generally speaking, at
the very first sight decides the question for us without argument; but if
we do not listen promptly to this secret monitor, its light goes out at
once, and we are left to the mercy of mere conjecture, and grope about
with but second-best guides. Then seeming arguments in favour of deceit
and evil compliance with the world's wishes, or of disgraceful indolence,
urge us, and either prevail, or at least so confuse us, that we do not
know how to act. Alas! in ancient days it happened in this way, that
Christians who were brought before their heathen persecutors for
punishment, because they were Christians, sometimes came short of the
crown of martyrdom, "having loved this present world[4]," and so lost
their way in the mazes of Satan's crafty arguments.
Temptations to unbelief may also be mentioned here. Speculating wantonly
on sacred subjects, and jesting about them, offend us at first; and we
turn away: but if in an evil hour we are seduced by the cleverness or wit
of a writer or speaker, to listen to his impieties, who can say where we
shall stop? Can we save ourselves from the infection of his profaneness?
we cannot hope to do so. And when we come to a better mind (if by God's
grace this be afterwards granted to us), what will be our state? like the
state of men who have undergone some dreadful illness, which changes the
constitution of the body. That ready and clear perception of right and
wrong, which before directed us, will have disappeared, as beauty of
person, or keenness of eye-sight in bodily disorders; and when we begin
to try to make up our minds which way lies the course of duty on
particular trials, we shall bring enfeebled, unsteady powers to the
examination; and when we move to act, our limbs (as it were) will move
the contrary way, and we shall do wrong when we wish to do right.