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+ text-align: center; +} + +/* Footnotes */ +.footnotes {border: none;} + +.footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + +.footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + +.fnanchor { + vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: + none; +} + +/* Poetry */ +.block {margin: auto; width: 26em;} + +.poem { + margin-left:10%; + margin-right:10%; + text-align: left; +} + +.poem br {display: none;} + +.poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + +.poem span.i0 { + display: block; + margin-left: 0em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i2 { + display: block; + margin-left: 2em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +#tp {text-align: center; text-indent: 0em;} +.title {font-size: 1.5em; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: .2em; word-spacing: .1em;} +.author {font-size: 1.2em; letter-spacing: .2em; word-spacing: .1em;} +.books {font-size: .9em;} +.noi {text-indent: 0em;} +#box2 {margin: 5em auto 5em auto; width: 26em; border: 1px solid #dcdcdc; clear: left; + padding: .5em 1em .5em 1em;} +#boxtn {margin: 5em auto 5em auto; width: 26em; border: 1px solid #dcdcdc; clear: left; + padding: .5em 1em .5em 1em; background-color: #f5f5f5;} +.oldeng {font-family: “Old English Text MT”, serif;} + + +.ph2, .ph3 { text-align: center; text-indent: 0em; font-weight: bold; } +.ph2 { font-size: x-large; margin: .75em auto; } +.ph3 { font-size: large; margin: .83em auto; } +div.chapter {page-break-before: always;} +h2 {page-break-before: avoid;} +.big {font-size: x-large;} + </style> + </head> + <body> +<div style='margin-top:2em;margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MISREAD PASSAGE OF SCRIPTURES ***</div> + + + + +<hr> + +<h1>MISSREAD PASSAGE<br> +of<br> +SCRIPTURE.</h1> + +<hr class="hr3"> + +<table> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">I.</td> +<td class="tdl">The Kingdom of Christ.</td> +<td class="tdr2"><a href="#I">1</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">II.</td> +<td class="tdl">The Dues of Cæsar and of Christ.</td> +<td class="tdr2"><a href="#II">14</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">III.</td> +<td class="tdl">“Unto This Last.”</td> +<td class="tdr2"><a href="#III">25</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">IV.</td> +<td class="tdl">Law and Life.</td> +<td class="tdr2"><a href="#IV">38</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">V.</td> +<td class="tdl">The Lost Birthright.</td> +<td class="tdr2"><a href="#V">53</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">VI.</td> +<td class="tdl">No Place of Repentance.</td> +<td class="tdr2"><a href="#VI">69</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">VII.</td> +<td class="tdl">The Curse of the Ground.</td> +<td class="tdr2"><a href="#VII">86</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">VIII.</td> +<td class="tdl">The Easily Besetting Sin.</td> +<td class="tdr2"><a href="#VIII">102</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">IX.</td> +<td class="tdl">The Law of Abstinence.</td> +<td class="tdr2"><a href="#IX">117</a></td> +</tr> +</table> + + +<hr> + + + +<div class="tp"> +<p class="center"><span class="title">MISREAD PASSAGES</span><br><br> +OF<br><br> +<span class="title">SCRIPTURE.</span><br><br> +<br><br><br> +BY<br><br> +<span class="author">J. BALDWIN BROWN, B.A.,</span><br><br> +<span class="books"><i>Author of “The Divine Life in Man,” “The Home Life,” &c., &c.</i></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 97px;"> +<img src="images/divider.jpg" width="97" height="32" alt="Divider" title=""> +</div> + +<p class="center"><span class="oldeng">New York:</span><br> +<span class="pub1">CARLTON & LANAHAN</span>,<br> +<span class="pub2">805, BROADWAY.</span><br> +1869.</p> +</div> + + + + +<hr> + +<div class='chapter'><h2><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_iii">[iii]</a></span> +<a id="PREFACE"></a>PREFACE.</h2></div> + + +<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">The</span> accompanying Sermons on “Misread Passages of Scripture” form part of +a series which the author projected, but which through ill health he has +been unable to complete. He sends them forth in this imperfect form, in +compliance with the wish of the publishers; and in the belief too that +the topics of some of them will not be without interest, in the conflict +of thought on theological subjects which waxes rather than wanes year by +year.</p> + +<p>The reader will see that much space has not been occupied with critical +discussions; nor has the author gone out of his way to correct the +English version of the Scriptures. He appreciates fully the value of +critical inquiries; but it is wonderful how the sense of leading +passages of the Bible gets moulded, apart from, and even in defiance of, +critical considerations, by the bias of the various theological schools. +Each school makes, if not its own version of the Bible, its own +interpretation of the leading passages; and tradition plays an important +part in the Protestant as well as in the Roman Church. The text being +accepted, each party makes its own version of it, and widely different +senses are extracted from the same words. Hence it happens that +<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_iv">[iv]</a></span>important passages of Scripture have certain ideas associated with them +in the popular mind, which, if they are erroneous, are not to be +corrected by a simple announcement, on competent critical authority, of +the true rendering of the text.</p> + +<p>The author of this little volume believes that there are some very +popular but very detrimental misapprehensions, not of the true reading +only, but of the true bearing of many important passages; and he offers +this slight contribution towards a true understanding of them in the +earnest hope that it may stimulate some so to search the Scriptures as +to find in them not the confirmation of cherished dogmas, far less +stones for the slings of theological war, but the Word of Eternal Life.</p> + +<p class="right">J. BALDWIN BROWN.</p> +<p><span class="smcap pl">Clapham</span>,<br> +<span class="pl2"><i>New Year’s Day</i>, 1869</span>.</p> + + + +<hr> + +<div class="ph2 oldeng"><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_1">[ 1]</a></span> +<span class='big'>Misread Passages of Scripture.</span></div> + + + +<hr class="hr3"> + +<div class='chapter'><h2><a id="I"></a>I.<br> + +THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST.</h2></div> + +<div class="quote2"> +“My kingdom is not of this world.”—<span class="smcap">John</span> xviii. 36. +</div> + +<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">Perhaps</span> there is no passage of Scripture more constantly misunderstood +than these simple words; and certainly there is no misunderstanding of +Scripture which has exercised a more detrimental influence on the life +and development of the church. The whole passage contains the very +marrow of the doctrine of Christ concerning His kingdom. It is the basis +of its constitution. To this, its subjects have rightly looked in all +ages for instruction as to its fundamental spirit, principles, and aims. +Words more solemn, more pregnant, were never spoken in this world, in +this universe, than these. They were spoken at the very crisis of +universal destinies. They form the dividing line between the two +eternities. From eternity all things had been working towards that +hour—the consummation of the incarnation; and to eternity the influence +of that hour would go forth, remoulding, regenerating all the worlds. +Beyond any words that have ever been spoken, these words are worthy of +intense and reverent attention. They are the words with which the Son of +God passed on to the cross, that He might pass up to the throne.</p> + +<p>The two kings stood there in presence. The representative of the king of +this world, who wielded all its force and guided all its movements, the +man who had<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_2">[2]</a></span> but to nod and the whole civilized world trembled and +obeyed; and a King, the elements of whose kingship few could discern, +who wielded a strange power and produced a deep impression that He had a +right to rule over men, but who wore no signs of royalty and laid no +claim to the possession of this world’s thrones. Nay, a kingdom had been +forced on Him, and He escaped as from a deadly danger from the homage of +His subjects, while He spake to them such searching spiritual words that +they conceived a great dread of His kingly commands and claims. He bade +them begin to rule themselves when they were dreaming of a splendid rule +over the gentiles; and He turned inwards on the inner obliquity, +foulness, and deformity, those eyes which were watching eagerly for the +signs of an approaching advent of a glorious, celestial imperator to the +world. Jesus looked on Pilate’s kingship, and fathomed it perfectly. He +knew from whence the power sprang, and by what springs it was fed, which +seated Pilate’s master on the world’s imperial throne. Pilate found the +royalty of Jesus unfathomable; none of his worldly experiences helped +him to understand it. Art Thou a king then, poor, worn, tear-stained +Outcast, forsaken of every subject, of every friend, in the hour of Thy +bitter need? And yet the nascent smile of scorn was checked by something +which cast a spell even on that worn-out profligate’s heart. That lonely +wasted Man there had that about Him which made the representative of the +world’s master afraid. It seemed mere idle talk to a man like Pilate: “a +kingdom not of this world;” “witnessing to truth;” “disciples of the +truth:” it was all childish to the trained intellect of this experienced +ruler; and yet there seemed to be some power beyond the grasp of his +intellect, which something within him recognised, and which might create +and rule a kingdom after a fashion which till then had never even +crossed his dreams. But to him the mystery remained insoluble. He wrote +a title to which his instinct gave a reality that his intellect denied, +“<span class="smcap">Jesus of Nazareth,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_3">[3]</a></span> King of the Jews</span>.” And here in this passage we have +the Lord’s own declaration of the constitution and aims of His kingdom; +the kingdom which, from that hour, has been the ruling element in the +history of this world, and, as we learn from the Apocalypse, of all the +worlds of the great universe of God. And men persistently misread it as +they misread Him, and employ His words as they employed His works, to +frustrate the purpose for which He entered into the world.</p> + +<p>Let us see how the misunderstanding of these words arose.</p> + +<p>“My kingdom is not of this world:” literally “not from,” originally “out +of” this world. A clear understanding of the full force of this will +give us the clue to the interpretation of our Lord’s words. There is an +old sense of the preposition “of,” which closely corresponds with the +full sense of the word employed in the Greek, expressing “out of,” +“springing from.” But “of,” like other words and other things, in the +course of time has got weakened by the wear and tear of life; and the +sense “belonging to,” “connected with,” is its natural suggestion to +modern ears; whereby the sense of our Lord’s words has been grievously +weakened too. Did the Lord mean to say, “My kingdom has nothing to do +with the institutions and arrangements of the worldly life of men: you +need not fear any rivalry, delegate of Caesar; My kingdom is in a quite +different sphere, and will keep there, without touching yours: it only +has to do with men as spiritual beings, with a view to their final +destiny in the eternal state: keep to your secular province, and we +shall never cross or clash: the two spheres are quite separate, and +nothing but mischief can come of their commerce: I leave you to rule; +leave Me to teach, unfettered by conditions; for I aim at no influence +on earth, My one object is to persuade men to live a life separate from +this world, as much detached as possible from its interests and +pursuits, that they may enter into My heavenly kingdom when death +releases<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_4">[4]</a></span> them, and where the sphere will be all My own”? Was this His +meaning? or did He mean to say, “My kingdom is not out of this world; it +comes down into this world from on high: this world is, like man, made +of the dust of the earth, ‘of the earth, earthy,’ except some spirit +breathe into it from the higher world—then it lives: My kingdom comes +to the kingdoms of this world, the interests, aims, pursuits, and common +life of men, like this breath of Divine inspiration: without it they all +languish and must perish; with it they live: it is a descent of heavenly +truth, heavenly love, heavenly life, into the sphere of the earthly, to +make it live anew; the earth languishes for My kingdom, for without Me +it dies: leave Me free to fulfil My mission, not because this world is +nothing to Me, and My kingdom will not trouble itself with its affairs, +but because My truth, My life, My love are needful to the life of this +world as vital air to the body; because all business, all domestic life, +all friendship, all society, all government, all thought, all art, all +learning are waiting, are panting, for the living baptism which I bring. +I am not of the world, My kingdom is not of the world, in the springs of +its influence; it is essentially of heaven, and from heaven: but it +seeks the world as the sphere of its influence, the field of its +conquest, the realm of its rule. With yearning desire, eagerly as man +yearns for fellowship, a friend for the brother of his spirit, the +bridegroom for the bride, I seek and claim this world as My own”?</p> + +<p>Here are the two ideas of the meaning of these words of our Lord set +fairly against each other. The number of those who would deliberately +adopt and justify the former is happily growing less year by year. Were +we caring only for formal misunderstandings of important passages of +Scripture in these discourses, it would be hardly worth while to discuss +seriously a perversion which is vanishing with the changed aspects of +the times. But the spirit, the savour, of an error continues long to +work after it has been formally exploded; and we discuss this<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_5">[5]</a></span> passage +in this present discourse under the strong conviction that the false +view which we have described above continues to tincture very deeply our +theology, our preaching, and our social ideas and habits, even in those +who would utterly repudiate the formal idea of the Lord’s kingdom on +which it rests.</p> + +<p>Some of the results of this misconception of the true nature of the +kingdom have been as follow:—</p> + +<p>1. The idea has been widely entertained that the aim of the Lord has +been, not to save the world, but to save a chosen few out of the world, +leaving calmly the great mass to go to wreck. The favourite notion has +been that the Lord’s disciples have been in all ages, and still will be, +an isolated band, like Israel in Egypt; hating the world around them, +hated by it, and waiting only the happy opportunity, the hour of +deliverance, to pass out of it triumphant, and leave it to perish by the +strokes of the Lord’s avenging hand. This idea, that the Church is a +little band of chosen ones in the midst of a hostile and reprobate +world, is a very favourite one with the disciples in all ages; and it is +nourished by the tone in which the apostles wrote and spoke to the few +poor men and women who were to begin the work of restoration, and who +needed to be upborne against tremendous pressure by the assurance of the +special and personal intervention of the God of heaven on behalf of the +little company whom He loved. They needed a strong support against a +world which was bent on destroying them as it had destroyed their Lord; +and so the apostle wrote, “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal +priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people, that ye should show forth +the praises of Him who hath called you out of darkness into His +marvellous light. Which in time past were not a people, but are now the +people of God; which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained +mercy.” “Fear not, little flock; it is your Father’s good pleasure to +give you the kingdom.” That the disciples have been the few in all ages +is alas only too palpable to those whose sight pierces<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_6">[6]</a></span> no farther than +Elijah’s, and who cannot fathom the secret things which are unveiled to +the eye of God. But it is a dark heresy to believe that the Lord meant +that His own should be the few in all ages, and that the rescue of an +election from the impending ruin can satisfy the heart of Him who cried, +as the hour of His anguish drew nigh, “And I, if I be lifted up from the +earth, will draw all men unto me.”</p> + +<p>2. Closely associated with this is the notion that all which belongs to +the earthly life of men has a certain taint of evil upon it, is corrupt +and corrupting in its very nature; so that if a disciple touches it he +must touch it like pitch, cautiously, and expect contamination with all +his care. That if he must enter into the world’s activities, buy, sell, +and get gain, marry and give in marriage, rule households and take part +in the government of states, he must do it under protest and under the +spur of a sharp necessity, and is bound to long anxiously for the time +when the need of all this will be over, and he will be free to meditate +on Divine things and to praise through eternity. If Christ’s kingdom be +not of this world, he argues, then all which is of this world, politics, +literature, art, society, trade cannot be of Christ’s kingdom; and His +subjects, hampered by these evil cares for a time, must be ever looking +forward eagerly to the day when they will be freed from them for ever. +And this is the meaning which is constantly veiled under the phrase, +“the coming of the Lord Jesus,” and expressed in the prayer, “Even so, +Lord Jesus, come quickly.”</p> + +<p>3. Then further there is the notion that it is only in a very partial +sense that we can talk of Christ’s kingdom here, that it belongs +essentially to the future and eternal state, and can only be fully +comprehended by him who can separate it in thought from all the +blemishes and accidents of time, and behold it, pure from the defilement +and degradation of the earthly (that is the human) in this world, in its +glorious Divine form in eternity.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_7">[7]</a></span> +And surely there is a great truth here. The perfect image of it, as +Plato said of the polity of which he dreamed, abides only in the +heavens; and we need to refresh both courage and hope, when we see the +blots and fractures of the kingdom here, by contemplating the pure form +of it which abides in the heavens with God. But dreams and +contemplations will never bring it down from the heavens; it is here, or +nowhere. It is this earthly image which is to be translated into that +heavenly likeness; and if we would be near to and like the King, we must +follow Him into the very heart of the world’s business and throngs, not +that we may seek His chosen there and rescue them from the world, but +that we may rescue the world from all that makes it other than Christ’s +kingdom, by driving out of it “everything that defileth, or worketh +abomination, or maketh a lie,” and thus purify its atmosphere, cleanse +the ducts and channels of its life, invigorate its energy, and +consecrate its activity, till it grows like its ideal in heaven.</p> + +<p>And what has been the history of the kingdom? Since the first hour of +its establishment, perpetual intervention in an action upon the worldly +affairs of men. It is literally true that Dean Milman’s history of Latin +Christianity is the completest history of the Western European world +during the middle ages, extant in our language. And why? Because during +the middle ages, and until now, the Church has been the backbone of +human society. All man’s dearest interests and hopes have gathered +around the kingdom; over its destinies, and under its banners, all man’s +deadliest battles have been fought. “Yes!” it may be answered; “but this +is just the corruption of the kingdom; because it mixed itself with +worldly affairs, and suffered worldly men to administer it, it became +the centre and pivot of all the movements of human society.” But this +state of things was at any rate the confession that the men of this +world could not get on without the kingdom, that when it<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_8">[8]</a></span> was once +revealed it inevitably tended to gather around itself all the vital +activity of the world. Since Christ appeared, men have felt everywhere +that they must place themselves and their concerns in some kind of vital +relation to the Church. And this has been the key to the public life of +Christendom; in fact it has made Christendom in opposition to +heathendom, as the province of all the most cultivated and progressive +races of mankind. The forms of relation which men created were no doubt +worldly enough; but the sense that they needed the relation, and must +find it to live out a true man’s life was not worldly, but true, noble, +and Divine. The Church from the very hour of the ascension of its Head, +began to act on human society as incomparably the most powerful +influence extant in the world. It literally re-made society from the +very foundations. Far from contenting itself with mastering the will of +individual subjects, and wooing them away from the pursuits and +interests of the world around them, it entered the homes of men, and +cast out the harpy passions which had befouled them; it gave marriage +new sacredness, parents new authority and new responsibility, and +children new grounds of obedience to their sires. It entered the market +and established just weights and balances, honest word, and loyal trust. +Theft could be no virtue, and lying no graceful accomplishment, where it +established its reign. It entered states, and changed tyrants into +kings, serfs into subjects, slaves into freemen, nobles into guardians, +pastors, and captains of industry to the poor. That very Rome which +doomed the King to a malefactor’s death, it entered as a conqueror, and +it broke that proud empire to fragments. The time came when Rome could +live no longer in the moral atmosphere which it created; and then it +summoned purer, nobler, hardier races to occupy the homes and to till +the fields which Rome had depopulated and destroyed. It introduced its +laws into every code in Christendom. King Alfred begins his statute<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_9">[9]</a></span> +book by reciting the laws of the kingdom of God.<a id="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a> In truth it has +penetrated and permeated every vein and fibre of human society, and it +has made it all anew. There is literally nothing with which you in this +nineteenth century can concern yourself,—trade, literature, politics, +science, art, government, social and domestic life, human rights, human +duties, human powers, human fears, aspirations, hopes and joys,—there +is not one element of our complex social and political life which is not +what it is, because eighteen centuries ago the Lord Jesus witnessed this +good confession before Pilate “Thou sayest that which I am, a king.” +From the world it has asked nothing, taken nothing, but its reverence +and love: of the world in that sense it has never been. But in the +world, and through the world, the stream of its heavenly virtue and life +has wandered, and the wilderness and the solitary place have been made +glad by it, and the desert has rejoiced and blossomed as the rose. It +has sought studiously to mix itself up with all the relations and +interests of mankind; it has a word about them all, it has a law for +them all; the weight in the pedlar’s bag, the sceptre of the monarch on +the throne, are alike under its rule and cognisance, for it claims man +as man to be its subject. It says that man was made to be the subject of +this kingdom, and all man’s life is the true domain of its sway. It +looks upon this worldly life of ours—our life as men of this world—as +the most solemn, most sacred thing in this universe; God’s school of +culture of the beings who are to fill His heavenly kingdom through +eternity. It cannot spare one relation of men, one art, one industry, +one field of activity, one interest, one joy, one hope, one love, from +its domain of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_10">[10]</a></span> empire. The whole man, the whole world, in the wholeness +of its life, it claims absolutely; and it aims to present the whole man +and his whole life, body, soul, and spirit, perfect before the presence +of His glory at last. “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies +of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable +unto God, which is your reasonable service.”</p> + +<p>And now let me ask your attention to some principles which are suggested +by a true understanding of this statement of our Lord.</p> + +<p>1. His kingdom is not <i>of</i> this world. It is from above, and all the +springs of its power are above. The attempt to help it from beneath, to +bring the strength, the riches, the honour of this world to help the +Spirit who is from above in the work of the kingdom, cripples its +energies, frustrates its aims, and exhausts its life. Its one power is +the power of truth; “to this end was I born, for this cause came I into +the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth,” said its Founder +and King. It has absolutely no other power. “Every one that is of the +truth heareth my voice;” and all the efforts of men to force, tempt, or +bribe mankind to support it, but silence that witness, which is all that +it asks to win the world to itself.</p> + +<p>One can understand the argument of those who support a state +establishment of religion and the whole apparatus by which men seek to +win for it the supremacy to which it rightfully aspires. They say, “It +is of God, it is the heavenly truth, it is worthy of all that men can +give to it and of all the power which man can bring to bear on the +accomplishment of its work: the state does itself honour, and gives +itself stability by supporting it; monarchs are never so royal as in +lending to it their influence; all the world’s riches are never so +precious as when they are poured into its treasuries, and are employed +in the promotion of its ends.”</p> + +<p>And this is no more than the simple truth. The kingdom<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> is worthy to +receive the tribute of all the monarchs, the nobles, the wise ones, the +rich ones of the world: the more it has of the good-will and help of +every man, from the king to the beggar, the better for the kingdom, the +better for mankind. All that we say is, Let it win them. Let it win in +its own way, by putting forth its own power, the nursing care of the +noble, the rich, and the wise. Leave it to employ its own spiritual +force to do this and all at which it aims. Lend your heart to it, your +hand, your tongue, your pen, your purse, and everything else which it +can command and use to win its way to human hearts. But if you bring +your human authority to bear to win from your subjects and dependants an +outward homage, if you endow it with dead gifts administered by the +scribes and lawyers of this world, if you lend worldly pomp and power to +those who claim to be its ministers, you oppress and stifle it, and +destroy its power of progress in the world. It wants free air, the free +air of willing obedience, loyalty, and love. Rob it of that, it dies. It +is not of this world. Every gift that is wrung for it from an unwilling +hand beggars it. Its riches are the gifts of free will. Mere gold, with +no spirit of loving loyalty in the giver, is worse than dross to it; it +cankers and eats into its life. The power which has troops of soldiers +and legal tribunals behind it blights it by its very breath. All that it +asks is freedom; power to do what Christ did, in the way in which He did +it; power to bear witness to the truth, and weaken the long silent +echoes of truth in human hearts. We have cut off its heavenly +connection, and rooted it in the powers and policies of this world; and +now we wonder that it languishes, and that one half the people in a +Christian kingdom believe nothing of its truth and care nothing for its +King. Oh! for the days of apostolic trust and simplicity, when the +disciples, “continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking +bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and +singleness of heart, praising God and having favour with all the +people.” Oh!<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> for the baptism of Pentecostal fire from on high. Oh! for +one of the days of the Son of Man, whom the Father sent into the world, +armed with no authority but that of truth, clothed with no power but +that of love. How eagerly then, eager as the thirsty earth when the +sound of rain is in the sky, would men drink in the words of Him who had +more faith in the power of truth to conquer hearts than in the arms of +twelve legions of angels, and whose supreme trust was in the +all-mastering force of a love stronger than death—a love that laid down +its life that death might not for ever tyrannise over the world.</p> + +<p>2. Make your life, your man’s life in its wholeness the domain of its +empire in you. Beware of a double allegiance. How earnestly and +emphatically the Lord denounces it: “Ye cannot serve God and Mammon.” +Beware of yielding to Christ a part of the empire which is all His own. +Beware of that fatal distinction between the man as a Christian, and the +man as a citizen, the man as a man of business, which has grown out of +the misunderstanding of the principle laid down by our Lord. Christian +saint, Christian worshipper, Christian citizen, Christian merchant, +Christian parent, be Christian wholly. Refuse to touch a thing in any +department of your activity, which will not square with your Christian +ideas and aims. Let your daily transactions be as freely open to +Christ’s inspection as to the world’s honourable judgment: let it be the +aim of your life at home, abroad, in the shop, the exchange, the forum, +to show what the laws of Christ’s kingdom can make of a life which is +square with their precepts. Adorn the doctrine of God your Saviour, not +by fellowship with His people only, but by winning men to worship Him by +the spectacle of your diligence, your industry, your purity, your truth, +your charity, gentleness, patience, faith, and hope in God; and when +they learn that these are the King’s gifts to you, at once the signs and +the fruits of His reign, they will, like the people of old, break forth +into thanksgiving, and confess joyfully that God is with you of a +truth.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> +3. Count it your chief work on earth to be His fellow-helper in His +kingdom; help to win for Him the empire of the world.</p> + +<p>His kingdom is not of this world. But it is over this world, and it +claims this world as its own. The Lord has a heart so large that only +the world can fill it. He uttered its whole longing as He entered the +cloud of the last agony:—“And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will +draw all men unto me.” Bear witness in the world that the one thing +needful to it is Christ. Tell statecraft that it needs the laws of the +kingdom, to regulate its methods and to indicate its ends. Tell monarchs +that they need to observe <i>the</i> Monarch, that their rule may be a +benediction to loyal subjects instead of a curse to cringing slaves. +Tell citizens that they need to become citizens of this kingdom, that +the commonwealth on earth may be the image and the vestibule of the +commonwealth of the skies. Tell classes that they need the instructions +of this Master, that society may be less a den of selfish contentions, +and more a field of gracious ministries and ennobling toils. Tell +commerce that she needs the inspiration of this duty, that the dull, the +common, the base may be transfigured and wear the forms of beauty, +nobleness, and truth. Tell life that it needs the quickening of this +spirit, that it may not drop piecemeal through the corruptions of sin +into the darkness and rottenness of the pit. Above all, tell every soul +that hears you, that it needs Christ, the living Bread; the bread of +Christ’s truth, the bread of Christ’s life, the bread of Christ’s love, +that it may not settle into the darkness of death for ever, but “have +everlasting life,” where Christ lives and reigns at God’s right hand +eternally.</p> + +<hr class="white"> + +<div class="footnotes"><span class='ph3'>FOOTNOTE:</span> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_A_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_1"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> King Alfred’s “new book of laws” opens with the sentence, +“And the Lord spake all these words and said, I am the Lord thy God,” +etc. Then follows the decalogue; and then, “Whatsoever ye would that men +should do unto you, that do ye also unto them.” Besides, there are many +passages quoted from the word of God, with most wise reflections on them +and applications of them to the matter in hand; and then he proceeds to +the laws of the realm.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr> + +<div class='chapter'><h2><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> +<a id="II"></a>II.<br> + +THE DUES OF CÆSAR AND OF CHRIST.</h2></div> + +<div class="quote"> +“Render therefore unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar’s; and +unto God the things that are God’s.”—<span class="smcap">Matt.</span> xxii. 21. +</div> + +<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">What</span> things are Cæsar’s? Clearly the things which bear his image and +superscription; the things on which he has the right and the power to +imprint his mark.</p> + +<p>What things are God’s? Clearly those things which bear His immediate +mark and superscription, which belong to the diviner part in man, which +are in man by the breath of the Divine inspiration, and which God +claims, and therefore has the right to claim directly and exclusively +for Himself. The Lord will not stand between Cæsar and that which bears +his image; let not Cæsar dare to stand between God and that in man which +bears His image, and which He claims to rule directly by His word and by +His Spirit indwelling in human hearts.</p> + +<p>This text is constantly quoted to justify the refusal to pay to Cæsar +the tax, be it church-rate or anything else, which he may demand for the +support of a spiritual system, which we may not believe to be in +accordance with the Divine will. I confess that the teaching of our Lord +in these words seems to me to point in precisely the opposite direction. +The argument which one often hears is to this effect: Cæsar is intruding +into God’s province when he demands anything from us for spiritual uses; +this is a department with which he has nothing whatever to do, and we +are giving him that which is God’s if we yield to his claims. God alone +has the right to claim anything at our hand for spiritual uses; and we +are wronging Him, we are robbing the Lord of what political theologians +call His “crown rights,” if we give unto<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> Cæsar one farthing for the +maintenance of any Church system or systems, or any spiritual operations +of any sort, since these are of the things which belong to God alone. +The argument of our Lord in these verses points surely the other way. +With Him the test of the demand is not the purpose, but the thing +demanded. If what is asked has Cæsar’s image on it, enough; let him have +it; the responsibility of using it rests with him. If Cæsar asks that +which has not his image upon it, which he cannot compel before his +tribunals or distrain by his officers, such as your judgment, your +conscience, and the support of your voice and your hand, obey God rather +than man. If you yield to Cæsar, yield because you see that it is right +in God’s sight, that it is a duty to God to yield to him; if you refuse, +refuse because to yield would be wrong in God’s sight, and then be +prepared to sustain your refusal even unto death.</p> + +<p>Do not misunderstand the difficulty of the Jewish rulers, which was a +very real one. It was a case of conscience with them. They did not care +about the amount of the tribute, that was a small matter; but Cæsar was +a Gentile, idolatrous prince. Idolatry was the state religion of the +Roman empire. It was a bitter thought to the Jew that an idolater, one +capable of setting up his own image in the holy of holies, should rule +over him and exact his tribute. Was it not a betrayal of duty to God to +consent to it? Was it not right to suffer any extremities rather than +yield to the imperial claims? There was a party among the Jews who felt +so grievously the degradation and the burden on their consciences, that +they were in a chronic state of rebellion against Rome. They were always +seeking to foment the differences between their own and the Roman +government; and they were prepared to stake their own lives and the life +of the nation on their fealty, as they understood fealty, to God alone. +It was one of the questions most eagerly debated among them, which they +asked the Saviour to solve. A case of conscience,—conscience grieved by +being compelled<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_16">[16]</a></span> to support a system of government other than that which +they believed had been ordained to them of God. Our Lord’s solution is +most original and striking; and it offers the clearest guidance to us +through the multitude of kindred perplexities which cannot fail to arise +by reason of the ever varying relations of the secular and spiritual +powers in every age of the world. (Matt. xxii. 15-22.) The image on the +tribute money settled the matter. This is <i>primâ facie</i> evidence that +Cæsar has a right to claim it. The power of putting an image on the +money marks it as a thing between you and Cæsar. You accept it and use +it in daily life, at Cæsar’s hand. That image on the penny, the right of +coining money being represented by it, is the symbol of all the order +and benediction which flow to you from Cæsar’s rule; and Cæsar’s right +to exact it back again is distinctly a question between you and the +earthly monarch, into which you have no right to drag, for the purpose +of protest, the name of God. Cæsar is ordained of God to take visible +charge of this department, the order of civil society; and he and you +must settle between you the fair adjustment of his claims. A piece of +money bearing Cæsar’s image is no battleground for the rights of God. +Pay whatever Cæsar asks for his purposes, no matter what they may be, so +long as by using Cæsar’s mintage you give the stamp of your acquiescence +to his rule; and if his purposes seem to you to be wrong, fight him with +nobler things than pennies—with voice and pen, the free utterance of +opinion, and, if needs must be, in the last extremity, with swords.</p> + +<p>If Cæsar asks your homage to his idol, the bending of your knee, or the +acclamation of your voice, the answer is clear,—Thy image and +superscription are not here; my knee is for my God, my voice is for my +God; and all the powers of the universe cannot bend the one or awaken +the other without my will. Here I follow the Divine precedent: +“Nebuchadnezzar spake,” etc. (Dan. iii. 14-18.) But if Cæsar asks my +pennies for any purpose which he comprehends within the aim of his +government, let him<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> have them; they clearly belong to his sphere. I +scorn to hold back what his force can wring from me the next moment; +they are his, the responsibility of taking them is his, and the +responsibility of using them is his. If I am not satisfied with his use +of them, I have nobler means of protest and influence; or, in the last +extremity, I can go forth from his empire and have done with him and his +pennies for ever.</p> + +<p>This is the principle on which it seems to me right to act in +church-rate matters. Suppose that one were living in a neighbourhood in +which the church of the district had been built under a special act of +parliament, to be paid for by a rate levied on the householders during a +term of years. It would be our duty to pay year after year our share of +the tax which parliament imposed. The money asked for has Cæsar’s image +and superscription on it: by using it we consent to Cæsar’s sway. We +have no right to pick and choose which claims of a government we will +honour, and which we will refuse. We get the good of the government as a +whole, and we pay its claims as a whole, always endeavouring by moral +means to secure that the adjustment shall be righteous and fair. And so +it may become a clear duty to pay for the building of a church which we +never enter, and whose minister regards our ministry as an unauthorized +and mischievous intrusion on his sacred domain. If the Church, by +Cæsar’s ministry, will have our tribute money, we say, Take it; and if +the demand be very harsh or peremptory, we say, Take it, in very scorn. +But God forbid that we should ever consent to belong to a Church which +can condescend to take tribute by force of the unwilling, and which +gives the adversary thereby such strong temptation to blaspheme.</p> + +<p>Such seems to me to be the bearing of this principle on this and kindred +questions. It seems to me distinctly to enjoin on us the course which it +is constantly quoted as denouncing. The money Cæsar needs, for the +carrying on of his government in the best way he can, is the first +charge on the property which the order of civil society<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_18">[18]</a></span> suffers us to +possess and enjoy. God claims none till Cæsar is satisfied; for Cæsar’s +claim is His ordinance. Having satisfied Cæsar, take counsel with him +about the rest.</p> + +<p>But these reflections open up many, some of them perplexing, questions, +on which this seems to me a good opportunity to offer some brief remark.</p> + +<p>1. Does not Christ in this place seem to recognise some divided +allegiance—man under two masters, owing duty to Cæsar, owing duty to +God? Will he not be puzzled perpetually to determine their limits, and +to settle what is secular and what is sacred? and is there not something +repugnant to the very essence of Christianity in the idea that man at +any moment, in any relation, can have to do with another being than God? +Is not God the sole Lord of his being and of his life? What can be +Cæsar’s, in contradistinction to that which is God’s? I think I have +learnt from the Scripture, and I am always preaching the doctrine, that +God claims the man in his wholeness; that body, soul, and spirit, +riches, knowledge, power, and love, all belong to Him; that there is but +one empire, one service, one King; that life is simple, simple as the +infinite God. “<i>Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and +soul, and mind, and strength</i>,” “<i>and Him only shalt thou serve</i>.” +“<i>This do, and thou shalt live.</i>” What claim can Cæsar have on man then, +which is not also God’s claim? What tribute can one pay to Cæsar, which +is not also paid to God? None, absolutely none. The Lord recognises no +divided allegiance; His words rightly understood are in perfect harmony +with the doctrine of His own sole and supreme lordship over every +thought, every passion, and every possession of man. “<i>Render unto Cæsar +the things which are Cæsar’s.</i>” Why? Who ordains it? Who has the right +to demand it? God. Within the sphere of Cæsar’s government, obey him, +not because Cæsar can force you, but because God will have you; make it +a part of your Divine obedience, to obey wisely and loyally as a subject +and a citizen; and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_19">[19]</a></span> consider that Cæsar claims your service within the +sphere which belongs to him, as the ordained minister and representative +of God. There is no secular and sacred since Christ appeared. It is all +sacred. Civil obedience is an ordinance of the Church. The Scripture +bears most explicit witness to these principles wherever it touches on +the relations of civil society and its institutions. (1 Pet. ii. 13-17; +Rom. xiii. 1-7; 1 Tim. ii. 1-4.) It is God’s institution. He sustains +it; He, through the ruler, claims your tribute; the result, the order +and progress of society, is His work. Innocent III. was right, though in +a sense of which he little dreamed. The moon has its own relation to the +earth; but they have a common relation to the sun. The moon’s orbit is +included in the earth’s orbit; but the sun sways and balances both of +them, and there is not a movement of the moon in obeying the inferior +earthly attraction which is not also an act of obedience to the superior +sphere. So God has set us under rulers, in societies, as a kind of +interior province of His kingdom; but our loyalty as subjects, our duty +as citizens, are alike part of the one duty which we owe to God. There +is no schism in the body of our service, no double authority in our +Lord’s realm. The two worlds, the two services, the two spheres, are one +in Christ. “<i>One is your Master, even Christ.</i>” “<i>Thou shalt worship +Him, and Him, only shalt thou serve.</i>”</p> + +<p>2. It is needful to inquire how far this principle of obedience is to +carry us.</p> + +<p>If the money has Cæsar’s image and superscription, let him have it; he +has a right to it, and in recognising that right we are fulfilling so +far our duty to God. Here is a clear and simple principle: but is it a +sufficient guidance? does it provide for all the possible exigencies of +social and political life? How about the right of resisting Cæsar, when +he rules unrighteously? How about John Hampden’s refusal of the +ship-money, and the grand and glorious struggle which it inaugurated, by +which our liberties were won? This is a very grave and important<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> +question, and one which, having voluntarily selected such a subject as +this, we have no right to pass by. There is a Divine precedent here. (1 +Kings xii. 12-24.) What is it which is ordained of God in government? +Not any particular king, nor any particular form or institution, but the +good of men in the order of civil society. This it is at which God aims, +and to this end kings and institutions are His ministers. The king or +institution which may best assure this end is the open question in the +settlement of which God demands the concert and co-operation of mankind. +Every king, every magistrate, every political institution, has a certain +Divine sanction, inasmuch as it is the keystone of the arch which He has +built, and under whose sheltering dome we live and work. But a keystone +which, instead of securing the arch, threatens its stability, has no +Divine sanction longer than for the time during which it can be +successfully replaced or repaired. The Divine shield is cast, not around +the particular king, but around the society and the civilization of +which he is the head. It is only in the unity of the society that the +Lord’s sanction upholds him; let him mar that unity or distract it, and +God passes to the side of those who are seeking to set up a new and real +keystone in his room. There is nothing like the duty of passive +obedience to tyrants implied in the text, or enjoined in the word of +God. “<i>Render unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar’s</i>,” while Cæsar is +the recognised lord. In those crises of history in which Cæsar has to be +weighed in the balance, in which the question has to be tried, Who is +king and by what rule shall he reign? godly men have to keep clear +before the mind’s eye what God means by human society, what He aims at, +and to help Him, yes, help Him to secure it. If no Cæsar be worth +recognising, or Cæsar be altogether too bad to be borne, then refuse his +tribute, resist his myrmidons, draw the sword of the Lord and of Gideon +to strike for deliverance. The Lord is the Cæsar of such an hour; the +Captain of the Lord’s host, His sword drawn in His hand as at Jericho, +is in these times<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> of revolution busy among men. They best honour Cæsar +and serve Christ in such hours, who have the clearest eye for the good +of the commonwealth, and who prepare the way for the reign of a Cæsar +who, like David, shall rule according to the will of God. The sacred +sense of the obligations of a subject or a citizen which those cherish, +who have learnt from Christ “by whom kings reign and princes decree +judgment,” and who know that obedience to the powers that he is a form +of obedience to God, makes them patient, beyond the measure of mere +political patience, of the weaknesses, follies, and sins of the men who +occupy the world’s high places; while it makes them stern and firm as +death when God has pronounced the sentence of deposition, and has bared +the avenging sword and committed it to their hands. These are the men +who, like Cromwell, do their work with a terrible force and +completeness, and who read lessons in God’s name to Cæsars, which remain +doctrinal through all time.</p> + +<p>3. Surely our Saviour intends us to understand how little money, or +anything with Cæsar’s image and superscription upon it, can do to make +or to mar the fortunes of God’s kingdom, which spreads and rules like +the dawn, like the moisture in the south wind, like the blush of spring, +like the splendour of summer, like everything that is quickened by the +breath of God. Tribute! We are always perplexing ourselves about +tribute—a steady stream of regular contributions, a flood-tide of +golden gifts. It is our measure of power. Quite other is Christ’s. His +power flashes like lightning from one part under heaven, and shineth to +the other part which is under heaven. The world flashes into light, +glows into life in a moment, when the times of refreshing, of +quickening, come down from God. Men catch it from each other’s eyes, +each other’s lips. It spreads as flame, and gathers strength as it +widens its circuit. Money, social and political influence, the force of +this world, all that seems solid and potent to men while they are +enacting the masque of life which we call living, faint back like +rushlights<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> in the lightning’s flash, like aged institutions in the hour +of revolution, when the breath of the Spirit as at Pentecost is falling +on the world. I speak, and I am quite sure the sacred writers spoke, in +no scorn of money. No <i>thing</i> is base: we keep our hate, our scorn, for +base spirits, not for things. But for money Paul must have starved, and +the kingdom must have perished in its birth. What the Lord means us to +understand is that money is the inevitable satellite of higher things. +Spirits in earnest movement sweep it with them in their course, as the +earth sweeps its atmosphere. Give us hearts of fire, fire that kindles +and flashes from heart to heart, from peak to peak of the human; and +what work will wait long for gold? Men who in common levels of interest +dole out their tens and hundreds, and feel some dull glow of +satisfaction stirring the stagnation of their hearts, scatter forth +their thousands when God fires their spirits, and their whole being is +alive and thrills with joy. Money! nothing greatly spiritual was ever +made by money, or was ever marred by money in this world.</p> + +<p>There is a touch of scorn in the Saviour’s words, “<i>Shew me the tribute +money</i>.” Scorn of the vain worldly mind that was perplexing itself about +tribute, while the love of God and the belief in judgment were fast +dying out of human hearts. One sacred conviction in their hearts would +have answered the question, and lifted them above the sphere of +tribute—as Paul was lifted—into the region of that kingdom which would +sweep Cæsar’s as a satellite in its sphere. Did the Lord foresee sadly +the scene from which a few dark days divided them, when they would yield +to Cæsar—these men, who were groaning and haggling over the +tribute—absolutely everything that was God’s? (John xix. 7-16).</p> + +<p>The leader of the band who turned the world upside down witnessed this +confession, “<i>Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I +thee: in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk</i>.” They +were poor as beggars, but richer in power to draw forth the treasures<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_23">[23]</a></span> +of this world than kings. What king’s command could have wrought this +miracle? “<i>And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and +of one soul: neither said any of them that ought of the things which he +possessed was his own; but they had all things common.</i>” (Acts iv. 32.) +In truth, this love of Christ is the universal solvent. Nothing remains +any man’s own when once the heart is touched by this Divine fire. It +melts all selfish separations and appropriations, as sun warmth the +bonds of winter, and quickens in the universal human heart the glow and +circulation of the spring. Nothing starves in summer for want of the +bread that perishes; supplies lie thick everywhere around. And no Divine +work stays for lack of the gold that perishes, when once the sun of the +Divine love has loosed men’s hearts from the winter of their isolation +and selfish grasping care. Don’t worry about the tribute. “<i>Trust in the +Lord, and do good</i>,” and things will right themselves at once. Tribute +will pour into the treasury, and even the exactors shall become +ministers and yield their willing aid. “<i>Thine officers shall become +peace, and thine exactors righteousness.</i>” “<i>Kings shall be thy nursing +fathers, and queens thy nursing mothers.</i>” “<i>Violence shall be no more +heard in thy land, wasting nor destruction within thy borders</i>,” if the +King is in thy palaces; if thy heart, soul, and hand are loyally devoted +to Christ. I often think, in these days of grand Christian institutions, +with their vast fixed incomes and endowments, and all the magnificent +apparatus without which it seems to us the Lord’s kingdom must perish +out of this land and out of the world, of the little company who trudged +wearily about the highways of Palestine, seeking their morning meal from +the fig-tree by the wayside, and lodging wherever a poor cottager’s +faith and love gave them shelter for a night, and who,—beggars as to +the things which were Cæsar’s, but filled as never men were filled +before or since with the things which were God’s, faith, hope, joy, +truth, wisdom, and Divine charity—went forth in this their might and +re-made society: the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_24">[24]</a></span> grandest revolution in the history of this +universe, accomplished by its beggars and, as the world thought, its +fools. And the fact repeats itself in every revolution. Let a man in any +age go forth with the fire of God in him; and the force he wields, the +mastery he wins, the new life he quickens in a nation, in a world, pours +silent contempt on gold. The gold is gathered, as spirit gathers flesh +about it and becomes incarnate; so all that belongs to Cæsar’s sphere is +at the commandment of that which comes straight from God’s and glows +with the inspiration of His life. Gifts of a splendid lavishness in such +seasons are abundant; and strangely enough the givers feel enriched +unspeakably by the joy of giving, enlarged immeasurably by +impoverishment, and increased by abnegation. The richest in such seasons +are those who give most, not those who have most. A wonderful sense of +the glorious wealth of a heart which has a guest-chamber for Christ, and +whose pulses beat joyously as the free tide of the Divine love flows +through and over it on all around, kindles men’s souls to a new +conception of riches. It fills the beatitudes with a wonderful meaning, +and shows the sorrows and straits of poverty overflowed by the riches +and joys of God.</p> + + + +<hr> + +<div class='chapter'><h2><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> +<a id="III"></a>III.<br> + +“UNTO THIS LAST.”</h2></div> + +<div class="quote2"> +“I will give unto this last, even as unto thee.”—<span class="smcap">Matt.</span> xx. 14. +</div> + + +<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">These</span> words appear at first sight to set us very decisively face to face +with the sovereignty of God, in its sternest and most naked +form—affirming its right to distribute its gifts and payments at its +pleasure, and refusing to consider the question of equity when urged by +the creature’s sharp complaint. “Take that thine is, and go thy way.” +“Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own?” “I will give +unto this last, even as unto thee.” There, it is said, and with apparent +truth, is Sovereignty—pure, naked Sovereignty. The “I will” of God +seems to be the sole explanation which is vouchsafed of His +dispensations and decrees. But this view of the matter has always seemed +to me deeply unsatisfactory. Equity is a strong instinctive principle, +which God Himself has established in the judgment seat of the human +conscience; and God never beats down with the bare assertion of an +irresistible Sovereignty the soul that is perplexed about the equity of +His ways. It is equity, pure, celestial equity, which reveals itself to +those who will search for it in this parable; equity to the poor souls +who had been standing all the day idle in the market-place, because no +man had called them to the vineyard; equity to the labourers who had +borne the burden and heat of the day, and had made the dignity and +culture of the Lord’s husbandmen their own. It is an equity which +invites the closest criticism from those who will search it thoroughly, +and which reveals to the searchers deep vital truths about man and about +God.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_26">[26]</a></span> +“I will give unto this last, even as unto thee.” It is a startling +sentence. This man had been labouring in the vineyard under the burning +heat, through the blazing noon; he had borne and bent under the whole +burden of the work: while this one had been brought in at the eleventh +hour, in the cool evenfall, and by a few minutes of light sweet labour +he had won the equivalent prize. There is something startling here, and +men have felt it; and they have striven in manifold and curious ways to +square the method of the Master with their fundamental notions of the +righteousness of God. There are theologians who feel no need to square +it. According to a theology which has exercised a wide-spread and malign +influence in the past, Sovereignty answers amply every difficulty, and +treats our ideas of equity as a high impertinence, when they claim to +weigh the ways of God. If it pleases God to make some men to be saved +and other men to be damned, who shall question His rights? and if He is +glorified equally by the salvation of the chosen and the damnation of +the reprobate, who dares complain, or to what court can we carry the +appeal? There are theologians who would have us rest calmly on the +conviction that a sovereign and inscrutable will is ruling, and trouble +ourselves in no wise about the equity of the decrees. But one cannot but +reflect that this composed contentment with the doctrine of reprobation +is mainly conspicuous in those who feel themselves safe from its +trenchant stroke. With the exception of Lord Byron—to whose malign and +scornful tone we believe that this was the real key—we hardly discover +the disciples of the doctrine among those who believe that they are +reprobate; and in the case of the theological school whose influence is +happily dying away, but which survives in out-of-the-way places to an +extent little dreamed of still, we may fairly entertain the question, +whether, if it were flashed suddenly on their souls that they, the +theologians, were doomed by the Divine decree to everlasting anguish, +their rest in the inscrutable Sovereignty would be so calm, and their +contentment<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> so assured. For thinkers of this school, of course, such a +parable as this presents no sort of difficulty. A penny more or less +would not be likely to stagger them, when the gift of heaven or the doom +of hell raise no question as to the equity of the Divine decrees. But +with the great multitude of Christian thinkers the parable has been the +source of much grievous perplexity, as the manifold explanations amply +prove. The question is, in which verse of the parable are we to find the +key to it? “Unto this last will I give, even as unto thee,” states the +problem. Is the solution to be found in the body of the parable, or must +we seek it outside in a general study of the ways of God?</p> + +<p>There can be no question, I think, that the broad bearing of the parable +is on the impending revolution in the visible Divine kingdom, whereby, +as the Saviour says, the kingdom of God was to be taken from the +Pharisees, and “given to a people bringing forth the fruits thereof.” I +say advisedly, from the Pharisees; from the party which held the chief +influence and authority in the Church. Their influence, their +standing-ground, was utterly shattered by the Saviour’s advent; the +kingdom passed visibly, absolutely, finally, out of the rule of their +hand. But there was never any question of its passing wholly from the +Jews; the Jews were never to be disowned. Paul earnestly, with intense +emphasis, asserts this, and makes it the basis of a long and profound +argument. “I say then, hath God cast away His people? God forbid. For I +also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. +God hath not cast away His people, which He foreknew.” (Rom. xi. 1, 2.) +The Jews, as such, were not cast away. We think all too slightly of the +strength of the Jewish element in the apostolic Church. And it is the +Jews—the people, not their leaders—who are in question here. They had +borne the burden and heat of the day; they had done the work—with what +result, well or ill, is not the point in debate. There is no idea of +their being dismissed without honour or recompense;<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_28">[28]</a></span> the question is +simply concerning the bringing in of other husbandmen, the Gentile +nations, at the last hour, to share in full measure in all that the +Jewish workmen had won by their long and hot day’s toil.</p> + +<p>Perhaps the favourite mode of reconciling the Master’s dealings with +fundamental principles of equity is to be found in the suggestion, +towards which some sentences in Olshausen’s Exposition strongly lean, +that the first called laboured so lazily, and the last called so +strenuously that (regarding the actual amount of work accomplished) the +Master’s arrangements were more equitable than might at first appear. +Notwithstanding the apt illustration of this which appears to be offered +by the history of St. Paul, who, though the last called, “laboured more +abundantly than they all,” the explanation seems to me to miss the whole +point of the teaching of the parable, and to proceed upon very low and +worldly conceptions of the method of the Divine ways. There is no hint +of such a solution in the body of the parable itself; which is a +sufficiently grave objection. If this be the key, its existence is +carefully suppressed, and the souls that were most sorely perplexed by +the appearance of injustice are left wholly ignorant of the truth. Nay, +their ignorance is confirmed by the language, or rather by the silence, +of the parable. The answer to their protest on the ground that they had +“borne the burden and heat of the day” would have been decisive and was +ready at hand. But no hint of a justification on this ground is suffered +to appear. Their assertion is allowed to pass unanswered, and must be +accepted for the purposes of the parable as the truth. Whether they had +wrought well or ill, though it may be the main point in other parables, +is plainly not the point which is in question here. And in the +interpretation of parables we get into endless difficulties, if we, so +to speak, travel beyond the record, and consider the details in any +other light than as the garniture of the one central idea which the +parable is intended to set forth. As far as this parable is concerned, +we must accept it as a fact that they<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> had borne the burden and heat of +the day; and no explanation of its equity can be entertained which sets +that fact at nought.</p> + +<p>That we may the better understand what it does mean, let us consider:—</p> + +<p>I. The work of the vineyard to which all were called, and in which the +first called bore the burden and heat of the day.</p> + +<p>II. The reason of the idleness of the husbandmen who at the eleventh +hour were called to the work.</p> + +<p>III. The Lord’s justification of His ways.</p> + +<p>I. The work of the vineyard.</p> + +<p>I believe that there is nothing very definite in detail here set before +our minds, and that we shall get into dire confusion if we inquire about +the class or classes of members of the Church which may be signified by +the husbandmen. There is no question of classes of Christian labourers, +or kinds of Christian work, in the narrative. It is God’s work, and +these are God’s workmen in the field of His visible Church, in the +broadest sense which those words may bear. The vineyard is the visible +field of God’s tillage. The vast invisible field we are not called to +consider; except to assure ourselves that one grand principle rules, +explains, and justifies God’s methods with the whole. The visible field, +up to the day of Pentecost, was the Jewish commonwealth, which was about +to expand into the Christian commonwealth when our Lord delivered the +discourses which contain our text. In the Jewish commonwealth, not +priest and prophet only, but every child of Abraham was a called +husbandman; just as every Christian disciple, as much as apostle, +bishop, evangelist, or deacon, is a called labourer in the wider +vineyard of the Christian Church. The broad feature of the work of the +vineyard is, that it is man’s true, noble, God-ordained work.</p> + +<p>It is the work for which all his organs and powers were fashioned, and +in which his whole being was made to rejoice. Why were these men +standing in the market-place?<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_30">[30]</a></span> What took them there? Why were they not +lounging idly about the fields, or sleeping at home? Clearly because +some divine instinct within them moved them thither, that they might be +in the way of being hired for a day’s toil. A divine instinct, I say. He +little understands humanity, who imagines that the great bread and +cheese question is at the bottom of even a tithe of the daily labour of +mankind. It would be hard to find a man who just works enough to provide +the bread and cheese and beer which he needs to sustain his animal +nature, and then folds his arms and takes his ease until new hunger +compels new toil. There are such men about the world, no doubt; but it +is a hard matter to find them. And when they are found, men attach to +such a bestial idea of life the epithet “unmanly” with a bitter +emphasis, which reveals how deeply there is inwrought into the very +texture of man’s nature the divine instinct of work. Man is made for it, +as the flower of the field is made for the free air of heaven. Shut out +from it, he grows irritable and sickly, his powers droop, his courage +fails, his hope dies, his life is a wreck. And very noble motive +inspires well-nigh the whole of human labour. Love, pure self-denying +love, love of wife, love of child, of friends, of mankind, is the moving +spring of most of man’s most strenuous toil. God’s work, work for God, +and for man for the love of God, is but the highest form or mode of +human labour. Man’s divine work is not something essentially different +in principle from all his other work. All his best labour in his daily +tasks proceeds upon the existence within him of powers and organs which +can only find their highest exercise, and which can only justify their +lowest exercise, in the work of the vineyard which the Lord has given us +each one to do. Man is simply unmanned while he stands all the day idle +in the market-place; his goodliest powers and organs are rusting, his +blood trickles with dull stagnant motion through his lazy veins, his +whole system is oppressed and burdened, his muscles ache for exercise, +his cheek is pale, his eye is dim.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> The kingly being is unbraced and +discrowned; no joys or honours attend the <i>fainéant</i> king.</p> + +<p>Who are the pitiable ones here? On whom shall we spend our regrets and +sorrows? The hardy sunburnt workmen, who have spent their strength +manfully in a brave day’s work; who watch the westering sun as only the +tired labourer has the right to watch him; and who settle peacefully to +the workman’s rest till the gay sunlight wakes them again to new glad +toils in a young, fresh, dewy world? Nay, the work of the vineyard is +man’s honour, joy, glory, and bliss. To be called to work in it is the +crown of his manhood; to finish his work with joy is his noblest praise. +But why should it not end here? If he is to be counted blessed who works +in the vineyard, if his work gladdens, enriches, and ennobles him what +room is there for the thought of pay? What can the pennies in this case +mean?</p> + +<p>Man is made with a large capacity, and a large thought and hope of +happiness. He can take a large blessing into his being, larger than he +can meet within his present sphere. The range of his nature takes in the +infinite and the eternal. The work is noble, glorious exercise; but God +only can fill and satisfy his spirit. Man needs something beyond the +mere play of his powers, though their free play is an intense +exhilaration and delight. He needs the fellowship of beings to satisfy +the yearning, to feed the appetite, of his nobler nature; he needs the +love of God, and communion with all that is of God, that he may rest and +be blessed. This is the reward which the earthly day of his toil and +patience will bring. The true workman is happy in his work, and sings +while he toils. But God has a yet richer benediction for His children +when the work is done, a blessing which will beautify and glorify life +through eternity. This He gives to the workman out of His royal bounty, +His own blessedness. It is His own to give; and all true workmen, +whatever the measure of their work, because of the spirit of their work, +shall claim it at His hand.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_32">[32]</a></span> +II. The reason of the idleness of the husbandmen who were not called +till the eleventh hour to the work.</p> + +<p>“And about the eleventh hour he went out, and found others standing +idle, and said unto them, Why stand ye here all the day idle? They say +unto him, Because no man hath hired us.” The true key to the parable +lies here. There are many other answers conceivable. They might have +said, Because we like to lounge and loaf, work is irksome; or, Because +we are over-tired with yesterday’s toil; or, Because the pay does not +suit us, we are out on strike. Imagine that any one of these answers had +been given; the whole character of the parable would have been changed, +and the equity of the ways of God would then have been dark, dark +indeed. But no. The men were willing to work; they were waiting to be +hired; they made no bargain about their pay. “Go ye into the vineyard; +and whatsoever is right, that shall ye receive,” the Master said; and +they went, content to leave their wage to His justice. The men evidently +cared more about the work than the pay. In truth the idlers were to be +pitied. The Master pitied them, and He gave to their will the wage which +lack of opportunity had forbidden them to earn before.</p> + +<p>And this opens up some serious thoughts about the pagan world, and its +relation to the kingdom of God. There is a profound, but not an +impenetrable mystery hidden in the words, “the fulness of the time.” +Through long ages the pagan world was left groping in the darkness, +“<i>feeling after God if haply it might find Him</i>,” and moaning as it +grasped at phantoms in the gloom, and saw them slip from its empty hand. +Looking at the anguish and misery of the world at this moment, one is +constrained to confess that the Lord of the world is One who can bring +Himself to look upon, and to bear the responsibility of ruling over, a +terrible amount of pain. But what shall we say of the long ages of pagan +darkness, when men were not <i>feeling</i> after God only, but crying for +Him, shrieking to Him, were maiming their<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> quivering flesh and torturing +their shuddering hearts, because the void only echoed back their own +voices and none could tell them the Divine Name. The time is gone by +when it was possible to look upon the history of heathendom as the +history of one long stern effort to break away from God, to blot out His +name from the universe, and to tear every trace of His image out of the +life of the human world. It is now well understood that the deepest +thing in heathen life and heathen literature was ever the cry after the +living God, and the effort to find Him; the grandest passages in the +religious records of heathendom are the words in which the founders of +the great pagan systems proclaimed what they believed had been made +known to them of His Being and His Will; and the gladdest, in truth the +only joyous, passages in pagan history, are the records of the +generations in which men persuaded themselves that God had at length +visited His world. Soon the gladness vanished, overborne by wrong and +lust. But while it lasted it made the solitary gleam of brightness which +crosses the blackness of the pagan night. The revival of morals, of +manners, and of hopes, which for a few brief generations has followed +the teaching of the great masters whom paganism adores, is the one ray +of heavenly light which shines in the pagan darkness, and bears witness +that there is sunlight, though shining on other spheres. The joy which +filled the hearts of the heathen peoples, when Sakya-Mouni, Zerdusht, +Confucius, or Mahomet, proclaimed at any rate a purer faith, a nobler +idea of life, than the dark, soulless, senseless formulæ in which a +tyrannous priesthood had buried the Divine Name, is like some faint and +far-off glow of the joy which leaped from heart to heart like flame when +it was known that God had in very truth visited His people, and that the +King of Glory had taken possession of His earthly throne.</p> + +<p>Through this long sad night, lit only by these rare faint gleams, men +had been looking, longing, and moaning for a deliverer; and steadily +settling the while, and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> they knew it, into the slough of the devil’s +accursed dominion, because no Almighty Helper and Saviour appeared. We +see their misery, their tears, their mad outbursts of passion, their +foul orgies of lust; and our hearts bleed, nay there have been hearts +that have burst, as they watched this tragedy of despair. And heaven +heard it all, saw it all, through long ages; and still no deliverer was +sent. It is a profound mystery, the millenniums through which the world +was left to grope and to moan in the darkness, while the clear sunlight +of God’s truth was flashing its brightness so joyously on the homes of +the chosen race. I say again, the mystery, though profound, is not +inscrutable; for there is Calvary to expound it. In the long run, in the +great day of eternity, it will be seen, that this forsaking of the +heathen world was an essential part of a benign and merciful plan, of +which Calvary is the centre; and that it lies in the full harmony of a +love which “<i>endured the cross, and despised the shame</i>,” that a whole +world might be gathered at length to the great Father’s heart. But the +“<i>no man hath hired us</i>” has a profound and pathetic meaning, when we +search the records of pagan religious effort and aspiration, and when we +see how everywhere, when the gates were flung open, the Gentiles +thronged, streamed, crushed, into the kingdom of God. I find in this +thought the whole mystery of the parable unfolded. The Gentiles had been +looking, waiting, longing, in their own dull way, for the work of the +vineyard. It was the Master’s counsel, as well as their own dull hearts, +which had kept them idle during the noontide heats. And it was the work +which it was in their hearts to do that the Master honoured, when He +made them equal to the favoured and happy husbandmen, had they but known +it, who had “<i>borne the burden and heat of the day</i>.”</p> + +<p>III. The Master’s justification of His ways.</p> + +<p>“So when even was come, the lord of the vineyard saith unto his steward, +Call the labourers, and give them their hire, beginning from the last +unto the first. And when they<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_35">[35]</a></span> came that were hired about the eleventh +hour, they received every man a penny. But when the first came, they +supposed that they should have received more; and they likewise received +every man a penny. And when they had received it they murmured against +the goodman of the house, saying, These last have wrought but one +hour, and thou hast made them equal unto us, which have borne the burden +and heat of the day. But he answered one of them, and said, Friend, I do +thee no wrong; didst not thou agree with me for a penny? Take that thine +is, and go thy way: I will give unto this last, even as unto thee. Is it +not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil, +because I am good? So the last shall be first, and the first last: for +many be called, but few chosen” (Matt. xx. 8-16).</p> + +<p>These words imply—</p> + +<p>1. That there is infinite grace, through which a certain equity shines, +in the things which God has provided for all who have wrought, even +though feebly and tardily, at His work. The work is honour and +happiness; the want of it is shame and pain. The early labourers are the +enviable; the late labourers are the pitiable. But God in His boundless +grace adds a boundless gift to all: “the gift of God,” which “is eternal +life, through Jesus Christ our Lord.” But through the grace a certain +equity shines. Man was made for Life, he was born for it. To miss the +glorious boon which God has the power to bestow on him through Christ, +were to miss the very end and issue to which God touched his spirit. A +well-nigh infinite capacity of being, loving, and enjoying, is in him, +which God only can satisfy and eternity only can complete. And God in +His boundless love and mercy meets him in his idleness and degradation, +and proposes to him a work which His grace will crown with glorious, +everlasting joy.</p> + +<p>2. None shall miss the blessing through the order of the dispensations.</p> + +<p>If the Jews were called, and the Pagans were left sad<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_36">[36]</a></span> and idle in the +streets, the evenfall shall adjust the balance, the evening of earth’s +life, the morning of the everlasting day. Idle and sad, I say. When you +are next at South Kensington Museum, place yourself before the cartoon +of “Paul preaching at Athens.” Mark the foremost in the group of pagan +hearers; he bears in his sad wistful countenance the whole tale of +Gentile waiting, longing, hoping, disappointment, despondency, and +despair. Few preachers can preach such a sermon as utters itself mutely +from that man’s eyes and lips. This parable is Christ’s answer to the +mute appeal: “No man hath hired thee, poor outcast! the day spent, the +soul lost! Come in, at the last hour, come in. These have wrought in a +noble service the long day through. The sweat of manly toil is on their +brow, the joy of a work well done is in their hearts. Come in; the sun +still lacks some hours of setting. Bend thy soul to the task, put thy +heart into the labour of the hour, and the same meed shall be thine. +Even as unto this first, will I give unto thee; come in.”</p> + +<p>9. On a wider scale the parable is Christ’s assurance, that through all +outward inequalities of gift, endowment, opportunity, position, +prospect, which jar this jangled world, there is a sublime equity ruling +which will right all wrongs, adjust all balances, and square all issues +with pure celestial justice at last. “<i>No man hath hired us.</i>” How much +does this explain of the bitterness and misery with which the world is +filled! Cross purposes, cross callings, cross relationships, cross +necessities, cross issues of life! Men with power in them for a service +which is never asked of them; tied down to a desk or a counter, it may +be, while they feel within them the stirrings of a power to guide the +coursers of the sun. Men bound in a home which has no beauty for them, +no love; while beyond there is a vision of the Eden which might be, if +bonds could be unbound and bound afresh. Some overflowing with fatherly +or motherly tenderness, in a barren home. Some shrinking from the +prattle of infant<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_37">[37]</a></span> voices, yet with stuff in them of noble texture, shut +up to a nursery through the prime of their days. Some longing, pining, +panting for a work they love, bound to a work they loathe. Some with a +genial, generous, royal nature, wrestling with the serpents of care and +penury their long life through. “This is a mad world, my masters;” “the +times are out of joint;” it is all out of joint everywhen and +everywhere! “No man hath hired us” to the work which we are fit for; a +glorious wealth of being, of power, is left to “fust in us unused.”</p> + +<p>Patience, brothers, patience! One grand work, the grandest, spreads +broad and fair before you; “in your patience possess ye your souls.” The +hiring is in higher, wiser hands; the patience, the hope, are in yours, +with all their glorious eternal fruit. None of the sighing, none of the +groaning, none of the desire and yearning of your spirit, is hidden from +Him who made you, and who in His own good time will call you to your +God-ordained work. “<span class="smcap">Unto this last will I give, even as unto thee</span>” +reveals the sublime equity of His dealings. Await with strong patience, +with steadfast hope, the things and the times of His sovereign +appointment; till you find with profound and wondering joy, that your +patience has won a prize whose splendour outshines the constellations, +and whose bliss shall outlast eternity.</p> + + + +<hr> + +<div class='chapter'><h2><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> +<a id="IV"></a>IV.<br> + +LAW AND LIFE.</h2></div> + +<div class="quote"> +“In the place where the tree falleth, there it shall +be.”—<span class="smcap">Eccles.</span> xi. 3. +</div> + + +<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">There</span> are few passages in the word of God which are more constantly +misapplied than this. It is systematically wrested to the establishment +of doctrines with which it has nothing whatever to do. The popular +interpretation of the text treats it as equivalent to the assertion, +that the condition of the human soul through its long eternity is +settled absolutely and irrevocably by death. We believe that nine out of +ten, of those who hold this doctrine would quote this passage if they +were suddenly asked to sustain their belief out of the word of God. With +the truth of the doctrine in question we are not dealing in the present +discourse; there are passages in the word of God which bear on it with +most unquestionable cogency. But this is not one of them. Our present +purpose is to show what it <i>does</i> mean, and that its reference is to a +subject which is well-nigh as far removed from that on which it is +supposed to bear as the poles.</p> + +<p>We approach a dread, an awful subject, when we contemplate the condition +of those who pass into the unseen world impenitent and faithless; who +despise finally, as far as we can trace, the riches of the mercy and the +love of God. It is a subject which is occupying the most earnest and +solemn thoughts of some of the wisest of our Christian thinkers, and on +which a large freedom of judgment will have to be conceded within the +visible pale of the Christian Church. It is easy to state the doctrine +of universalism, and to offer it as a solution of the dark difficulties +with which the subject is surrounded.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_39">[39]</a></span> But it is not easy to get the +doctrine of universalism out of the Bible; nay, it is not possible, +without grievous violence to some of its plainest and most awful +statements: nor, on the other hand, is it easy to harmonize it with any +intelligent conceptions of the moral freedom and responsibility of every +child of the human race. Others seek refuge, for it is as a refuge that +they appear to cling to it, in the theory of annihilation—that is, the +annihilation on a vast scale of that which God made to be His +masterpiece, which He constituted in His own image, and into which He +infused by inspiration the breath of His own life. More grievous +violence must be done to the plain language of Scripture by the +advocates of this theory than by those of the former; and it seems to us +still harder to find for it a place in any intelligent and harmonious +conception of the scheme on which God made the worlds.</p> + +<p>Were it possible for us to hold it, it would seem to unfold a terrible +vision of the issue of the great experiment of creation. The free beings +whom God made to be the glory of His universe, drooping down in throngs, +after a life struggle full of anguish and despair, into the darkness of +the everlasting night! One would be tempted to ask passionately in that +case, Why was not the dire experiment of liberty ended in the hour of +the first transgression? why was not the free universe, parent of such +wrongs and miseries, strangled in its birth?</p> + +<p>Nor may we dare to hide from ourselves and others, in these days, the +dread considerations involved in the doctrine which the Church has drawn +from explicit statements in the word of God. Eternal punishment; eternal +suffering in the universe; moans rising up ever in the ear of heaven; +the cries of souls in anguish piercing the serenity of the heavenly +rest. Eternal evil too. Evil never more to die out of the worlds on +which the dew of the primal benediction lay, and which flashed back the +smile of Him who looked upon them and saw that “<i>they were very good</i>.” +The curse rioting, sin<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_40">[40]</a></span> reigning unto death, in some region of the +universe sustained and ruled by the Divine hand; never to be expelled +from the creation, never to be drawn under the merciful reign of God. We +are too prone to hide the awful reality which is behind this language, +by vague notions of the judgment as the final banishing of evil from the +sight of God and of the blessed. Nothing that is can be banished from +the sight of God; nothing that exists—we will not say lives, life is a +sacred word—can exist from moment to moment without the interposition +of the Divine hand. Ever present before the great Father must be the +anguish and the moans of the souls in torment; ever to His eye there +must be this dark counterfoil to the joy and glory of the redeemed. And +yet the question forces itself upon us: What else can the plain +statements of the Scriptures mean; nay, what else can in the essential +nature of things <a id="befall"></a><ins title="Original has befal">befall</ins> a free spirit that chooses to exercise +its freedom in sin? We may well feel with a wise one of old, “Such +knowledge is too wonderful for us: it is as high as heaven, what can we +do? it is as deep as hell, what can we know?”</p> + +<p>Sore difficulties beset us in working out a clear and harmonious theory +of the judgment and its issues. But blessed be God that we can rest in +the belief that all will be, in ways that we see not, so wisely and +righteously ordered by the Judge of all the earth, as to satisfy the +yearning heart, not of the great Father only, but of the Redeemer of +humanity, and to fill the universe with praise. Here as elsewhere, when +we are bewildered and perplexed by thoughts too high for us and which +reach too far, we find a sure refuge and rest in faith. We believe God +in Christ, and we can leave our future and the future of humanity in His +hand. Meanwhile, our work, our duty is clear: “<i>Now then we are +ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you +in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.</i>” “<i>This is the work of God, +that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.</i>” “<i>Other foundation can no +man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_41">[41]</a></span> Christ.</i>” “<i>Believe on the +Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.</i>”</p> + +<p>But this is beside the scope of the present discourse. I have to +consider what these words, so strangely misapplied, do mean, and to draw +from them those most pregnant lessons concerning the conduct of life +which they are intended to afford. “<i>Cast thy bread upon the waters: for +thou shalt find it after many days. Give a portion to seven, and also to +eight; for thou knowest not what evil shall be upon the earth. If the +clouds be full of ram, they empty themselves upon the earth: and if the +tree fall toward the south, or toward the north, in the place where the +tree falleth, there it shall be. He that observeth the wind shall not +sow; and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap. As thou knowest +not what is the way of the spirit, nor how the bones do grow in the womb +of her that is with child: even so thou knowest not the works of God who +maketh all. In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not +thine hand: for thou knowest not whether shall prosper, either this or +that, or whether they both shall be alike good.</i>”</p> + +<p>I. The key to the passage, the broad idea which underlies the whole, is +in the first verse. In the sixth verse the writer repeats the thought +under a varied form, and it is evident that it rules the whole. Let us +ask ourselves what it means. It is a fair question whether we have here +a reference to a popular proverb descriptive of the most useless and +apparently hopeless work, “casting bread upon the waters;” or whether +there is a reference to Egyptian husbandry, which might seem just as +futile a method, did not experience prove that a harvest of splendid +abundance is the well-nigh certain result. I do not think that it is +needful to settle the rival claims of the two interpretations,<a id="FNanchor_B_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_B_2" class="fnanchor">[B]</a> +inasmuch as the essential point of the author’s meaning is involved in +both. In either case <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_42">[42]</a></span>you have a husbandry of faith; and in either case +you have a grand image of all noble spiritual work. All husbandry is of +faith to an extent which we little realize, but most especially this +husbandry. The seed-corn scattered from the hand vanishes from sight, +the very bed in which it is hidden lies buried, and an uncongenial, +impenetrable element spreads its barrier between the sower and the seed, +which he must leave in the hands of God. The farmer who has ploughed his +field and settled his seed in the furrows feels less shut out from it; +he sees at least where it lies, he can test its condition, he can trace +the first green bloom on the brown surface of his fields, which is the +prophecy and the pledge of harvest. But seed cast into the waters! where +is it? who can trace it? what can withhold the waters from rotting it, +and burying the promise of the seed and the hope of the husbandman in +their depths? And the seed dropped into the furrows of the human +seed-field, the heart that has been broken up by the deep ploughshare of +God’s discipline, and over which a fertilizing flood of quickening +influences has passed,—where lies it? What glance can follow it? What +hand can touch it? What eye can foresee, what brain can forecast, its +destiny? There is a dread likeness here, to the eye of the +understanding, between this perilous husbandry and spiritual labour; +man’s knowledge is so limited, man’s hand is so powerless, the seed +passes so far out of his ken, and lies buried in such deep depths +within.</p> + +<p>There is a mystery in all husbandry which it is manifestly the purpose +of God to keep clearly before the eye of the soul. He will not suffer us +to forget it. “<i>And he said, So is the kingdom of God, as if a man +should cast seed into the ground; and should sleep, and rise night and +day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how. For the +earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, +after that the full corn in the ear. But when the fruit is brought +forth, immediately he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is +come</i>” (Mark<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_43">[43]</a></span> iv. 26-29). This is the daily miracle of nature, the +“sign” which is done daily before our eyes. There are those, and they +constitute a large and powerful school of thinkers in our day, who +refuse coldly to listen to any evidence as to the miracles of Scripture, +and who see this sign of an unseen energy at work around them and within +them each moment, but feel powerless even to inquire from what fountain +it springs. It is deeply unjust to brand the Positivist school of +philosophy as explicitly either materialistic or atheistic. They are by +no means blind to the fact that there is a hidden mystery in nature; +they see quite as clearly as we do its marvellous depths. There is +something quite as wonderful in their sight in the daily growth of the +corn and the assimilation of our daily bread, as in the feeding of five +thousand in the lonely wilderness by the word which came forth from the +mouth of the Saviour. But they say, this region is simply impenetrable +by the human intellect; in all its efforts at discovery it simply meets +with shadows projected under various conditions and at various angles by +itself. Our fair charge against them is, not that they are blind to the +fact of a mystery in nature, but that they dishonour the royal faculty +of the reason with which God has gifted them, by distrusting its ability +to deal with a vast class of phenomena—the manifestations of the +working of unseen powers with which God has surrounded them—which are +as definite and substantial as the physical facts out of which they +educe their laws. The world of spiritual experience and activity with +which mainly the Bible deals, claims from us, at any rate, observation, +thought, and deduction, as reverent as that which we joyfully devote to +the phenomena of nature; and we accept as eagerly the thoughts and +suggestions of seers who have insight into this world of mystery, as we +accept the teachings of science concerning things which are beyond our +sight. And if words come to us from this higher sphere, which harmonize +discordant elements and make the chaos of our spiritual consciousness +and experience a cosmos ruled by<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_44">[44]</a></span> intelligence and love, we joyfully +accept the truth which sustains and explains the phenomena, and feel +that in proclaiming it we are “holding forth a word of life” to our +fellow-men. And the Scripture miracle is to us a flash of sunlight, +which illumines the darkness of the unknown: we see unveiled the Hand +which is working each moment these signs and wonders within and around +us; and, studying the nature, the mind, the heart, by which that Hand is +guided, we find rest in the assurance that the power whose awful +manifestation in nature might well appal and overwhelm us, is under the +absolute rule of One whose declaration of Himself is that He is Love. We +receive an emancipation from both the terrors and the idols of the +imagination, when we learn that the daily bread of our lives comes to us +from the hand of the Father, and is crowned with His benediction. The +poor believe it quite simply: they have a beautiful sense of dependence +on the Hand which feeds the birds and clothes the lilies. As a child +hangs on the mother’s breast, they hang daily as trustfully on the +bounty of the Lord. And they are more free from vain fancies herein than +the philosophers. It is the wise and the scribe who are in bondage to +idols: simple hearts, which have received the revelation of the +relations of the two worlds which the Bible offers, walk free in the +sunlight, and dwell quiet from the fear of evil.</p> + +<p>“<i>Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many +days.</i>”</p> + +<p>The main point here then is, that in all husbandry there are two +elements—the intelligence and energy of the man, and the co-operation +of a secret force, the springs of which and the methods of which escape +him, but on which absolutely depend all his fruits. Neither without the +other can produce the harvest. Paul plants, Apollos waters; but God +giveth the increase: but neither without Paul’s planting does the +harvest spring. “<i>Behold, a sower went forth to sow.</i>” The human sower +is, as far as we see, the indispensable fellow-worker with the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_45">[45]</a></span> Most +High God. But God, and not the human sower, has the absolute control of +the result.</p> + +<p>Let us look at this more closely. To impress this upon us is the main +object of the writer in the text.</p> + +<p>II. The writer of this book asks us to consider how much that has the +most important bearing on the results of our activity is hopelessly +beyond the control of our hand.</p> + +<p>No doubt this is a truism: but it is the meaning and force of these +truisms which most easily escape us; custom is the blind of truth. No +matter what it may be to which we put our hands, we are dealing with +elements which only partially subject themselves to our control, or +rather reveal to us the secret by which they may be bent to our use. +Always there is a large variable element in the problem of our +activities; and on this variable element, which we have no means of +calculating, depends all that is most precious and vital in our results. +Husbandry here is the great witness for, and key to, higher things. +Certain bases are fixed and unalterable; else our work would be a pure +lottery. Much on which its fruits depend is variable; else our work +would be purely mechanical. God gives us a large measure of assurance, +that we may work bravely and put our hearts into our labour, as those +who have a right to hope that they will carry the sheaves of their +harvest home; but He crosses our toil with a zone of uncertainties, that +we may be faithful workmen, trusting and praying as well as working, and +may be kept in holy and blessed dependence on Him who can lift us above +all servile care for immediate results. Consider—</p> + +<p>1. The awful force and inevitable certainty of the processes of Nature, +the unfailing “order of Nature” which furnishes forth the field of our +toils. That order God guarantees. The assurance is thus expressed: +“<i>While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, +and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease</i>” (Gen. viii. +22). That word of promise which has<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> nursed the trembling hope of man +into strong certainty—for he is as sure that the sun will rise on the +morrow as he is of his own existence—lies at the foundation of all his +steady activity as a workman in this lower world. The joyful outgoings +of the morning and evening, and the succession of the seasons, are given +to him as the constant elements in his husbandry. These are assured to +him by the voice that called them into being and the hand which sustains +their motions. God tells him that he may count absolutely on this order. +And what guarantee, when we come to think of it, have we of that order, +but such as a firm belief in an intelligent Ruler of the universe, who +sympathises with the hopes and blesses the toils of His children, +affords? Then further,—</p> + +<p>2. There is the absolutely certain sequence of physical causes and +effects, or antecedents and consequents, which we call laws of nature, +which vary not one hair’s breadth from their ordained order in obedience +to the mandates of our will, but which, by observing and mastering the +principle of that order, we can use for the accomplishment of our ends. +These are our tools to work with. A thousand subtle laws are concerned +in every process of the husbandman’s toils. On a large scale and in the +long run the question of his success depends absolutely on his +comprehension and observance of those laws. The progress of man’s +knowledge of nature is really a progress in the mastery of the variable +element in the problem of his labour. A thousand accidents, which baffle +the ignorant and careless husbandman, obey the control of the +intelligent and strenuous. The order is rigid. There is an awful +sternness in its certainty; but it grows benign to him who has mastered +its secret. It obeys him as a servant, it helps him as a friend; and the +certainty with which he can calculate its action is one essential +element of its friendliness. If he could not weigh the materials and +measure the forces which are constantly around him, if he could not +count on their known relations and actions with the same calm certainty +with which he expects the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_47">[47]</a></span> sunrise to light him to his daily toils, his +life would be one of miserable dependence; he would live the serf of +nature, and not her king. It is the unalterable fixity of relations and +forces which God has given him the power to discover and to employ, +which constitutes the royalty of his rule over nature; if that be +destroyed or shaken, his crown rolls in the dust. The constancy of the +relations and forces of the universe, their impassibility to the force +which man’s will can bring to bear upon them, of which his husbandry +gives him full experience, is an essential element, perhaps we might say +<i>the</i> essential element, in that higher culture which they offer to his +spirit; it is this which makes the life of even the workman something +higher than a lottery, and the toils of earth an education for the works +and the joys of heaven.</p> + +<p>3. The writer of this book, while he sees this grand, calm, and constant +order very clearly, and appreciates its ministry to man, has a dark, sad +vision of the uncertainties which cross it—the strength and magnitude +of the variable element in nature and in life, which perplexes and +baffles the strenuous workman, keeps him constantly on the tenter-hooks +of anxiety, and not seldom rends his heart with anguish, and lays his +fairest and proudest achievements in ruins in the dust. A certain order +is there, all men can see it. Yes, men say,—and especially orientals, +in whose climate the destructive agencies often run riot; but there is a +dire disorder, and the disorder triumphs. Who knows the pathway of the +storms, the earthquakes, the lava floods, the drought, and the deluge? +who knows and rules their times? The fairest homesteads are made +desolate in a moment; verdant beauty as of Eden vanishes, and blasting +and burning as of Sodom reigns in its room. There are malign powers in +the universe which seem to watch all beauty and increase, that they may +make it their prey. Do not men in all ages tremble as they rejoice in +prosperity? Do not the proverbs of all nations warn us that trouble in +such moments is near? There is a hand unseen which deals destruction to +our harvests and homesteads,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_48">[48]</a></span> in the moment when they smile on us most +gaily; and we are powerless to resist it; we can but sit like Job on the +dunghill of our ruined fortunes and bemoan ourselves, and it may be +curse the day which sent us forth to till such a treacherous seed-field +as this. The dearest things, the things which we love most tenderly, the +possession of which is our life, may be struck down in a moment, the +delight of our eyes laid low at a stroke; we may plead and pray, we may +wrestle with God in a frenzy of supplication: the hand which grasps our +treasure is pitiless; pass a few days, we shall be standing tearless and +defiant by the grave of our beloved. Pagans exclaim against their gods +as treacherous, and refuse them service. Catholics revenge themselves by +cashiering their saint. Nay, the same brutal instinct may be found in +Protestant England: I have heard of a farmer, whose harvest was all +ruined, sticking a rotten sheaf in the hedge and leaving it there, to +make, as he said, God Almighty ashamed. We shudder at the blasphemy; but +it is only a coarse expression of the anguish of the helpless in the +hand of a power which seems inexorable and merciless, which crosses +their most settled purposes, destroys ruthlessly their most precious +harvests, and murders all their brightest joys. “<i>If the clouds be full +of rain, they empty themselves upon the earth: and if the tree fall +toward the south, or toward the north, in the place where the tree +falleth, there it shall be. He that observeth the wind shall not sow; +and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap. As thou knowest not +what is the way of the spirit, nor how the bones do grow in the womb of +her that is with child: even so thou knowest not the works of God who +maketh all. In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not +thine hand: for thou knowest not whether shall prosper, either this or +that, or whether they both shall be alike good</i>” (ver. 3-6). There is a +power at work behind the veil which may at any moment cross our purpose +by some unexpected stroke, which gives to us no account of its methods, +and which allows no court of appeal from its decrees. The<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_49">[49]</a></span> tree falls, +and who can foresee when it may fall? And when it falls, it cares not +what it crushes, and the wrecks of it strew our fairest fields, and bury +our golden harvests in the dust.</p> + +<p>III. What then? There being this law of calamity at work, defying all +calculation and all defence, what is the true policy of life?</p> + +<p>There are mainly two policies of life; the stoic and the Christian. The +Stoic says,—Everything is beyond my control, but myself. There is a +kingdom whose sceptre can never be wrested from my hand. <i>Things</i> are +certain enemies of my peace. I will make myself independent of <i>things</i>. +I will reduce my relations with things outside me to a minimum. I am +surer of a crust than of a banquet; so I will train myself to care only +for a crust; a crust of food, a crust of wealth, a crust of friendship +will be enough for me. I will fold the cloak of my manhood around me, +and shake myself free of all dependence on fickle fortune and mortal +friends.</p> + +<p>The Christian says,—Everything is beyond my control, but myself. So +far, he and the Stoic are at one. But he reflects that what is beyond +HIS control is not beyond all control. This law of calamity obeys the +rule of One who has given the most solemn and awful pledge that He loves +me as a friend and treats me as a child. He would not have me adopt the +demeanour and policy of an outcast in a storm, but of a child at home. I +will throw my nature open to the sunlight. I will make myself as rich as +possible in all good and beautiful possessions, and in troops of +friends. It is the will of Him who rules my life that I should be so; He +made me with all these affections and sympathies; He made me to feel +life a blessing. I will work and be glad, and live and love according to +His will; and trust, not my own hardness, but my Father’s mercy, to +spare me over-much pain, and to make life in some due measure a joy. +Here are the two policies. How does the text decide? “<i>Cast thy bread +upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days.</i>” “<i>If<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_50">[50]</a></span> the +clouds be full of rain, they empty themselves upon the earth: and if the +tree fall toward the south, or toward the north, in the place where the +tree falleth, there it shall be.</i>” “<i>In the morning sow thy seed, and in +the evening withhold not thine hand: for thou knowest not whether shall +prosper, either this or that, or whether they both shall be alike +good.</i>” The argument is, God who made you to toil, to till the ground, +and to till the more difficult and perilous seed-field of domestic, +social, and political life, made the world thus. Both your vocation as a +workman, and the field of your labour, with the conditions of that +labour, are ordained by Him. There must then be an essential harmony. +One wise and intelligent Being as the author of the whole system; and +this law of calamity is not at war with your vocation, but is also its +minister, and in deep and far-reaching ways is working with you to your +ends. It is not, according to the dark pagan theory, the work of a +malign spirit, strong enough to break in and make the homesteads and the +lives which God has made His charge, a wreck. “<i>I form the light and +create darkness; I make peace and create evil; I, the Lord, do all these +things.</i>” It is all the work of one hand, and that a wise and loving +one. Work on, work bravely, work gaily; storms may sweep your fields and +shadows may darken your homes; but no calamity, inward or outward, is +unto death. The storm and blight of this year will swell the bulk of +next year’s harvests; and the deeper cares and sorrows of our spiritual +husbandry but load us with an increase which the years lay up in the +garners of eternity. Practically, the husbandman finds it to be so. +Making the fullest allowance for all the crosses, the storms, the +blights, the violence of Nature and of man, the balance is still amply +on the side of the faithful workman. Year by year man’s tillage +advances; the wilderness and the solitary place is made glad by his +toil, and the desert rejoices and blossoms as the rose. This means that +a wise and loving Hand holds all the disturbing forces under control, +and fixes their bounds where they instruct and stimulate, but never<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_51">[51]</a></span> on +a grand scale scare and paralyse mankind. The losses and the crosses of +the croupier of the gaming table are borne with profound patience, for +there is a certain chance in his favour which must inevitably in the +long run fill his coffers with gain. How calmly, now joyously, should we +work on through our storms and sorrows, who have, not a margin of +security guaranteed by the theory of probabilities, but the certainty of +an abundant and glorious harvest, if we are faithful and patient, +guaranteed by the living God.</p> + +<p>And do not pervert the teaching of the Scripture by narrowing its scope. +It does not say,—Work, for the work is good for you; results are +nothing. It says rather,—Work, for God is working with you, and results +are His care. The Lord does not say,—Take no thought for the morrow, +for these cares of food and clothes and health are sordid; despise them, +and think exclusively of higher things. Quite other, and infinitely more +wise and tender, is His teaching,—Do not be distracted by cares, “<i>for +your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things</i>,” +and how He furnishes those who trust Him let the birds and the lilies +declare. “<i>Cast thy bread upon the waters</i>,” for there is One watching +it who will bring it back after many days. “<i>They that sow in tears +shall reap in joy.</i>” “<i>He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious +seed, shall doubtless</i>”—doubtless because the Lord of the harvest +assures it—“<i>come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with +him</i>.”</p> + +<p>Three practical principles, which indicate the Christian policy of life, +I gather from the text:—</p> + +<p>1. Do not be afraid of giving with bountiful hand lest your charity +should be wasted. Scatter your gifts freely: “<i>freely ye have received, +freely give</i>.” “<i>He that hath a bountiful eye shall be blessed</i>,” +blessed with the blessedness of Christ, and like Christ he shall gather +in rich harvests. Sow your gifts as the husbandman scatters the seed in +his furrows, leaving it with God to watch it, to bless its springing, to +ripen its fruit. Much of our charity, our<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_52">[52]</a></span> effort to bless mankind, must +seem to be futile. The waters close on it, it vanishes from sight and +touch, it is rotting, we think, in the depths. No; I think that the +discovery of the unknown fruit of the patient efforts and the loving +sacrifices for men which on earth seemed to us to be wasted, will be one +of the purest and intensest joys of eternity.</p> + +<p>2. Do not be afraid of working lest your toil should be fruitless. There +is no fruitless labour. Every hammer-stroke on the forge of duty welds +something which will outlast eternity. Work with a will then, with a +courage, an energy, a hope, to which Heaven lends its inspiration; and +believe that nothing is so sure in the universe as your harvest. This +seed of your toil may be stolen, that may be crushed, that may be +blighted when it is set for fruit; but the grand sum of your labour is +beyond the reach of the Harpies. God guards it, God quickens it, and God +and angels will rejoice with you when one day you bring your golden +harvest home.</p> + +<p>3. Do not be afraid of loving because every love is a sure germ of pain. +Throw wide the doors of your heart to all comers in the name of the +Lord. The sorrows will spring, but the joys will overflow them. Count +yourself rich, as you are rich in love. Keen sorrow it must bring, but +with it superabounding joy. Ask God to hallow your loves, and to +consecrate your crosses, and the pain is purged of all its bitterness; +it is but the first throb of a great unspeakable joy, which will play +like sunlight around your life in the homes where the weary are for ever +at rest.</p> + +<hr class="white"> + +<div class="footnotes"><span class='ph3'>FOOTNOTE:</span> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_B_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_B_2"><span class="label">[B]</span></a> Those who wish to settle the critical question will find +ample help in Dr. Ginsburg’s learned and exhaustive “Commentary on +Ecclesiastes.” (Longmans, 1861.)</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr> + +<div class='chapter'><h2><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_53">[53]</a></span> +<a id="V"></a>V.<br> + +THE LOST BIRTHRIGHT.</h2></div> + +<div class="quote"> +“Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. For ye +know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the +blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, +though he sought it carefully with tears.”—<span class="smcap">Heb.</span> xii. 16, 17. +</div> + + +<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">These</span> words have always seemed to be among the very saddest in the book +of God. No place of repentance, though sought carefully with tears! It +is a very terrible picture, and seems to describe the experience of what +must have been a very wretched and blighted life. It is possible that if +we study the matter closely some of the tones of sadness may be +lightened; but still Esau and his sad history will remain one of the +dark perplexities of Scripture, just as the acts and the fate of men +like Esau are among the most inscrutable mysteries of life. There are +men like Esau cropping up everywhere; men who seem born to lose their +birthright, to be befooled by the keen and subtle Jacobs, to be seeking +ever places of repentance, and to find Fate inexorable to their tears. +Men <i>born</i> under the dark doom of the rejected, we are tempted to +say—so inevitable their destiny appears from the first. In this case, +“<i>the elder shall serve the younger</i>,” was written of the twin brethren +in the womb, and Jacob was the successful supplanter from his birth. +There are many sad mysteries in life, and the history of such natures +and their destiny are among the saddest. We cannot hope to fathom it on +earth; but blessed be God for the assurance which we are not only +permitted but bound to cherish, that all which is inscrutable here and +dark with shadows will unfold a divine order and beauty in the long +bright day of eternity.</p> + +<p>Esau and Jacob, both in their personal character and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_54">[54]</a></span> their relations +with each other, are representative men, and foreshow in brief the +essential character of large phases and long periods of human +development. They place before us, as we read the record of their +personal history, the great twin brethren, the Gentile and the Jewish, +perhaps even more widely the Christian and the heathen, sections of +mankind. The earlier records of the book of God are full of such typical +characters and lives. In truth, in the earliest time life was typical; +men lived in large and free intercourse with Nature and with their +fellow-men. The conventional swathing-bands with which modern society +has bound itself were unknown. Men lived boldly from within, and what +they said and did had broad human significance, and forecast naturally +what men would say and do under the same conditions to the end of time. +Hence, we imagine, the exceeding fulness of the book of Genesis in its +painting of character and life. Nowhere have we anything like such large +and graphic portraiture as here. The reason is surely that in those ages +life was richly doctrinal, and that the God who caused all Holy +Scripture to be written for our learning saw that the history of such +lives as those of Abraham, Isaac, Esau, Jacob, and Joseph, would be the +most precious legacy which could be handed down from the age of the +patriarchs to all time.</p> + +<p>The contrast of these two men is peculiarly rich and instructive. Esau +is the lusty, genial, jovial pagan; impulsive, impetuous, frank, and +generous, but sensual and self-willed. A man keenly alive to the claims +and experiences of the moment; slow to believe in unseen realities and +the harvest which could only be reaped beyond long years of patience and +pain. Jacob, on the other hand, led from the first a meditative and +interior life. What may be meant by the description, “a plain man, +dwelling in tents,” is not very apparent. It certainly does not simply +describe a fact in his history, but rather a feature of his character. +He loved the home life; while the burly Esau was abroad in the field, he +loved to sit<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_55">[55]</a></span> at home, meditating on many things, and amongst them the +highest—a plain man, sound, pure, pious, as some commentators have it. +The meaning of the word is certainly moral; “<i>integer vitæ</i>,” may +perhaps express it. The pilgrim Abraham was reproduced in Jacob in some +of the main features of his character. He could understand, at any rate, +what Esau apparently could never understand—the sacredness of a Divine +vocation, the value of a birthright which carried with it a Divine +benediction, and which was freighted with the Divine promise to the +world. The grand distinction between the two men from the first was, +that Jacob had faith, while Esau had none. Jacob had the heart of a +pilgrim, Esau the heart of a “prince of this world.” Jacob saw something +behind the veil, which filled his soul with awe and made his life a +constant aspiration; Esau saw that on this side the veil which filled +him with the only pleasure which he cared to grasp at, and which taught +him to look upon his brother’s pilgrim lot and halting step as the sign +of a broken and wasted life. Esau had his grand success in the princedom +which he founded. You may read the list of the “dukes of Edom, who +sprang from him,” in the chapters which record his history. The sad and +weary Jacob, standing before Pharaoh when his race was well nigh run, +witnessed this confession, “<i>Few and evil have the days of the years of +my life been, and have not attained unto the days of the years of the +life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage</i>.” His success lay +beyond generations and ages, beyond the rising of the “Star that should +come out of” his house, beyond the resurrection day. Jacob’s life won no +success but such as he shares with humanity in time and in eternity. His +success is our success; in his blessing we are blessed. He stands forth +in the early twilight of history as the typical child of the kingdom, +the Prince of God, having power with two worlds. He is the +representative of the elect men and races. This election is a broad, +plain, principle of God’s government. In all ages God is wont<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_56">[56]</a></span> to call +men, races, nations, out of the commonwealth of humanity, and to bring +them near unto Himself. Their election is to service—high service, hard +battle, stern endurance. First in honour, they must be first in perils, +pains, temptations, and toils. Privilege is a word of abundant meaning +in the book of God’s dispensations; but it means privilege to be +first—to lead the van, to clear the way, to open new paths for progress +through the jungle of ignorance and night. Privilege to belong to a +privileged class, to special advantage and certain success; privilege to +run the race of life, light and trim against weighted competitors, is +part of the devil’s gospel, not of God’s. Of this royal class, who are +God’s elect ministers to mankind in all their generations, Jacob is a +typical representative. We learn from his character and history what God +means by callings, birthrights, and blessings, and how much those whom +He places in the front rank have to toil and suffer for the world. There +is something in Jacob’s character and in the development of his life +which is significant for all time, which forecasts the course of Jewish +and Christian ages, and prophesies in broad outline the method of God’s +universal culture of our race.</p> + +<p>At the same time the patriarch of Israel presents to us a wonderfully +complete image of the race which sprang from him. We speak of Jacob +rather than Abraham, as the founder of the people to which he gave his +name; Abraham, the father of the faithful, is the founder of a yet +richer and mightier line. But Jacob is the typical Jew. His life, like +the life of his people, is simply incomprehensible to those who cannot +realize a Divine vocation, who cannot cling to a Divine promise, who +cannot struggle and suffer in faith for the sake of far-off divine +results, whereby humanity at large would be blessed. Jacob’s life was +made what it was by the commerce which he held with the unseen God of +his fathers. They have but a dim eye for the meaning of history who +cannot see that, under all this man’s questionable deeds<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_57">[57]</a></span> and chequered +experience, this faith in God was the deepest and strongest element in +his nature. It ruled the critical moments of his life, it sustained him +through all the stormiest scenes of his pilgrimage, and it shone out +clearest and strongest in death. Scarcely had he gone forth an exile +from the house of his fathers, when this fruitful commerce with God and +the spiritual world was established. The beautiful narrative in Genesis +casts a flood of light on his life. “<i>And Jacob went out from Beersheba, +and went toward Haran. And he lighted upon a certain place, and tarried +there all night, because the sun was set; and he took of the stones of +that place and put them for his pillows, and lay down in that place to +sleep. And he dreamed, and behold, a ladder set up on the earth, and the +top of it reached to heaven: and, behold, the angels of God ascending +and descending on it. And, behold, the Lord stood above it, and said, I +am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land +whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed; and thy +seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to +the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in +thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. +And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither +thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land: for I will not +leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of. And +Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said, Surely the Lord is in this +place, and I knew it not. And he was afraid, and said, How dreadful is +this place! this is none other but the house of God, and this is the +gate of heaven.</i>” (Gen. xxviii. 10-17.)</p> + +<p>Precisely the same influence was formative of the character and +destinies of his race. This high and grand quality, this openness to the +influence of the “powers of the world to come,” which is surely the +grandest of all qualities, renders the highest Divine culture possible, +with eternally blessed and glorious results. But it was marred and +debased both in Jacob and in his people by<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_58">[58]</a></span> the alloy of selfish, base, +and carnal elements, of the earth earthy, which it was the great aim of +all the Divine discipline under which he and his people suffered so +sharply, to purge away and to destroy. And herein he represents a wider +family than Israel. This Divine tincture, in a measure, is in all of us, +mixed with the baser earthy matter. God’s chosen ones, the subjects of +His highest culture in all ages, have mostly the earthy element in full +force, struggling with the Divine. No model men were the chosen people +of ancient times, nor the saints of apostolic days. The one question is, +Hast thou faith? “<i>Lord, I believe, help Thou mine unbelief</i>,” is +substantially the confession of Jacob, of Israel, and of all who in any +age form part of the Church of the living God. When Jacob, when the +Jews, suffered themselves to forget the Divinity which was with them, +which was in them, their superior power revealed itself as simply +masterly craft. Jacob, viewed in one light, is just the most +accomplished and successful schemer of his times; in another light, he +is the grandest spiritual prince. His people repeat the anomaly. The +race of the grandest spiritual power, of the most intense religious +belief, have earned the character of the most accomplished hucksters and +tricksters of the world. The power capable of the one, under the true +inspiration, without it sank easily to the level of the other. There is +a modern instance remarkably in point. In many respects the Scotch have +succeeded to the character and position which the Jews occupied in +ancient society. In both people there is the same grand spiritual power, +the same prophetic spirit—Edward Irving was more after the fashion of +an old Jewish prophet than any man, except perhaps Savonarola, whom we +have had among us in these modern days—the same intense religious zeal, +the same heroism in fighting and suffering for their faith, mixed up +with the same worldly ambition, the same cautious and canny temper, the +same facility of dispersion, and the same power of getting on and +winning wealth and influence wherever<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_59">[59]</a></span> God might cast their lot. Is +there not a manifestation of the same law in the history of the +universal Church? As with Jacob, as in Judaism, so in Christendom, the +leading spiritual magnates, the prominent Churchmen of all ages, +forsaking their true strength, divesting themselves of their true power +as Christ’s priests and kings, have sunk to the level of the most +selfish schemers, and have won the reputation of the cleverest and +wiliest statesmen of the world. Churchcraft in all ages has been held to +be a shade more worldly, more subtle, more ruthless, than statecraft. +The old proverb, “the corruption of the best is the worst” partly +accounts for it; but something is due also to the principle whose +workings we trace through Jacob’s history, that the power which, +inspired of God, is capable of Godlike activity, when the world or the +devil get hold of it, is capable of all manner of worldly and devilish +work with fell energy and success.</p> + +<p>But Jacob’s life was purified and elevated as it passed through its +tremendous discipline. The aged pilgrim, having won the title of Prince +of God, stood before Pharaoh clothed with a dignity and power which made +the world’s mightiest monarch bend eagerly under the blessing of his +hand. “<i>The Angel which redeemed me from all evil</i>,” he spake of, when +his eyes were growing dim in death. The history of his life is the +history of that redemption, and this is its rich meaning for us. He +sinned basely and shamefully, he suffered as few have suffered, and +wrestled as few have strength to wrestle for the blessing which purified +and redeemed his life. A sad, stricken, broken man, halting painfully on +his thigh, he went on his way, but ennobled, purified, and saved. His +life is a revelation of the way of God in the discipline of our spirits; +how power gets educated and purified, and made meet at last for the work +and the joy of eternity. So Judaism, as it struggled on and suffered, +lost some of its baser elements, and came forth, developed, into a +higher region of experience and power, in the life of the Christian +Church.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_60">[60]</a></span> +The study of the character of these two men is full of the richest +interest and instruction; but our present purpose is with the elder, and +this profoundly sad passage of his history. There is much, in the matter +of both the birthright and the repentance of which our text speaks, +which is frequently very grievously and even disastrously misunderstood, +which is supposed to present ideas of the dealings of God with man which +contradict the fundamental principles of the gospel, and casts no +trifling stumbling-blocks before the steps of faith. That we may +understand it truly let us consider—</p> + +<p>I. That the rejection of the elder, and the election of the younger to +honour and power—to all that the election of God could bring—by no +means stands by itself in the history of the Divine dispensations; and +it illustrates an important principle on which we will dwell for a +moment before we pass on.</p> + +<p>We are tempted to think that, on the whole, Esau was a hardly used man, +and that we have here an instance of the exercise of the Divine +sovereignty which is harsh, arbitrary, and unjust. In the natural course +of things, Esau would have had the birthright and all that it was worth. +It is made to appear that by a purely arbitrary act Esau was robbed of +it, while Jacob was endowed with it, having no sort of superior claim. +Paul, in Romans ix. 10-13, is careful to insist that whatever the +principle may be which is at work here, at any rate it is not merit, for +the decree was pronounced long before any questions of merit could have +force. The sovereignty of God is here the keystone of his argument: it +is worth our while to discern, as far as we may, the reason on which +this act of sovereignty rests. Of course the sympathy which we extend to +Esau is based upon some idea of the rights of the elder born which seems +to be instinctive in the human heart. This opens a wide question into +which we have no need in this place to enter. The principle is +recognised plainly enough in the word of God. In Deuteronomy xxi. 15-17, +there is explicit legislation on<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_61">[61]</a></span> the subject. “<i>If a man have two +wives, one beloved, and another hated, and they have born him children, +both the beloved and the hated; and if the firstborn son be her’s that +was hated: then it shall be, when he maketh his sons to inherit that +which he hath, that he may not make the son of the beloved firstborn +before the son of the hated, which is indeed the firstborn: but he shall +acknowledge the son of the hated for the firstborn, by giving him a +double portion of all that he hath: for he is the beginning of his +strength; the right of the firstborn is his.</i>” Joseph was evidently +grieved when Jacob blessed the younger with the blessing of the +firstborn, as though some sacred order had been violated: and the very +word “firstborn” is employed as a term of dignity and pre-eminence both +in the Old and the New Testament scriptures. I believe it to be for the +good of society that this order should exist; that the eldest son should +be looked upon as the representative of the family, while the younger +sons should regard it as their lot—and not the worse lot in the sight +of God and the angels—to carve out a new fortune for themselves. I +believe this to be a Divine institution, and that God contemplated it +when he established the family life as the basis of human society. But +just because it is an order ordained of God, man shall not make an idol +of it. A certain free play in the working of an order or an institution +is essential to the well-being and progress of society. If God had so +ordered all the dispensations, that the elder son was constituted +invariably the organ of His communication with the household, the tribe, +the race, it would have instituted a caste instead of a principle of +order, and the great majority of our race would, in that case, be +outcast from their birth. That this rule of the elder might not become a +tyrannous thing, that the younger sons of the house might feel that they +too had a man’s part to play on the theatre of life, a part which might +easily become grander and more glorious than that of the firstborn, God, +at great critical moments, seems to have broken through the order, and +made the younger<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_62">[62]</a></span> the heir of the promises and the organ of His +revelation to mankind. Jacob is a notable, a typical instance. The case +of David is hardly less remarkable, 1 Sam. xvi. 6-13. And Paul in the +spiritual family illustrates the same principle; the youngest born of +the apostles, one in his own estimation hardly meet to be called an +apostle, laboured more abundantly than they all, and was crowned with +the most glorious success. But these arbitrary selections, as they +appear at first sight, in reality, when we look more closely, are found +to deliver the institution of primogeniture from arbitrariness; and they +show to us that the Will which rules the world maintains its freedom +under the guidance of its wisdom, and remits to no institution, however +useful or honourable, the supreme power in the conduct of human affairs. +It seems as though, knowing man’s inherent propensity to formalism, the +Lord had visibly broken through, from time to time, the very forms which +He had Himself established, that He might show decisively that forms can +have noble use alone in the hands of the free. Two singular instances of +this, closely parallel to each other, are to be found in the numbers of +the tribes of Israel and of the apostles of Christ. We talk familiarly +of twelve tribes and of twelve apostles. But were there truly twelve or +thirteen in each case? The question is by no means easy to answer. The +tribe of Joseph was split into two. Theoretically, it is easy to regard +the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh as forming together the one tribe of +Joseph. But, practically, we must remember that the tribe of Ephraim was +the most powerful and masterful of the tribes until the rise of the +house of David. If any tribe might be looked upon as complete, certainly +it would be the tribe of Ephraim. So that, looking at it in the light of +actual history, we should be compelled to reckon thirteen, but for the +fact that the separation of the tribe of Levi for the priesthood reduced +to twelve the number of tribes claiming tribal settlement in Canaan, and +active in the spheres of industry, politics, and war. Similarly, it is +an open<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_63">[63]</a></span> question how far the place of Judas among the Twelve was +lawfully filled up by the election of Matthias. It is far from clear +that Peter and the infant Church were not acting hastily in this +election and ordination of a successor to the apostate. We hear the name +of Matthias only, and then he disappears from history. While we soon +meet with an apostle of the Lord’s election, who, if Matthias was duly +called, raises the number of the apostles to thirteen. Is not this +uncertainty, this fringe of doubt, left hanging around the numbers in +these important and critical instances with a set purpose, that men +might not make an idol of the number? That men might not think in the +one case that the firstborn were the world’s sole masters, nor dream in +the other that a college of twelve was essential to the conduct of all +the great spiritual movements of mankind.</p> + +<p>II. The question of the birthright seems to us to be one on which there +is, popularly at any rate, a good deal of misunderstanding. We will look +at it a little more closely, before we proceed to consider the +unavailing repentance which will form the topic of a second discourse.</p> + +<p>There is something which reaches beyond the merely +historico-representative character, in the history of these twain. Most +of the earnest and generous students of the Old Testament would, we +imagine, if they were to make frank confession, sympathise with Esau as +a wronged and ill-used man. A sentiment of pity for the big, burly +hunter, so helpless in the hands of the subtle and masterly Jacob, takes +possession of us as we read the history. It seems a hard penalty to pay +for a moment’s weakness under the pressure of the pangs of hunger; while +the crafty treacherous falsehood by which the blessing as well as the +birthright was won from him enlists us wholly as to that transaction on +his side. This sentiment of compassion is much strengthened by the vague +impression that, through the craft of Jacob, Esau suffered a terrible +and irreparable loss. And younger sons, as they see the paternal acres, +the family mansion, and the dignity of the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_64">[64]</a></span> family name, passing to the +elder, are prone to make the same moan, and to reckon themselves the +predestined victims of the social order of the world. Learn from this +history how the matter really stands. Esau had all the birthright which +he honestly cared for; while Jacob had simply that birthright which, +blessed be Christ, is within reach of every child of every household +upon earth. Do not waste your pity upon Esau, on the ground of what he +lost. Pity him rather on the score of what he did not care to win. It +would be a great mistake to suppose that Jacob’s treachery left the +elder brother a broken and ruined man; on the contrary, the ruin in the +worldly sense fell on the man who won the birthright; and though the +blessing was added, he went a broken and halting man to the end of his +days. That exceeding great and bitter cry, which was wrung from the +disinherited when he saw the paternal blessing following the birthright, +did not continue to wail through his life. He was a warmhearted, loving, +and generous man, though of fiery passion. The loss of the good old +Isaac’s benediction struck him to the heart; but we are wrong in +supposing that it remained a burden on his life. Nothing of the kind; it +had been better for him if it had been so. But the fury seems soon to +have passed away, probably too his regrets. He became a chieftain of +wealth and renown, rich, strong, illustrious. We meet with him again, +and there is no trace of a shadow over his life. “<i>And Jacob lifted up +his eyes, and looked, and, behold, Esau came, and with him four hundred +men. And he divided the children unto Leah, and unto Rachel, and unto +the two handmaids. And he put the handmaids and their children foremost, +and Leah and her children after, and Rachel and Joseph hindermost. And +he passed over before them, and bowed himself to the ground seven times, +until he came near to his brother. And Esau ran to meet him, and +embraced him, and fell on his neck, and kissed him: and they wept. And +he lifted up his eyes, and saw the women and the children; and said, Who +are those with thee?<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_65">[65]</a></span> And he said, The children which God hath +graciously given thy servant. Then the handmaidens came near, they and +their children, and they bowed themselves. And Leah also with her +children came near, and bowed themselves: and after came Joseph near and +Rachel, and they bowed themselves. And he said, What meanest thou by all +this drove which I met? And he said, These are to find grace in the +sight of my lord. And Esau said, I have enough, my brother; keep that +thou hast unto thyself.</i>” (Gen. xxxiii. 1-9.) “<i>And Esau took his wives, +and his sons, and his daughters, and all the persons of his house, and +his cattle, and all his beasts, and all his substance, which he had got +in the land of Canaan; and went into the country from the face of his +brother Jacob. For their riches were more than that they might dwell +together; and the land wherein they were strangers could not bear them, +because of their cattle. Thus dwelt Esau in mount Seir. Esau is Edom.</i>” +(Gen. xxxvi. 6-8.) Read the catalogue of his princely descendants, and +remember that Edom played a splendid part in the political, and +especially the commercial, history of the oriental world. Esau lost +that, and that alone, which his soul had no love for, and no power to +use to honour. But he won that in which his soul delighted; he passed a +lifetime of splendid and careless prosperity, and in a good old age went +down to his grave in peace.</p> + +<p>And what did Jacob win by his birthright—his rights of the firstborn? +Simply the power to become God’s pilgrim, the power to win a lofty +height of honour and renown by life-long patience, by heroic struggle, +by wearing, wasting toils. What good shall this birthright do to me, +said the hungry hunter, mad for the mess of pottage which the thrifty +Jacob sold. But what good did the birthright do to the supplanter who +bought it, and filched the blessing with it? None, absolutely none, in +the sense in which they talk of “good” who are reckoning gains. It drove +him forth from the very hour when he stole his father’s blessing, an +exile to a distant land. It made him for long years, his best years, a +hireling in<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_66">[66]</a></span> his kinsman’s house. It exposed him to precisely the kind +of trick which he himself had practised, in a matter of yet deeper +moment to his affection; for it imperilled the winning of the woman whom +he tenderly loved. After he had served for long years as a hireling for +a hireling’s wage, it brought him back at length to the threshold of the +promised Canaan. Rich in the wealth of the East, he drew near the +borders. His soul was filled with perturbation when he heard that Esau +was coming to meet him. The wrong which his brother had suffered rose up +freshly before him in all its disgraceful features, and he could hardly +believe in the hunter’s generous forgiveness as he cowered a suppliant +at his feet. Entered at length on the land of his inheritance, discord +breaks out in his home and embitters his life. He is struck to the heart +through his dearest affections. “There I buried Rachel” is the epitaph +of a great agony; and when Joseph was not, he felt that he should go +down mourning to the grave. At length the land of his inheritance +refused to sustain him; and the weary old pilgrim, with one foot in the +grave, goes forth once more an exile—the second and final exile—into a +land where the sons for whom he won and held the birthright were +destined for centuries to writhe and moan as slaves. What good did the +birthright do to him?</p> + +<p>If you look at the things which are seen, which are mostly in view when +birthrights are in question, Esau, the hardly used man, the victim, had +most unquestionably the preferable lot. The time came when he stood as a +prince before Jacob, and Jacob bowed himself at his feet. There was no +malignant spirit at work here, as we are sometimes tempted to conceive +of it, making Esau’s life wretched and broken, while Jacob’s was heaped +high with all which could gladden a grasping and sensual heart; on the +contrary, the chosen son won only that which Esau would not have cared +to lift if it had been laid at his very feet. Esau lost only that which +would have been life-long a torment to his easy, jovial, sensual<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_67">[67]</a></span> +nature, which he would have prayed to get rid of, which he would in some +way have got rid of, if it had clung to him, no matter at what cost. +There were some, remember, who, finding their herds of swine in peril, +prayed even the merciful Saviour “to depart out of their coasts.” Jacob +seized a bitter inheritance as far as this world was concerned, by his +clever impersonation; while Rebekah, who prompted and managed it, paid a +yet heavier price for it; in this world she never saw her darling more.</p> + +<p>What he won was power with God and with man as a spiritual prince; power +to pray, and to conquer by prayer; power to trust and to hope in God’s +mercy through stern struggles and bitter miseries; and power to reach a +hand through death and lay up the hope of his soul with God on high. The +heart which could crave for a spiritual thing, which pined to be a child +of promise, which clung to the traditions of his fathers and the hope of +his house, all which Esau scorned, God trained by suffering to aim +continually at higher and yet higher things. He won, in a word, a high +place in God’s high school of discipline, and a name of renown as a +spiritual hero in time and in eternity. This was practically his gain; +and it is precisely this which God places fairly within your reach. You +too may be the sons of promise; “power to become the sons of God” is the +birthright which in Christ is yours. Jacob, no doubt, and most justly, +seems to you the grander man as compared with Esau, and his life the +nobler and more glorious life. Then live it. All that he won you may +win. Make yourself a prince of God by wrestling prayer. The birthright +of broad acres and family honours may pass to your elder. The birthright +of hard work, stern struggle, strong effort, high aspiration, +disciplined power, victorious faith, eternal renown and joy, is yours. +Christ has won it, and freely bestows it—no younger son’s portion, but +the birthright of the eldest, the only-begotten son, glorious through +time and eternity. It may be that many a younger son may read these +words; many a one<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_68">[68]</a></span> who may be tempted to bemoan himself that the younger +son’s portion, the lot of toil and struggle, has fallen to him in life. +Well! if it be so, bless God for it. If the lot of the younger be toil +and struggle, if it falls to them mainly to open new paths, not without +peril and pain, to win by earnest and patient effort strength and +wisdom, and to take the leader’s place in the battle-field of life, +don’t moan over it if it has fallen to you, but again I say bless God +for it. The nobler, the richer, the lordlier inheritance, is yours. +Pity, do not despise, but pity the elders who sit clothed in purple and +fine linen, faring sumptuously every day. It would be a strange history +if it were fairly written out, the history of younger sons, with a just +estimate of what they have done in comparison with the elder for the +service and progress of mankind. The eldest born, the heirs, with the +inheritance which the past has lazily left to them; the younger sons, +with the domain of wisdom, strength, and influence, which their own +right hand, God helping them, has won. If Jacob seems to you the petted +child of fortune, the chosen favourite of heaven, and Esau the wretched +reprobate outcast, spurned alike of man and of God, then take Jacob’s +inheritance; take it, it is fairly yours. Spurn Esau’s, which the devil +is putting into your hand. Be your choice the pilgrim’s toils and +struggles, the name of renown, the everlasting portion; and with the +words of the pilgrim’s hymn upon your lips pass on your way.</p> + +<div class="block"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Contented now upon my thigh<br></span> +<span class="i2">I halt, till life’s short journey end;<br></span> +<span class="i0">All helplessness, all weakness, I<br></span> +<span class="i2">On Thee alone for strength depend;<br></span> +<span class="i0">Nor have I power from Thee to move;<br></span> +<span class="i0">Thy nature and Thy name is Love.<br></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Lame as I am, I take the prey;<br></span> +<span class="i2">Hell, earth, and sin, with ease o’ercome;<br></span> +<span class="i0">I leap for joy, pursue my way,<br></span> +<span class="i2">And, as a bounding hart, fly home;<br></span> +<span class="i0">Through all eternity to prove<br></span> +<span class="i0">Thy nature and Thy name is Love.”<br></span> +</div></div></div> + + + +<hr> + +<div class='chapter'><h2><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_69">[69]</a></span> +<a id="VI"></a>VI.<br> + +NO PLACE OF REPENTANCE.</h2></div> + +<div class="quote"> +“He found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully +with tears.”—<span class="smcap">Heb.</span> xii. 17. +</div> + + +<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">We</span> have shown in the last discourse that a close examination of the +question of the birthright lightens some of the deeper shadows which lie +upon it. Comparing the outward and visible aspect of the two men—the +man who sold the birthright and lost the blessing, and the man who won +them both—it would appear that the balance of worldly prosperity was +altogether on Esau’s side. Esau lost just that which his soul despised, +and he won what his soul lusted after, wealth, power, and the position +of a prince. He lived prosperously and splendidly, and died peacefully +we may believe, with few regrets. There is certainly nothing in the few +words which are devoted to his subsequent history to suggest that he +lived a disappointed ruined man. On the contrary, he seems to have +displayed on his meeting with Jacob that magnanimity and generosity +which shallow natures are wont to manifest in a prosperous lot. It is +just the glow of the sunlight reflected from their lives: the rippling +shallows make a braver show in the sunlight than the still deep pools; +and Esaus are gayer objects to look at, when all goes well with them, +than the careworn halting pilgrim, who bears on his brow, and no +sunlight can efface it, the marks of many toils and tears. But be that +as it may, there can be no question that the Bible does not picture the +life of Esau as a broken and ruined life, as far as this world is +concerned. The man grew rich and powerful, so rich that he could afford +to make light of Jacob’s presents, so powerful that Jacob’s company was +helpless in<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_70">[70]</a></span> his hand. It is written that once the children of Israel +cried for flesh, and “<i>God gave them flesh, but sent leanness into their +souls</i>.” Something like this was the history of Esau, and of how many a +worldly-hearted man whom fortune loads with gifts, while the springs of +his higher life sink low and die. And his race prospered. As Jacob was +to Esau, quite the weaker and more dependent of the two, so when +centuries passed was Israel to Edom. The descendants of Esau had +attained to such strength and political influence that they were able to +bar the gates of their land against the elect host, pilgrims through the +wilderness like their sire, angel-led, and saved by hope. On the whole +then, for himself and his descendants, his life must be pronounced a +worldly success.</p> + +<p>Jacob, on the other hand, had to reap life-long the bitter fruits of his +craft and fraud. His life was a weary, wasting struggle with selfish +craft and evil passion in all who surrounded him. He spent the best +years of his life in exile, and stood before Pharaoh, in his own +judgment prematurely aged and decayed. He won a name and a place which +called him to submit to a searching discipline, to live the life of a +pilgrim, to dwell as a stranger in his promised land, and to die in +exile at last. The world was fuller to him of sorrows and toils than of +benedictions, and the crown which the Prince of God at last was able to +bind around his brow was set with many a thorn. But he won the power to +follow the Angel, the Angel which redeemed him from all evil; his life, +halting as was his step, was a noble spiritual progress from strength to +strength, from victory to victory, till he passed up to receive the +prize of his conflict in a world and from a hand which Esau “despised.”</p> + +<p>Looked at in the light of this world’s interests then, some of the +darkest difficulties vanish as we read the record of this birthright +lost and won. But then there is Esau himself, the man who despised his +birthright, who counted himself unworthy of the honour to which God<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_71">[71]</a></span> had +ordained him, incapable of the glorious toil and patience to which God +had called him, and careless of the prize which God had placed within +reach of his hand. The life of this man, from the higher point of view, +was as sad, wretched, and faithless, as was the pilgrim Jacob’s from the +lower. He won his wealth and his princedom by his energy of hand and +will in all things that pertained to this life; but he let all the +interests and hopes of the higher life fade out of the horizon, and the +crown of his spiritual manhood slip from the grasp of his careless hand. +He touched it, but he could not hold it. What good shall this birthright +do to me, he moaned when the mess of pottage steamed before his hungry +senses; and the crown rolled in the dust. There is the man Esau, under +all his possession and princedom, in the sight of God a very wretched +and poverty-stricken outcast of the kingdom whose citizens believe in +truth, duty, spiritual effort, conflict, prayer, self-sacrifice, heaven, +and God. About the case of Esau personally there are many heavy +difficulties. His course seems to have been in a measure marked out from +his birth: “<i>The elder shall serve the younger</i>” was said of the twin +brethren while they were yet in the womb: and some such relation of the +two seems to be involved in the destiny which a higher Will had from the +first decreed. And this opens the vision of an abyss of mystery, into +the depths of which no finite intellect can search—the relation of +connate constitution and temperament to character, and the measure in +which this bears on the supreme fact of man’s being, responsibility. +Responsibility, implying freedom in the largest sense, we hold to be the +corner stone of our dignity as men. If man be not free, with the +everlasting crown of freedom within his reach as the prize of all his +toils and struggles, why! there is not a cur that prowls about the +streets whose lot is not more enviable. In that case man would be a +combatant by a profound instinct of his nature, struggling sternly +life-long against innumerable evils, with nothing after all to struggle +for; pressed, crushed,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_72">[72]</a></span> by the weight of intolerable ills, with no hope +to sanctify and no harvest to repay his pain. Who would not “rather be a +dog and bay the moon,” than such a creature? For freedom, and the +responsibility which it brings, as the fundamental spiritual fact of our +nature, we contend earnestly, yea vehemently, as for the only +justification of God’s constitution of the human world, the only key to +the woes which He lets loose to afflict it and the discords with which +He allows it to be torn. And for the reality of this moral freedom we +shall have to do stern battle with the school who are urging now, with +great subtilty and force, that all the moral phenomena of man’s nature +are just the finest efflorescence of the nerve matter of which his +intelligence is manufactured, the cream of the milk of his natural law.</p> + +<p>But it cannot be questioned for a moment that men appear to be under +various conditions of advantage, as we might call it, with regard to the +exercise of their freedom and its fruits. The differences arise partly, +but not we believe chiefly, from circumstance. The child of a household +of thieves or vagrants, for instance, seems to have but a poor chance in +life compared with the children who grow up, pure, cultivated, comely, +and pious, in your serene, happy, and orderly homes. But the more +serious source of this inequality is to be found in character and +temperament, inbred lusts, passions, tempers, and proclivities which may +make the life of a man one long agony of struggle and failure, while +another man more fairly endowed may find from the first the way of +wisdom a way of pleasantness and all her paths paths of peace. A man +born with a brutal nature and feeble spiritual energy, or with a native +propensity, as far as we can see, to certain forms of sin—the +temptation to which exercises the kind of fascination over his will +which the serpent’s eye is said to exert over the victim bird, but which +another man would burst through as easily as Samson flung off the withes +of the Philistine harlot—is, one is tempted to think, at a terrible +disadvantage in life’s battle, compared with<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_73">[73]</a></span> the man who has a halo of +saintly glory around his brow from his birth. It is a dark, sad mystery, +much of which, after all our brooding over it, we must leave in trust +with God.</p> + +<p>I believe firmly that inequalities arising out of circumstances are +after all far less real than they appear. The facilities and +opportunities for a fair unfolding of life are not so uneven, in the +various classes and callings, as they seem. There must be some deep +meaning in the Saviour’s words, “<i>Blessed are ye poor</i>,” and in the +terrible sentence, “<i>How hardly shall they that have riches enter into +the kingdom of God</i>.” There is an amount of practical +Christianity—daily, hourly trust in God and ministry to each +other—developed by the circumstances of the lot of the poor, which we +may fairly set against the intelligent beliefs, the doctrinal +correctness, and the measured charities of the richer class, as in the +sight of God of equal or of higher price. There is nothing in a +workman’s lot or toil, to remove him farther from the gate of the +kingdom than rich men, nobles, priests, or kings; nay, the balance is +altogether in his favour. But, alas! there is a class far below the +workman, a vast class, vastest in the great cities where Christian +civilization is at the height of its splendour and power, whose lot it +is terribly difficult to comprehend in a theodicy, and of whom it is +hard to believe that they are not from the first at a fearful +disadvantage as respects nearness to the gate of the kingdom of heaven. +But the gravest side of the difficulty is not circumstantial; it +concerns nature and temperament. Though perhaps, if we could search a +little more deeply, we should see that each type of character has its +own peculiar class of difficulties and temptations; and that the most +beautiful and saintlike have their dread perils of shipwreck, which make +their course as arduous as that of the souls which bear about with them +a great load of fleshliness and groan under the bondage of tyrannous +passions and lusts. Still it is a truth which is not without its awful<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_74">[74]</a></span> +significance, that temperaments, passions, and powers, are very +variously distributed to men, while the burden of existence is laid +equally upon all, and “every soul must bear its own burden” in time and +in eternity.</p> + +<p>These things lend infinite meaning to the word “Father” when uttered by +Divine lips. Like as a father pitieth his children, the Father pitieth +and beareth with us: “he knoweth our frame, he remembereth that we are +dust.” It is a father’s compassion, tenderness, and equity which we +need, to be the basis of our confidence and hope. A father considers +with fatherly care, interest, and love our individual endowments, +difficulties, and temptations, in ruling and in judging us; and He will +ordain our eternal state with a merciful wisdom, which has to satisfy +not a rigid justice only but the hopes and yearnings of a paternal +heart. If it were not for the belief that the bar of judgment before +which we shall stand is a wise and righteous fatherly heart, the best +endowed might well faint under the burden of existence, while the worst +would moan under its agony and curse the day on which they saw the sun. +There are some very terrible sentences in the word of God, which utter +the moan, not of the worst men, but of the best and noblest with whose +history it deals. “<i>After this opened Job his mouth, and cursed his day. +And Job spake, and said, Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the +night in which it was said, There is a man child conceived. Let that day +be darkness; let not God regard it from above, neither let the light +shine upon it. Let darkness and the shadow of death stain it; let a +cloud dwell upon it; let the blackness of the day terrify it. As for +that night, let darkness seize upon it; let it not be joined unto the +days of the year; let it not come into the number of the months. Lo, let +that night be solitary, let no joyful voice come therein.</i>” (Job iii. +1-7.) “<i>Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery, and life unto +the bitter in soul; Which long for death, but it cometh not: and dig for +it more than for hid treasures; Which rejoice exceedingly, and are<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_75">[75]</a></span> glad +when they can find the grave? Why is light given to a man whose way is +hid, and whom God hath hedged in? For my sighing cometh before I eat, +and my roarings are poured out like the waters. For the thing which I +greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come +unto me. I was not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet; +yet trouble came.</i>” (Job iii. 20-26.) “<i>Cursed be the day wherein I was +born: let not the day wherein my mother bare me be blessed. Cursed be +the man who brought tidings to my father, saying, A man child is born +unto thee; making him very glad. And let that man be as the cities which +the Lord overthrew, and repented not: and let him hear the cry in the +morning, and the shouting at noontide. Because he slew me not from the +womb; or that my mother might have been my grave, and her womb to be +always great with me. Wherefore came I forth out of the womb to see +labour and sorrow, that my days should be consumed with shame?</i>” (Jer. +xx. 14-18.) These were not bad men, crushed under the burden of their +own iniquity, but just, upright, and God-fearing men, who felt that +existence was too terrible for them under conditions which hid from them +the Father’s ruling hand. And if they shrank from the burden of +conscious responsible being, how shall weaker men escape its terror, but +by taking refuge under the shield of a Father’s equity and love! But +these thoughts lend a most blessed meaning to the words of the Saviour: +“<i>Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto +you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: +for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise. For +the Father loveth the Son, and showeth him all things that himself +doeth: and he will show him greater works than these, that ye may +marvel. For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them; even +so the Son quickeneth whom he will. For the Father judgeth no man, but +hath committed all judgment unto the Son: That all men should honour the +Son, even as they honour the Father. He that honoureth not the Son, +honoureth not the Father<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_76">[76]</a></span> which hath sent him. Verily, verily, I say +unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, +hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is +passed from death unto life. Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is +coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of +God: and they that hear shall live. For as the Father hath life in +himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself; and hath +given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of +man.</i>” (John v. 19-27.) “<span class="smcap">The Father hath committed all judgment unto the +Son.</span>” “<span class="smcap">Because he is the Son of Man.</span>” Because He can take a man’s +measure as well as a Divine measure of a man’s weaknesses, perils, and +temptations; can measure, as a man, man’s need of mercy, and utter the +Divine Father’s judgment from pitiful human lips. Few words, as we pore +over these dark mysteries of existence, are so full of consolation and +hope as these words of the Saviour upon judgment. We can bear the +darkness, we can bear the anguish, if we are called to pass through it, +because we know that the ordering of our destinies is in the hand of One +who mingles with a brother’s sympathy and tenderness the Divine Father’s +equity and love.</p> + +<p>But the text does not touch upon these difficulties of Esau’s history. +It treats him broadly as the typical instance of the reprobate, the man +who by his own base acts has cast himself out of the position for which +he was born and trained; who by one decisive manifestation of his +character and propensities has shut himself out from a high career which +opened fairly before him, and who finds no means of reversing the decree +which excludes him, though he seeks it carefully with tears. It opens a +very terrible vision of the inexorable rigour with which deeds done, +facts when they are once fairly established, react upon our lives. But +the words are often perverted to yet darker meanings—suggesting visions +of unpardonable sins, of fruitless agonies of personal repentance,—with +which souls under strong conviction not seldom<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_77">[77]</a></span> torment themselves, and +with which the text has absolutely nothing whatever to do. A man seeking +change of heart with an agony of tears, pleading with God to renew him, +to restore him, and to cherish him to new life and hope, yet spurned +from the gate of mercy, flung forth accursed from the arms of love, is a +picture which, blessed be God, has no original in the Divine word. No! +thus runs the gospel: “<i>Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy +laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; +for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your +souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.</i>” “<i>Ask, and it +shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be +opened unto you.</i>” “<i>For every one that asketh receiveth, and he that +seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.</i>” “<i>If ye, +being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much +more shall your Father which is in heaven give the Holy Spirit to them +that ask him?</i>” “<i>Whoso cometh unto me I will in no wise cast him out.</i>” +“<i>This man, because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood; +wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto +God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.</i>”</p> + +<p>If any who reads these words has ever made this text a stumbling-block, +has ever suffered the devil to thrust the thought into his heart that he +has sinned too deeply for repentance, and wandered too far for +return—that he can but lie moaning and weeping like Esau, and pleading +with anguished heart for repentance, to find his moans rained back in +anathemas, and his tears with the fire of the wrath of the Lamb,—let +him sweep back the thought as an unholy thing to the devil who inspired +it, and cling to the outstretched hand of Him who “<i>will not break the +bruised reed, who will not quench the smoking flax, but will bring forth +<a id="judgment"></a><ins title="Original has judgmedt">judgment</ins> unto truth</i>.”</p> + +<p>The text has literally nothing to do with personal repentance before +God. No man can spiritually seek a place of repentance carefully with +tears, and fail to find<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_78">[78]</a></span> it, for the very act is an act of repentance. I +do not care to discuss the question whether the repentance here spoken +of is a change in the mind of Isaac, or of Esau himself. In either case +the meaning is substantially the same. He found no means of reversing +the decree, of winning the blessing of the firstborn, of inducing his +father to recall the benediction which had been treacherously diverted +to the younger, though he sought it carefully with tears. If it were +possible that this text, in all its dreadful meaning, could bear on +personal repentance for sin, and frighten men from it lest after all it +should be hopeless, it would deny the fundamental ideas and promises of +the gospel; nay, it would itself “<i>trample under foot the Son of God, +and count the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified an +unholy thing, and do despite to the Spirit of grace</i>.”</p> + +<p>No! the text is a very solemn and even terrible warning of the +irrevocable character of deeds done in folly or frenzy; the inexorable +character of the fate which takes possession of them when once they have +gone forth from us, and which makes by them, it may be in spite of our +tears and prayers and desperate struggles, a complete revolution in our +lives.</p> + +<p>Esau’s history is but the repetition of the history of the fall. And it +is a history which we all constantly repeat in the critical moments of +our lives. Esau fell as Adam fell, and fundamentally for the same +reason. Adam despised his birthright, and thought that there was a +readier way to the satisfaction of the desires of his heart. Esau by one +act changed, not his own history and destiny only, but the destiny of a +great nation; Adam changed, by his one sin, the destiny of a great +world. “<i>Wherefore</i>,” says the apostle, “<i>as by one man sin entered into +the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men</i>.” (Rom. +v. 12.) Adam, like Esau, saw through the eyes of Eve that the “<i>tree was +good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be +desired to make one wise</i>.” What good shall my birth-right<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_79">[79]</a></span> do to me, he +said practically when he saw the forbidden fruit, and he sold it; and +that moment’s work for him, for you, for me, for all the myriad human +generations, can never be recalled in time or in eternity. There is +something very much nobler here than in Esau’s profaneness. It was not +in a moment of sensual lust that our first father sold his own +birthright and ours. The desire of wisdom, or what he took for wisdom, +had much to do with the force of the temptation; but the essence of the +matter is the same: Adam and Esau both chose, in the place of the good +which God had provided for them, a good which they provided for +themselves. Bitterly Adam, like Esau, repented of his folly, and sought +to undo his work. When the wilderness lay cold and bare before him, and +the flaming sword of the cherubim guarded the backward path to the +bright abodes which he had lost for ever, he measured for the first time +the full significance of his transgression. And when the sun set angry +and lurid on the wilderness, and the moaning winds swept hoarsely over +the waste, while a shudder shook the breast of nature as the tempest +clouds gathered in the sullen sky, Adam caught the infection of the +tremor, and watched with quivering eye the awful conflict of the forces +which had broken loose from his allegiance, and which seemed to come +thundering on as the doomsmen of the death which his Judge had decreed. +Think you that then his heart did not cling to the memories of the +splendours and serenities of Eden with passionate longing; think you +that he did not prostrate himself in an agony of frenzied supplication +that the barred portal might be unclosed again, that the fiery sword +might be sheathed, that the flowers of Eden might again spring beneath +his footsteps, while the balmy breezes whispered a blessing as they +played around the field of his labour and his bower of rest?</p> + +<p>And what has been the long and bitter cry of man’s sad history? O God, +reverse the sentence, reopen the gate of paradise, revoke the curse, let +the sunlight of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_80">[80]</a></span> Eden shine once more on a holy, peaceful, and happy +world! This is the great burden of human literature in all its deeper +and more sacred utterances; it is the meaning of all the world’s great +poems, the refrain of all its immortal hymns. Recall the curse! let life +again become pure, peaceful, and blessed! Men, nations, ages have +agonized, over the sentence; but they have found no place of repentance, +no means to change the mind of the Judge or their own condition as the +subjects of it, though they have sought it carefully with tears. Esau +was the rejected of the birthright; you and I are the rejected of Eden. +Sinners we are by nature and proclivity, with a sinner’s burdens, a +sinner’s experience, and a sinner’s doom. And there is no way to change +the past, to rid us of the burden, to cancel the sentence, to mitigate +the anguish of a life on which the devil has seared the shameful brand; +no way to force the barred gates of paradise, even by the banded +energies of a pain-racked, sin-tormented world.</p> + +<p>And I suppose that the private experience of most men furnishes the key +to this. Who has not known something of the agony with which one dark +deed of passion, lust, falsehood, knavery, baseness, can torture a human +heart? Look back. Is there nothing in the past, rising up at this moment +in the full menace of its hateful form, clear as the ghost of Banquo +before his murderer’s sight, which you would give your wealth, nay, some +of you would give worlds if they had them, to undo; if conscience might +but recover its serenity, and life its brightness; if the leprous flesh +of their experience might again become, like Naaman’s, fair, pure, and +sweet as the flesh of a little child. It is not every Gehazi whose +leprosy comes out in his flesh, and makes him loathsome to his fellows. +How many Gehazis move about among us, burying their leprosy within, but +none the less plague-stricken and perilous! Happy those who have no dark +chambers in their being, haunted by the skeletons of their dead lusts, +sins, or crimes—skeletons which never<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_81">[81]</a></span> fail to come forth at their +banquets to scare them, choosing ruthlessly the hours of their festivity +and triumph to murder all their joys. There may be some readers of these +words who know this in all its horror, in whom the anguish of the +irrevocable and irreparable has killed all the joy of life—a word +spoken, a passion indulged, a deed done, which in one brief moment has +drawn a brooding shadow over the once sunlit landscape of their lives. +And you have wept and prayed, lying prostrate on the cold, ground, +beseeching the merciful God that He would blot out the record from your +memory and from the lives which it has embittered and cursed; but “the +heaven has been as brass, the earth beneath has been as iron.” The word +“irrevocable” has forced its meaning upon you in all its terrible +sternness, and you have needed no commentary to expound, or preacher to +drive home, the meaning of the sentence, “<i>Beware lest there be any +fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold +his birthright. For ye know how that afterward, when he would have +inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of +repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.</i>”</p> + +<p>And if there may be some readers who know this experience in all its +horror, there are a multitude who know it in its more modified forms, +and who find it terrible enough even then. Who has not had forced upon +him the misery of regrets or remorse, the causes of which remain +unalterable, fixed as the stars in their orbits, and the fruits of which +leave deep traces on the experience and the destiny through time, yes, +and through eternity? Did David, think you, ever look coldly or +carelessly on his bold soldier’s bloody grave? Was there no sad shadow, +to his eye, around the beauty of Bathsheba’s child, which no murmured +“Jedidiah” could chase away? Was his home ever free from the shadow, +from the hour when Nathan’s “Thou art the man” drove conviction home, +and wrung from him the most bitter cry of a sinner’s anguish which has +found record in the literature of our world? Few<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_82">[82]</a></span> things in the book of +history are more terrible than the sorrow which entered David’s home, +the discord which rent his kingdom, the anguish which pierced his heart, +from the hour of his great transgression. A sad, careworn, broken man, +he finished his course and went down to his grave. Compare the David of +1 Kings i., ii., with the young shepherd in his early prime, if you +would estimate the havoc which one great sin may make in a noble life. +Ah! in a measure we all know it, in some form or other; words, deeds, +outbursts of passion, which have wrung dear hearts with anguish, +sundered precious bonds of love, have sullied reputation, clouded +prospects, withered hopes, or blighted the promise of lives which we +were bound to cherish, or of our own. And we would give worlds to blot +out their record, and to repair the evil which has been wrought; but it +remains engraven with an iron pen in the rock for ever: man cannot +obliterate it, and God will not.</p> + +<p>To complete the subject, let me ask you to consider two thoughts.</p> + +<p>1. These dread seasons of crucial trial, on which the future of life, +nay of eternity, is hanging, never come upon us in a moment.</p> + +<p>It would appear from the text that one morsel of meat settled the +question of the birthright; that one hard, hot morning’s chase settled +the destinies of peoples for all time. That is one side of it, the +outside. But the real settlement of the question was made already; any +trifle will serve to disclose what has already established itself as the +permanent character within. Esau had nursed his contempt for the +birthright by a thousand daily lustings and cravings; many a bitter +scoff too he had flung at Jacob’s pious and meditative mood. Things like +this never stand alone. The life of the chosen family is described in +words of wonderful beauty and power in Heb. xi. 8-14. “<i>By faith +Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after +receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither +he<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_83">[83]</a></span> went. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange +country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with +him of the same promise. For he looked for a city which hath +foundations, whose builder and maker is God. Through faith also Sara +herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child +when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised. +Therefore sprang there even of one, and him as good as dead, so many as +the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand which is by the sea +shore innumerable. These all died in faith, not having received the +promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and +embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on +the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek +a country.</i>” This life Jacob believed in profoundly; this life Esau as +profoundly despised. He despised it all, and made his contempt +abundantly apparent. “<i>And Esau was forty years old when he took to wife +Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Bashemath the daughter of +Elon the Hittite. Which were a grief of mind unto Isaac and to Rebekah</i>” +(Gen. xxvi. 34, 35). This shows how thoroughly out of sympathy with the +spirit of the chosen race he was from the first, and remained through +life. All his sympathies and associations were with the pagans around +him. Jacob was the true heir of the promise, for he believed in it; Esau +its outcast, for he despised it, and had despised it from the first. His +every act had expressed his contempt of it, and the sale of the +birthright for a mess of pottage but completed the witness that he was a +profane person, a pagan at heart. These moments mark the crises for +which a long train of thought and habit has prepared. Many a secret sin, +born of luxury and nursed by royal power and splendour, broke out into +the daylight when David looked upon Bathsheba, and filled his life with +unutterable sorrow and shame. God takes no man in a hasty moment and +brands him reprobate. A thousand daily touches through long years have +shaped the image which there reveals itself, and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_84">[84]</a></span> on which is moulded +the everlasting destiny. The little sins of life are busily, hour by +hour, creating the great sins. The small habits and actions, which we +allow to pass unrebuked—they seem to be such trifles—soon pass away +beyond the power of memory to recall; but they leave their ineffaceable +trace on our constitution and character, and lay silently the train of +some great outburst of lust, passion, or wickedness, like Esau’s or +David’s. Then is written a record on our nature and destiny which one +day we shall agonize to blot out; but the inexorable eye looks coldly +down on the frenzied pleader, and the stony lips fashion themselves into +a voiceless “Too late!” Meet sin, meet all the devil’s seductions and +enticements, sternly on the threshold, and the citadel remains for ever +sure.</p> + +<p>2. The irrevocable is not the irreparable, through the abounding mercy +and grace of God.</p> + +<p><i>Things</i> cannot be obliterated or abolished. They remain, and their +record remains, for ever. But, blessed be God, they may be transmuted, +and wear Divine forms of beauty and joy. And this is what redemption +means. Eden is closed for ever. To abolish the condition of man as a +sinner, otherwise than by one grand sentence of doom which would abolish +his existence as a creature, is beyond the power even of heaven. A +sinner’s lot you inherit, a sinner’s experience you must know, a +sinner’s agony you must taste, a sinner’s horror of darkness you must +pass through—to the pit, if the birthright never again seems to you +beautiful and glorious, a thing to be won by toil and tears and prayers; +but if your soul pines in its rioting, if it sickens in its worldly +wealth and splendour, if the question forces itself upon you as it never +seems to have forced itself upon Esau, “<i>What shall it profit a man if +he gain the whole world and lose his own soul, or what shall a man give +in exchange for his soul?</i>” then the sinner’s anguish, from which there +is no escape for any one of us, may be made by Christ’s dear love the +strait gate to the splendour, the glory, the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_85">[85]</a></span> bliss of heaven. And this +is Redemption. Divine love, love that could die, love that <i>did</i> die, +that its beloved ones might not die, is the solvent which transmutes all +the shame and pain of sin to heavenly glory and bliss. “<i>Where sin +abounded, grace did much more abound; that as sin had reigned unto +death, even so might grace reign through righteousness, unto eternal +life, by Jesus Christ our Lord.</i>” Here is no reversal, no obliteration +of the past, mark you; the thing that was is and shall be; no power in +the universe can blot out its trace. The experience of a sinner is part +of your being, and in its transmuted form must remain part of your +being, through eternity. These wounds and sores of sin, suffused by +Christ’s great love, become the lustrous pearls of heaven. Nothing in +the past, I care not how dark or damning it may be, is irreparable by +the love which “<i>endured the cross and despised the shame</i>,” that it +might win the right and the power to redeem. There is no sin whose +stains may not be wept out at the Redeemer’s feet. There is no life +which may not win “She hath loved much, for she hath much forgiven” as +its record, earnest of a rapture of eternal bliss. But dream not that +the path can be an easy one, and that penitence can transmute the sorrow +into joy by a word. You have done that whose issues could only be undone +by the agony and bloody sweat of Gethsemane, the cross and passion of +Calvary; and you too must die, die to sin, that you may live to God. The +flesh, which has despised your birthright, must be mortified, crucified, +by grace. “<i>I am crucified with Christ</i>” you must learn to say; you must +know the fellowship of the sufferings of your Master, and taste the cup +of which He drank the dregs, or the lost birthright is lost for ever, +and the deed done on earth remains irreparable as well as irrevocable +through eternity.</p> + + + +<hr> + +<div class='chapter'><h2><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_86">[86]</a></span> +<a id="VII"></a>VII.<br> + +THE CURSE OF THE GROUND.</h2></div> + +<div class="quote2"> +“Cursed is the ground for thy sake.”—<span class="smcap">Gen.</span> iii. 17. +</div> + + +<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">Are</span> these words part of a curse, or part of a blessing? Are they a +sentence on man, the doom of his transgression, or the first stage of a +process destined to issue in the redemption of the heir of promise from +sorrow and sin for ever? Few phrases are more frequently on our lips +than “the curse of labour.” Men, women, yea little children, +overburdened and crushed by the stern toil which is the necessity of +their existence, easily catch up the sentence, and submit to the +necessity in the sullen bitter mood with which a slave accepts his +chastisement, or a criminal the sentence of doom. Few things are more +firmly fixed in our minds than that the toil and the strain of life are +God’s curse on transgression, having merciful bearings and issues no +doubt for the man who lovingly submits to the discipline, but in +themselves evil and hateful, born of sin, and a part of death.</p> + +<p>I propose to examine this idea in the present discourse, and to +endeavour to estimate this curse upon the ground in its bearings on +man’s development as a spiritual being, and his relations to his +Redeemer, God. That toil, care, and pain spring out of the one great act +of transgression which every life repeats is the plain and indisputable +affirmation of the word of God. The dark tones of man’s present life +gloom against a background of radiant brightness and beauty; in the +childhood of humanity, as in the life of every human child, Eden shines +behind all the toil and sorrow of the world. There has been a grand +cataclysm<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_87">[87]</a></span> in man and in nature. The structure of the world has been +rent and contorted, and the fractures and contortions repeat themselves +in life. “<i>Sin entered into the world, and death by sin</i>;” “<i>God made +man upright, but he sought out many inventions</i>,” are the sentences of a +sound philosophy, estimating the facts of consciousness and history, as +well as statements of the word of God. There has been a fall, a rupture, +by the sinful guilty action of the freewill of the creature, of the +pristine perfect relation between man and God and man and the world. +Transgression, the sinful exercise of freedom, is the fundamental fact +of man’s present nature and life; and the sentence on the transgressor, +the inevitable sentence, “<i>the soul that sinneth it shall die</i>,” lies at +the root of all the bitter anguish of the world.</p> + +<p>There are abundant signs of the action of terribly destructive and +desolating forces in the physical structure of the world. The earth has +been torn and convulsed as by the spasm of some great agony, and the +signs of it lie thick around. Huge beds of rock, thousands of feet in +thickness, have been cracked and shivered like potsherds; streams of +molten metal have been injected into the fissures, and have surged +through the rents and swept vast floods of burning lava over the smiling +plains. There must have been times in the history of the development of +this earth, fair and calm as it lies now under the sun, when its whole +structure must have been shaken to the very centre; when there was dread +peril lest, like some lost planet, it should be shattered into fragments +and fill its orbit with a cloud of wreck. But some sure hand has helped +earth’s travail, and has brought forth out of the chaos of struggle and +storm an orderly, smiling, serene, and beautiful world. The signs of +past agony are there, to those whose eye can pierce the surface; but a +loving hand has clothed it all with a glow of beauty and a robe of +grace. The regions where the convulsion was fiercest, where the scars +are deepest, are the regions of glorious mountain<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_88">[88]</a></span> beauty, whither +pilgrims wend as to nature’s most sacred shrine. The rents and chasms, +clothed with the most splendid forests, with streams leaping and +sparkling through the emerald meadows to the hollows below, breathe +nothing but beauty, and stir all hearts to joy and praise. The touch of +the destroyer is everywhere masked by beauty; and out of the chaos of +confusion God has drawn forth, what never could have been but for the +chaos, the infinite variety, the grace, the splendour, the glory of the +world.</p> + +<p>This mystery of order and beauty, of cosmos, which reveals itself to us +in nature, unveils itself too in man’s spiritual world. Life, the life +of the human, bears traces everywhere of kindred dislocation. A great +convulsion has rent man’s nature, has torn it away from God and from +Eden, and scattered what, but for a redeeming restoring hand, would have +been blasted wrecks, about the world. Toil, pain, care, anguish have +chased the serenity and bliss of paradise from man’s heart and from +man’s world. Earth is full of wailing, and life of misery. Looking at +its surface aspects, we are tempted to call this life of man the +abortion of freedom, and to cry with Job, with Jeremiah, Why did it not +perish before it saw the sun? Look deeper. As in nature, so in man’s +life, a loving restoring hand has been working; the wastes of sin are +already clothed with some tints of greenness; flowers of rare beauty and +splendour spring up on what sin had made a dreary, blasted desert. The +moral chaos, touched by the hand of the Divine love, the love of God the +Redeemer, already puts on some dress of beauty; nay, it glows here and +there with a nascent glory whose fountain is beyond the stars. Some +vision of a grand and glorious purpose of redemption unveils itself as +we search the secrets of man’s sad history. “<i>Where sin abounded</i>,” we +read in the book of life as well as in the book of Scripture, “<i>grace +did much more abound: That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might +grace reign, through righteousness unto eternal life, by Jesus Christ +our<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_89">[89]</a></span> Lord</i>.” (Rom. v. 20, 21.) What we see accomplished helps us to +realize the visions of the prophetic word. “<i>The wilderness and the +solitary place, shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, +and blossom as the rose. It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice even +with joy and singing: the glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it, the +excellency of Carmel and Sharon; they shall see the glory of the Lord, +and the excellency of our God.</i>” “<i>Then the eyes of the blind shall be +opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame +man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing: for in the +wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert. And the +parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of +water: in the habitation of dragons where each lay, shall be grass with +reeds and rushes. And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall +be called The way of holiness: the unclean shall not pass over it; but +it shall be for those: the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err +therein. No lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast shall go up +thereon, it shall not be found there; but the redeemed shall walk there. +And the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with songs, +and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and +gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.</i>” (Isa. xxxv. 1, 2, +5-10.) Sin, the sin of the first parent, which every child of Adam +repeats, is the fundamental fact of man’s being; no religion, no +philosophy, which makes light of it can lay firm hold of man’s +conscience and heart. But, blessed be God, grace is the crowning fact; +and it is the crown which will remain conspicuous through eternity.</p> + +<p>The sentence on sin then is a dread reality. “<i>The soul that sinneth it +shall die</i>” remains as God’s judgment record, which no art or effort of +man can cancel. But in this first sentence on His sinful child God has +wondrously interwoven benediction and judgment, warning and promise, +words of life and dooms of death. On the serpent the curse is decisive +and final: “<i>And the Lord<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_90">[90]</a></span> God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast +done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of +the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the +days of thy life.</i>” (Gen. iii. 14.) But the sternness relaxes and the +doom melts into a promise, when the Judge addresses Himself to man. The +very curse on the serpent is pregnant with blessing to the woman and her +seed; the Executor of the Lord’s judgment on the tempter is the +everlasting triumphant Redeemer of mankind. And throughout the sentence +on our race blessing ranges in fellowship with judgment; and the +sternest words, prophets of many ills and sorrows, are rich benedictions +in disguise. And this “<i>cursed is the ground</i>” is amongst them. It +sounds hard and stern, and prophesies a long and hard apprenticeship of +toil and pain; but stern as it seems, it is part of the blessing and not +of the cursing, of the benediction and not of the doom. It describes the +first stage of the redemptive process of which the sentence on the +serpent had spoken, and is the condition of man’s elevation out of the +estate of a sinful, suffering, degraded creature to the friendship, +fellowship, and likeness of God. In order that we may appreciate this, +and see the true meaning and bearing of the judgment, I shall ask you to +consider with me—</p> + +<p>I. The range of the sentence.</p> + +<p>II. Its work.</p> + +<p>I. The range of the sentence. It is the sentence, as far as it bears on +man’s present condition and experience, that I wish to consider,—the +“men must work and women must weep” aspect of our life—excluding the +deeper and more tremendous question of death and its issues. Not that +any full consideration of the one is possible without reference to the +other. The whole sentence hangs together; our life is of one texture, +one warp runs through the whole piece; and every groan, every pain, +every bead of sweat upon the brow, every shadow that glooms over the +life, has its full interpretation in the fact<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_91">[91]</a></span> that “<i>sin has entered +into the world, and death by sin</i>;” all pain is truly a beginning to +die. But for our present purpose it is possible sufficiently to isolate +the conditions of man’s life as the workman and the sufferer, and to +consider how they bear, benignly or malignly, on his essential interests +as a spiritual being and his education for the destiny which through +grace sin has been instrumental to create rather than to destroy. The +elements of the sentence which are closely connected with the cursing of +the ground, which in fact are links of the same chain, are three:—</p> + +<p>Toil—pain—care.</p> + +<p>1. Toil. This is fundamental. On this man’s existence hangs; to pause +here is to stop the pulse of life. “<i>And unto Adam he said, Because thou +hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree of +which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the +ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy +life; Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou +shalt eat the herb of the field: In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat +bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: +for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.</i>” (Gen. iii. 17-19.) +The life of man in Eden was as free from toil as the life of a bee among +the limes. Toil is wearing, wasting work; work to which no inward +impulse, but the pressure of a stern necessity, moves us; work which we +must do, whether we love it or whether we hate it, whether it gently +tasks us or strains and exhausts our wearied powers; work which compels +us to put aside much that we would infinitely more gladly work at, which +cuts us off from pleasant occupation, profitable to our intellectual and +social life; work, in a word, which puts a yoke upon us, a yoke which +wears and galls; work which makes us moan, and curse the day that we +were born to it, and fills us with wild, rebellious passion, which vents +itself in railings, blaspheming the wisdom and goodness of the Creator +and the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_92">[92]</a></span> divine order and beauty of the world. This is the work which we +sinners are born to; work which urges us with bloody spur, and exacts a +tribute of our life-blood as it drives us through the merciless round. +This is toil. This is what the curse of the ground has done for us; we +eat our bread, not joyously, thankfully, as in Eden, but in the sweat of +brow, brain, and heart. How bright the contrast of the Eden life! “<i>And +the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man +whom he had formed. And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow +every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of +life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good +and evil. And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from +thence it was parted, and became into four heads.... And the Lord God +took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden, to dress it and to +keep it.</i>” (Gen. ii. 8-10, 15.) Sweet, light labour, parent of yet +sweeter rest. To dress and to keep the garden! A garden planted by the +hand of the Lord. The fairest, brightest garden of the creation; dewy +fragrance, radiant colour, splendid form; all that imagination can dream +of beauty and glory, bathing man’s life in an atmosphere of ravishing, +exquisite, inexhaustible joy. One act of transgression, and the garden +vanished. Like a dream it faded; and hard, stern realities, unlovely +hues, ungraceful forms, unkindly elements, rose round Adam in its room. +Instead of the garden where the touch of the Divine hand still lingered +in forms and tones of bewildering beauty, a bare hard wilderness +stretched everywhere around him, whence not a morsel of bread could be +wrung but by the most strenuous labour; where not a gleam of beauty, not +a nestling nook of verdure, would smile on him, until he had created it +by earnest, persistent, and wasting toil. “<i>Cursed is the ground.</i>”</p> + +<p>2. Pain. Part of the sentence of toil is pain. “<i>Unto the woman he said, +I will greatly multiply thy sorrow, and thy conception; in sorrow thou +shalt bring forth children;<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_93">[93]</a></span> and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and +he shall rule over thee.</i>” (Gen. iii. 16.) The fountain-head of pain is +travail. It begins at birth, it ends in death; life on the whole, +between the limits, is one long struggle to endure. “Men must work, and +women must weep.” It is not a complete division: for men weep while they +work, and women work while they weep; toil and tears are the bitter +heritage of us all. But the man has on the whole the chief share of the +strain, the woman of the pain, of life. Her life, if she has a woman’s +nobleness and the sense of a woman’s mission, is one long travail. This +bearing and rearing of children is symbolic. What is the life of all +noble, unselfish, ministering natures, but the continual bringing forth, +with sore pain of travail, of things which shall gladden and enrich the +world? But pain is a great mystery. Why the good God, serenely blessed, +should suffer pain to torment His child! How the heavenly powers can +bear to look upon it, to hear all the moans of anguish, to see all the +wrestlings of pain which each moment distract and waste the beings whom +they love! For much of the pain of life man himself is, directly and in +the first instance, responsible. He makes it, in spite of God, by his +insane folly, passion, or lust. But how much lies at the door of the +heavenly Ruler, is His word, His ordinance, the discipline which He +presses sternly on His child! Pain, that torments and maddens him while +he works; pain that pierces him from everything that he touches, +everything that he delights in, every being that he loves; pain, that +searches the roots of his courage and endurance, which makes the marrow +quiver in his bones, the blood curdle in his heart; pain, which rings +from a man who is the very type of endurance the most bitter curses, the +most fierce anathemas on the very sunlight which shines on him, on birth +and all its agony, on life and all its intolerable woe. “<i>In sorrow +shalt thou bring forth children</i>,” and everything which is freighted +with any portion of thy life. Pain in birth; tears in the eyes of +helpless infants on<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_94">[94]</a></span> their mother’s bosom; the paths of the wilderness +wet with the tears of brave men and women wrestling with pain too sharp +for endurance; tears rung out from the glazing eye, when it settles for +one painless moment into the fixed, cold stare of death!</p> + +<p>3. Care. “<i>Dust thou art.</i>” Here lies the secret of care. I believe that +these words suggest altogether the most bitter and miserable experience +of mankind. Toil may be borne, pain may be borne; but who in his own +strength can wrestle with and master care? Man’s condition is that of +the most dependent of beings, while the things which he needs for the +satisfaction of his nature refuse to recognise the mastery of his hand. +He comes into the world the most helpless of all the infants of +creation. It is horrible to imagine what a human infant, in the hands of +a careless or cruel parent, may be made to endure. And this condition of +his infancy follows him through life: he is really an infant, a +nursling, as dependent for the daily bread of body, mind, and spirit on +supplies which he cannot command, as an infant at the mother’s breast. +So large is the range of his necessities, so infinite his wants, that he +needs just the arm and the treasure of the Omnipotent to supply it. And +the sentence “<i>dust thou art</i>” meets him everywhere. He feels it in the +miserable infirmity of his arm; he reads it in the accidents of life and +the decrees of fate. He knows that there are things needful to his +happiness, needful to his very life, things which he would die rather +than miss; and yet they mock the puny efforts of his arm, the feeble +breath of his prayer. He sees them passing hopelessly beyond the limits +of his horizon, and he must live on and drag on from day to day, a +broken, wretched, beggared life. Who has not groaned in utter misery +over his wretched helplessness in the hand of calamity, as though his +life were the sport of a demon, and all his pleasant things but +instruments of torture, with which some malignant spirit can torment his +soul and desolate his life? He is in the presence of masses and forces +in<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_95">[95]</a></span> the creation, which oppress and crush his spirit; but there seems to +him a maligner demon behind the veil of the creation, who delights to +make sport of his weakness and burn in the sentence “<i>dust thou art</i>” +upon the tablets of his heart. Toil, pain, care, these are the bitter +ingredients of his experience; these make up how much of the daily +course and order of his life. Verily men may well imagine that a curse +was meant here rather than a blessing, and dream that a devil, a +malignant spirit, is nearer to them and more potent on their lives than +God. So dread is the pressure, that in the absence of revelation, in the +absence of the assurance “<i>Like as a father pitieth his children, so the +Lord pitieth them that fear Him, for He knoweth their frame, He +remembereth that they are dust</i>,” devil worship becomes inevitably the +religion of the pagan world.</p> + +<p>Such is the range of the sentence. Now let us ask—</p> + +<p>II. What is its work? Is it malign or benignant? Is it, in its very +essence, a curse or a blessing to man?</p> + +<p>Our first notion on reading these words, “<i>Cursed is the ground for thy +sake</i>,” is naturally that part of the curse on man has fallen on the +ground. It is cursed “<i>for thy sake</i>,” by transition of the curse from +thee. But the word bears a nobler meaning. “For thy sake” may as well, +nay better, mean “with a view to thy good.” The root of the sentence +would still be transgression. There had been no need of toil, care, and +pain, had not sin entered into the world. But sin having entered, toil, +care, and pain are ordained for the sake of man in the loftiest sense; +they are the most perfect ordinance which could be framed to bless him +(or rather with a view to his full and perfect blessing, for they only +begin what higher influence must complete), by the Almighty Father’s +wisdom, power, and love. I am very anxious that the full force of this +statement should be understood. It is quite possible to take the +following view of it:—Man having placed himself before God in the +attitude of a sinner, justice demanded that he should be sentenced: +toil,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_96">[96]</a></span> care, pain, and death <i>are</i> the sentence, the expression of God’s +anger against the transgressor, making man the outcast of His love; that +then, in pity, God took compassion on the outcast, and began a remedial +work, which, while leaving him still for the present under the action of +the sentence, sought to rescue him ultimately from its final doom. This +would appear to me a very imperfect and partial statement of the truth. +To me it seems as if the whole sentence were the expression of the +tenderness which began to work in the Father’s heart in the very moment +of the transgression. The death which is the righteous doom, the +inevitable fruit, of sin, is in the very moment of the sentence held in +suspense as it were by the promise; and the toil, care, and pain which +are expressed in the sentence are the very first steps of the remedial +work. The sinner in the very moment of transgression is drawn to the +bosom of God’s mercy. Since the first promise was spoken, the death +which was the sinner’s doom can only be tasted in its bitterness by the +man who treats the promise as a thing of nought. And all the hard and +stern conditions of man’s present lot, instead of being the doom of a +judgment from which mercy is moved to rescue him, are themselves the +motions of mercy by which the work of rescue is begun. This is the +principle on which alone it appears to me that the text can be +understood.</p> + +<p>I do not propose to occupy your thoughts with any of what I may call the +minor mercies of the sentence, and the minor ministries of toil, care, +and pain to the true development of man. The sentence of toil at once +began man’s higher education. It brought him firmly and sternly, but not +malignly, into contact with the laws which he had broken, and whose +penalties he had defied. Not a morsel of bread could he win without +again submitting to them; humbly, absolutely, utterly, he must become +their servant if he would win the lightest blessing from their hand. But +the blessing was there, it was clearly possible that he should win it. +Hard and stern as<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_97">[97]</a></span> has been his toil, through all these ages it has +nourished him. Nature, though stern, is the reverse of malignant; all +her conditions are not penal, but disciplinary; the sentence placed him +at the foot of the ladder, a vision of which Jacob once saw, whose +highest rungs are lost in heaven. But instead of tracing this, I wish to +dwell rather on the ministry of the sentence at once and directly to the +unfolding of man’s Divinest life. The more you look at it, the more +clearly I think will it become apparent to you that it is through toil, +and care, and pain alone that such a being as man can rise to the full +height of his godlike stature, and grow into the likeness and the +fellowship of God. Let me ask you then to consider these three points:—</p> + +<p>1. Through toil, and care, and pain, man becomes a creator—not a +servant, but a master workman, and springs, as compared with his +condition in Eden, into a higher region of life.</p> + +<p>2. Through toil, and care, and pain, he becomes acquainted with all the +experience of a father; the deepest and noblest relationships unfold +their significance, and unutterably enrich and exalt his life.</p> + +<p>3. By toil, and care, and pain, he rises to the full and sympathetic +knowledge of God his Redeemer, and enters into the holiest fellowship of +the universe for ever.</p> + +<p>1. The experience which grows out of the sentence constitutes him a +creator, a master workman, and lifts him into a higher region of life.</p> + +<p>Man in Eden was the loyal, loving servant of his Creator, no more. God +“<i>placed him in the garden to dress and to keep it</i>.” Fair, sweet, +genial work, like life in one of the soft bright islands of the Pacific. +Every moment an exquisite sensation, every movement a pulse of joy. +Well! there you have the whole of it. And I say boldly there is not +enough of it. To dress and to keep even a paradise is poor, slight work +for a being framed and endowed like man. It was inevitable that sooner +or later he should get to the end of its interest<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_98">[98]</a></span> and the lees of its +joy. A strong, hardy, brave, cultivated Englishman soon gets to the end +of the soft, sweet life of the Pacific island. It suits the islanders, +who are mostly pulp, morally and mentally,—the human jelly-fish, +without muscle and fibre; but there is not enough of it for the +cultivated and developed man. Toil, pain, and care set the exile of Eden +at once about higher work. He went forth with a great sorrow in his +heart, and a great shadow over his life, into the hard stern wilderness. +There he had not to <i>dress and to keep</i> a garden, but to make one, and +that is altogether higher and nobler work. A higher range of faculties +was at once called into action. He had to create fruitful fields and +homesteads, and to frame a new paradise in imagination, which his +strenuous toil, pain, and care were to realize in time. His creative +work as a husbandman is symbolic of all his creation, his work as +parent, thinker, artist, poet, and master of the world. In Eden +everything was made for him, and was ready to his hand; in the world he +had to make, or at any rate to mould, everything, and to make his hand +ready for an infinite variety of work. And what does this constructive +creative toil imply? It means that he had to discover, to think out, and +to reproduce, by the utmost strain his faculties would bear, the +thoughts of God. He had to study nature, and to master her methods; he +had to discover the uses of his powers and the possibilities of his +life. He rose at once sad and stricken, but grand through the gentleness +which had made him great, to the fulness of a godlike stature; and what +are toil, and pain, and care, through life’s brief day, if they lift man +up to this excellent glory of his manhood, the power to think, to work, +to create, in the track and after the method of God?</p> + +<p>2. By toil, and pain, and care, man becomes acquainted with the +experience of a father; the deepest and noblest relationships unfold to +him their significance, and unutterably enrich and exalt his life.</p> + +<p>Travail is the symbolic pain. “<i>In sorrow shalt thou<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_99">[99]</a></span> bring forth +children</i>;” and in sorrow all the products of the higher life are born. +The question is very simple. Ask a woman, when the cry of her first-born +sounds in her ear, and its cheek nestles on her breast, how far the joy +transcends the pain. She can only murmur—“Unspeakably,” and clasp her +nursling closer to her heart. How much the pain enters into and exalts +the joy, who shall tell? Ask the man, a man like poor Palissy, or the +blind bard who got £10 for a “Paradise Lost,” how the account stands +with him. He can but answer, The work, mighty as has been its cost, is +the joy and glory of my life—perhaps because of its very cost. In a +grand and glorious country you must have the mountains and the valleys; +the depths measure the heights, you cannot divorce them; the two make +the beauty which pilgrims come from far to gaze upon, whose vision +quickens the life in its dull springs. And all the toil, and care, and +pain which our intimate, our dearest relations with our fellows cost us, +as husband, wife, parent, brother, sister, friend, teacher, poet, +prophet, will be found closely, essentially connected with our highest, +purest, and most enduring joys. Mothers shall be our witnesses: theirs +is the typical pain, and care, and toil. How say you, careworn, toiling, +but rejoicing mothers? Where lie the springs of your sweetest pleasure, +where lie the treasures which you would guard with life? The toils, the +cares, the pangs that grow out of our human relations in a sad, +struggling, mortal world like this, call forth and string to the finest +tension passions, loves, faculties, thoughts, energies, which Eden never +could have developed. There was little that was noble in the words of +Adam on Eve’s temptation in the garden; indeed, on neither side does any +nobleness appear. But in the wilderness there are men by myriads who +would shield the woman they love from a pang or a reproach, and count +the cost light if they gave their lives. Oh! my friends, take a large +and noble measure of the breadth of thought, feeling, faculty, which +toil, and pain, and care develop; and remember<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_100">[100]</a></span> that every filament of +love and care which binds you to a human being, though intensely +sensitive, and therefore in a world like this inevitably doomed to throb +with pain, is a tentacle of your spirit life which can never be detached +from it but by your own baseness, and through which life, joy, rapture +will flow into it in the world in which sin is beaten, crushed for ever, +in which there can be no more tears and no more pain.</p> + +<p>One word more.</p> + +<p>3. Toil, care, pain raise man to the full and sympathetic knowledge of +God his Redeemer, and bring him into the holiest fellowship of the +universe for ever.</p> + +<p>I say bring him. That is God’s purpose; that is what God means by it: +but God does not force him. The word must be mixed with faith in them +that hear it; faith in the Son of God, who died that the sentence might +be a benediction instead of a doom. Some, when they heard, did not, +would not believe; and their carcases fell in the wilderness, and their +bones whiten the sand.</p> + +<p>Toil, care, and pain. Does God know nothing of them? “<i>He is despised +and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we +hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him +not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we +did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was +wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the +chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are +healed. All we, like sheep, have gone astray; we have turned every one +to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. He +was oppressed, and he was afflicted; yet he opened not his mouth: he is +brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers +is dumb, so he opened not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from +judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out +of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he +stricken.</i>” (Isa. liii.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_101">[101]</a></span> 3-8.) Count it the highest ministry of the +sentence that it enables you to understand that; count it the highest +aim and glory of a man’s life to enter into fellowship with that life of +the Lord. Hold this to be the deepest, most solemn prayer which has ever +been uttered by human lips: “<i>That I may know him, and the power of his +resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings: being conformed unto +his death; if by any means I may attain unto the resurrection from the +dead.</i>” And grudge no pain, nay glory in every pain, which opens to you +a fuller comprehension of the sorrows of the Man of sorrows upon earth, +the joy and glory of the Lord of glory in eternity. Light the affliction +which is but for a moment: its ministry is unspeakable blessing in this +life; you will find it infinite blessing in eternity. Sons of God, wear +with joy the marks of sonship! Brethren of Christ, tread with courage in +the Brother’s footsteps! Heirs of glory, pay gaily with songs the price +by which your glory is to be won.</p> + +<p>“<i>What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came +they?” “These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have +washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. +Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night +in his temple; and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them. +They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the +sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the midst of +the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of +waters; and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.</i>”</p> + + + +<hr> + +<div class='chapter'><h2><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_102">[102]</a></span> +<a id="VIII"></a>VIII.<br> + +THE EASILY BESETTING SIN.</h2></div> + +<div class="quote2"> +“The sin which doth so easily beset us.”—<span class="smcap">Heb.</span> xii. 1. +</div> + + +<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">These</span> words occur at the close of the most brilliant rhetorical passage +of the New Testament scripture. They form the point too of the most +close, subtle, and profound argument which is to be met with even in the +epistles of St. Paul. We constantly use them; no sentence of the Bible +is more frequently on our lips. But we isolate them from their +surroundings; we handle them as though they dealt with private matters +of individual experience, the sins and follies to which each nature in +its private propension is specially prone, rather than some broad human +fault or infirmity which is the common sin and sorrow of mankind. We +must read these words in connection with the great argument of which +they form the culmination, and the splendid burst of eloquence which +they close; or we shall miss their large and weighty meaning, and shall +narrow to a private and partial experience what the writer intends to +set forth as the easily besetting sin of mankind. The Epistle to the +Hebrews is certainly one of the most important and profound books in the +New Testament. Be it by Paul himself, as I believe, or be it by some +Pauline man, it is in a measure the keystone of the arch of revelation, +if the Apocalypse is its crown. The way in which, in the order of the +Divine dispensations, the old grows into the new—the method by which, +while so much once ordained by God goes apparently to wreck, to the eye +of God and in the judgment of the far-sighted among men nothing Divine +really perishes, no Divine promise fails of fulfilment,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_103">[103]</a></span> no Divine +purpose or hope misses its fruit—is a subject of supreme importance, +the consideration of which is needful to the completeness of Scripture, +while it is full of suggestion as a key to the Divine ways, to the +successive generations of mankind. Judaism has passed away in every +respect in which it is stronger than a memory. It is essentially, though +Jews live among us in Christendom by millions, a thing of the past; but +the Epistle to the Hebrews, which unfolds the method by which Judaism +developed into Christianity, is a living book in our Bibles, as full of +vital interest for this present time as it was for the generation which +watched with strange awe and wonder the tremendous overthrow of the +elect nation, and saw the last fragments of the ritual and order of a +Divinely established system swept along by the flood as wreck. There is +profound instruction concerning the method of development in +Christendom—how the Church grows, and strikes deeper root through the +ages, while that which men call the Church and cling to suffers constant +shocks, and is ever dropping piecemeal into decay and death—in this +sketch of the philosophy of the most remarkable and startling +development recorded in man’s spiritual history. Whether Paul wrote it +or not, it is the work of a man with Paul’s grasp of intellect, and +saturated with Paul’s ideas both of Judaism and Christianity. One can +hardly imagine Paul’s life-work complete to his own mind without the +production of such an essay as this. He alone grasped with perfect +clearness the vital relation of the two dispensations; and we can well +imagine with what intense earnestness this Hebrew of the Hebrews must +have desired to justify his apostolic ministry to his countrymen and to +mankind. Be this as it may, and these a priori judgments are of little +worth in criticism, the book is one of large thoughts, views, and +principles, reaching deep down to the foundations on which the edifice +of man’s spiritual faith and hope is built.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_104">[104]</a></span> +Let us try to realize some of the main difficulties of those to whom it +is addressed, whose tormenting doubts and apprehensions it was intended +to remove. They would be chiefly, I think, of two kinds; and they might +be put into the shape of questions.</p> + +<p>1. Can anything which is ordained of God be abrogated?</p> + +<p>2. Can the Messiah, the kingly Son of David, be come, while those who +follow Him are the world’s outcasts, spoiled, persecuted, and slain?</p> + +<p>The first is a standing difficulty with all the students of the +mysteries of God, in all ages of the world. It pressed on the Hebrew +Christians with peculiar force. They and their fathers for ages had +believed that a certain visible system had been established on earth by +God’s own hand, and sustained by His almighty power. It seemed to them +as if the very foundations of the universe were shaken, when their +temple, their priesthood, their glorious Jerusalem, their beautiful +fertile Palestine, vanished like a dream, and left them the beggars and +outcasts of mankind.</p> + +<p>The second difficulty was equally grave. It touched men where they are +ever most sensitive, in their individual experiences and hopes. Can the +head of this Christian Church be the God-man, the glorious Being of whom +our prophets prophesied, and of whose kingdom they had such brilliant +visions, whilst its subjects are despised, hated, and down-trodden, and +its princes are the scum and off-scouring of all things unto this day? +We say that the Jews were expecting a splendid temporal kingdom, a +visible reign of the Messiah in righteousness over a regenerate and +exulting world. We say it with a touch of scorn. We may spare our scorn; +Christendom is always dreaming of it too. It would be a wonderful thing +if the Jews had not nourished some such expectations. All men have not +faith. How many Christians understand Christianity better than the Jews +understood the Judaism of their times? What is the Papacy but an +endeavour to realize<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_105">[105]</a></span> this splendid and prosperous reign of Christ, of +which Judaism dreamed? A rule of righteousness, peace, and goodwill, +under the sceptre of Christ’s immediate delegate and regent, is the +vision which has haunted in all ages some of the ablest minds in +Christendom; and the desire to realize this has been near the heart of +some of the most desperate struggles which rent the civilized world +throughout the middle age. We cannot wonder at their sad thoughts. We +think the same when things much less visibly ordained of God are +shattered and swept away as wrecks. The answer of the writer of this +epistle to the question which was wrung out of the death agony of that +nation and church was substantially this: God does not establish things, +He plants seeds which grow. The principle of life in the seed is the +principle of identity through the successive stages of the development +of the organism. The body of man is one, though it changes form very +visibly at successive eras, and though every particle of matter +composing it is in constant flux, passing away from without, restored by +the constructive force of the living principle within. Rise, he says, to +a loftier and more comprehensive view of the Divine dispensations. See +how the living principle of God’s relation to you, to man, as Father and +Redeemer, runs through all the dispensations, moulds the outward form of +the Church according to the exigencies of the times, and is ever +bringing forth new forms as the ages need. See how the germ which was +planted before the law grew into the legal dispensation, and how when +the leafage and fruitage of that dispensation grew old and withered, as +<i>things</i> must grow old and perish, the living principle within took new +and diviner form, suffered, as all divine things do, death and +resurrection, and lived with a new and divine life in a new and +regenerated world. “<i>God, who at sundry times and in divers manners +spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last +days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all +things, by whom also he made the worlds; who<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_106">[106]</a></span> being the brightness of +his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things +by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat +down on the right hand of the Majesty on high; being made so much better +than the angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent +name than they.</i>” (Heb. i. 1-4.)</p> + +<p>It ought not to be hard for us to understand and enter into the sore +perplexities of the Hebrew believers when they found their ancestral +kingdom uprooted, while no sign of the new Messiah’s kingdom appeared, +except the sway which a shameful cross was wielding over individual +human hearts. Can this be the beginning of the kingdom? Can Christ be +reigning there, and we His subjects here, the objects of His tenderest +care and love, be so harried and tormented for our truth and +righteousness as never men have been harried and tormented for lies and +sins? Is it credible that God’s sons in the world should be the world’s +outlaws; that those whom the hand of Omnipotence shields should be the +helpless victims of the most puny foes? Are slaves and beggars the chief +subjects of Messiah’s kingdom? Does the fellowship of this new realm +draw us into loving, tender communion with the saddest, the poorest, the +most ignorant, the most wretched of mankind? Is the life of this new +regenerate state a ceaseless struggle, a constant pain, with no issue +but by the gate of death, whose apparitors may be a lion’s jaws or a +headsman’s axe? Is the symbol of this splendid empire a cross? The +answer to these questions is the text. The question is the sin which so +easily besets humanity, you and me quite as intensely as the Hebrews; +and the cure for the sin, the answer to the question, is the faith which +draws from the writer this splendid eulogy, a faith which scans the +bounds of the invisible universe, and measures the range of the Divine +thought from the height of the Divine throne. It is as though the writer +had said, Looked at on the lower level, by the measures of the things +seen and temporal, the lot is dark enough and sad enough: “<i>If in this +life only<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_107">[107]</a></span> we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.</i>” +(1 Cor. xv. 19.) But rise to a higher level. Get up into the mountain, +and survey the horizon of a wider world. Search into the nature of man’s +true well-being, and see where the springs of it rise. Measure the range +of man’s existence, the endless ages of his being, the boundless faculty +of joy or sorrow, of bliss or anguish, that claims eternity as its time. +Above all, measure the stature of a man. Study the image after which he +is fashioned, the godlike form he wears, the godlike experience he is +made to fathom, and the kind of satisfaction which his godlike powers +demand, robbed of which they hunger and pine and fill him at last with +madness and despair; so shall you comprehend more fully the grandeur and +the glory of his Christian vocation—sharing the conflict, the toil, the +sorrow, the joy, and the triumph of hisever God. Then lay aside “every +weight and the sin that doth so easily beset you.” That sin is poverty +of faith—a poor-spirited estimate of life, its experiences and its +issues; a love for the serfdom of Egypt rather than the freedom of the +wilderness, the fleshpots of Goshen rather than the bread of Canaan, the +pleasure of the moment rather than the joy which springs from fountains +that outlast eternity.</p> + +<p>The sin which doth so easily beset us. Want of faith.</p> + +<p>I. In ourselves. II. In God. III. In the future.</p> + +<p>I. Want of faith in ourselves—poor, base views of our nature, power, +and destiny.</p> + +<p>The essential dignity of man’s nature, as God constituted it, and the +utter debasement it has suffered through sin, are facts which in nowise +clash or contradict each other. In truth, no man who has not faith +enough to comprehend what “<i>power to become the sons of God</i>” may mean, +as spoken of man, can enter into the depth of anguish and shame wrung +out in the confession, “<i>I was as a beast before thee.</i>” “<i>I have heard +of thee with the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee; +wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.</i>” At the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_108">[108]</a></span> root +of the humiliation, the debasement, lies this want of faith in our +higher being and destiny. We prefer the slave’s portion, with the +slave’s security, to the cares and burdens of freedom, with its hopes +and joys. The main difficulty in the emancipation of serfs arises always +from themselves. They do not care, nay they fear, to be free. The +responsibility of self-government and self-control is a burden from +which they shrink;—let us creep safely on the lower levels, rather than +strain perilously up the mountain paths, with the free air around us, +the bright heaven above us, the mists, the clouds, the storms, seething +and flashing beneath our feet. This is the cry of our souls—yours and +mine. God is ever stirring us to take the higher view of our nature and +destiny; we are ever burying ourselves in the lower:—“‘<i>Let us alone, +Jesus, thou Son of God.</i>’ Thy words are perilous; they search and judge +us; they trouble us in our politics, our pleasures, our trade. We are +fairly content as it is; why should we weary ourselves by straining +after the higher good, which seems thin, impalpable, and may easily +elude our hand? Let us alone; depart out of our coasts.” This was the +mood of these Hebrew Christians; it is ours. And nothing does the +devil’s work more surely within us than this feeling that on the whole +we were made for poor work, poor interests, and poor joys. Paul seeks to +stir us to a nobler mood, to fire something within us which will burn +with a heavenly lustre and seek to mingle itself with the brightness of +its native skies. Man is made to deal with the substance of things, the +eternal substance; you are content to converse with their fleeting +shadows. “<i>For the law, having a shadow of good things to come, and not +the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they +offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. For +then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the +worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins. But +in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every +year. For it is not possible<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_109">[109]</a></span> that the blood of bulls and of goats +should take away sins.</i>” (Heb. x. 1-4.) The heavenly things themselves +your minds were made to contemplate, your hearts to love, your spirits +to commune with; and you are grovelling amid the ashes of the perishing, +while the imperishable, the eternal, passes for ever beyond the range of +your sight. Believe in humanity as the first step to a nobler life. Not +the poor, weak, trembling humanity which your self-communings reveal to +you; but the glorious, Divine humanity which God has set before you to +help your infirmity, to recall the memory of the height from which you +have fallen, and to kindle the hope of the royal dignity to which you +may be restored. Look within; and man seems poor enough, and pitiful +enough. But look above: “<i>We see Jesus who was made a little lower than +the angels, for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; +that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man.</i>” Then +“<i>lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset you, +and run with patience the race that is set before you, looking unto +Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set +before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at +the right hand of the throne of God</i>.”</p> + +<p>Behold in Him the perfect image of a man, in His life the beauty of a +perfect human life. Believe in that image; gaze on it, meditate on it, +till contemplation kindles sympathy, and sympathy grows into love. +“<i>Consider the apostle and high-priest of your profession, Christ +Jesus</i>”; and if you tread in His footsteps of present sorrow and +humiliation, glory in it, and pray that you may go on to know it more +perfectly, “<i>the power of his resurrection, the fellowship of his +sufferings, being made conformable unto his death</i>.” Believe that all +that a man was meant to be, to do, to become, can only grow out of this +vital fellowship with Jesus. Believe in Him rather than in the world’s +ideas, maxims, and hopes. Leave them to the Pagans. You, sons of God, +heirs of God, joint-heirs with Christ, learn nobler lessons out of the +book of His<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_110">[110]</a></span> life, aim at loftier marks, thirst for purer and perennial +joys.</p> + +<p>II. Poor belief about God—unbelief in the Incarnation, and all its +blessed meanings to mankind.</p> + +<p>The low and slavish idea of man’s character and destiny inevitably +infects our views of God and of God’s action and purpose in the world. +Having poor hope ourselves, we cannot understand God’s hope, the hope +which lit the path to Calvary, and shed a flood of glorious light around +the saddest and most shameful passage of man’s sad and painful history. +To those who believe that man is the serf of the creation, the +Incarnation is incredible. God would be ashamed to be called the God, in +any high Christian sense, of such beings as some men believe themselves +to be and act as if they were. The Hebrew Christians could not believe +in the Incarnation; that is, they were beset with unbelief about it. +Their fathers could not believe in their angel guide. A glorious +triumphant King, coming to the world in splendour, scattering the hosts +of His foes by His thunders, and leading His armies to rapid and easy +victory, they could comprehend well enough. But the cross was their +stumbling-block. Can the living God suffer shame, anguish, and death, +for such beings as we are, for such a kingdom as this Crucified One +maybe able to win? “<i>That be far from thee, Lord</i>;” it is blasphemy to +dream of it. They were like a man in poverty and straits, who is always +expecting that a splendid fortune will fall to him suddenly, will enable +him to make a magnificent figure, and to be a model of dignity, +generosity, and manly grace. But the <span class="smcap">MAN</span> is he who wins his fortune by +bearing the strain of toil through long years of patience, and who +trains himself by discipline to rule it as a realm when gained. And we +are, most of us, of this foolish temper. What wonderful people we should +be, we think, if our platform were higher, and a stronger light were +thrown upon our lives! If God would but mend our surroundings, our +virtue and dignity would appear! Believe that it seemed<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_111">[111]</a></span> good to God, +that it became God, to reveal to us the truth of this relation between +surroundings and life, by sending His Son, in the likeness of sinful +flesh, to live the life of God in poverty, sorrow, and shame, and +manifest in that depth of humiliation the mystery of the life eternal. +“<i>For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all +things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their +salvation perfect through sufferings. For both he that sanctifieth and +they who are sanctified are all of one: for which cause he is not +ashamed to call them brethren, saying, I will declare thy name unto my +brethren, in the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee. And +again, I will put my trust in him. And again, Behold I and the children +which God hath given me. Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of +flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that +through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, +the devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their +lifetime subject to bondage. For verily he took not on him the nature of +angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham. Wherefore in all things +it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a +merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make +reconciliation for the sins of the people. For in that he himself hath +suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted.</i>” +(Heb. ii. 10-18.)</p> + +<p>It was a hard, an incredible saying to many among the Hebrew Christians. +In all its deep meaning it is a hard, an incredible saying to us. Do we +believe in our heart of hearts that the life of daily denial, +cross-bearing, and Divine ministry, missing all earthly honour, golden +treasure, and worldly joy, is the life which the Lord God of heaven +lived on earth, and glorified earth by living it? Have we an eye for +that inner glory? Is that tear-stained path He trod, beautiful, +transcendently beautiful, in our sight, as it is to the angels and the +white-robed choir on high? Shame on our lives then, if this is the +belief of our hearts about it. If we believe that He who<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_112">[112]</a></span> was in the +form of God, and “<i>thought it not robbery to be equal with God; but made +himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant and +was made in the likeness of men</i>” (Phil. ii. 6-8), left us an ensample +that we should follow in His steps, what are our lives like before Him +and before the angels, filled as they are with selfish aims and +passions, strivings after things that perish, that crumble to dust as we +grasp them; contemptuous as they are of celestial things and powers, of +all that made His life luminous to the eye of spirits, of all that He +came through shame and anguish to set palpably before the vision of our +souls. “<i>Lay aside the sin that doth so easily beset you</i>”—this sin of +light thoughts of Christ, of the intense reality of His human life, and +all the high meanings and inspirations with which it is charged for you, +for me, for all mankind. Open wide the gates of your spirit, and let +this King of Glory in. “<i>Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift +up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in.</i>” Who is +this King of Glory? The Man of Sorrows, He is the King of Glory. +Believe, faint heart, and live.</p> + +<p>III. Unbelief in the future.</p> + +<p>We cannot believe that this is purely a seed-time. Like children, we are +for reaping where we have not sown, and gathering where we have not +strawed. Or, if by chance we drop a seed into the earth and leave it for +a moment, next morning we are digging about it to see if it is growing, +and are sick at heart if it promises no immediate fruit. The Hebrew +Church demanded the instant fruitage of the death of Christ. “<i>And Jesus +answered them, saying, The hour is come, that the Son of man should be +glorified. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall +into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth +forth much fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that +hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.</i>” (John +xii. 23-25.) Lord, we have seen the seed corn cast into the ground, we +have seen it lie there, we have seen it rise, and where<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_113">[113]</a></span> is the harvest? +Where is the kingdom? Where are the throngs? Where is the throne? The +offence of the cross still lies in the way of triumph. Tribulations are +the only gifts of the kingdom still! The writer of this epistle does not +care to argue about the moment. Be it so. Be it as bad as you say: +tribulations, persecutions, contempt, spoiling of your goods, and bonds. +Be it so. “<i>Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.</i>” +You have not faced the last extremity, and the last extremity may be in +store. But what matters? Sons of God, brethren of Christ, citizens of +the heavenly state, heirs of everlasting joys and glory, what matters +it? “<i>Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the +earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and +latter rain. Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of +the Lord draweth nigh. Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye +be contemned: behold, the judge standeth before the door. Take, my +brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an +example of suffering affliction, and of patience. Behold, we count them +happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen +the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender +mercy.</i>” (Jas. v. 7-11.) Is patience no longer beautiful, divine, when +it is heaven which has to be waited for, a royal sceptre, an everlasting +crown? For shame! moaning over the moment’s pains, which are the seeds +of everlasting joys; over the dust of the husks and shells of the +temporal things, when, as they waste and perish, the glorious forms of +the things not seen and eternal, which they veiled, appear. I say not, +Compare the one with the other, weigh them well, and make your +selection. There is no comparison possible. “<i>I reckon that the +sufferings of this present life are not worthy to be compared with the +glory that shall be revealed.</i>” “<i>For our light affliction, which is but +for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of +glory; while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things +which are not seen:<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_114">[114]</a></span> for the things which are seen are temporal; but the +things which are not seen are eternal.</i>” (2 Cor. iv. 17, 18.) It is +blank unbelief to talk about comparison. The one is infinitely small and +pitiful; the other is infinitely great, beautiful, and glorious. “<i>What +things were gain to me</i>,” when the visible things of earth and time +filled my sight, “those I have counted loss for Christ. Yea, doubtless, +and I count all things but loss, for the excellency of the knowledge of +Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, +and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ.” (Phil. iii. 7, 8.) +This is the Christian estimate. This is the true entrenchment of the +human spirit against all the floods of calamity which may beat around +the rock on which it builds its hopes. Be my lot what it may, my God, my +Father ordains it; and He has the power, the will to make every pain, +every wound, every heartache, every cross, every shock, the seed of a +harvest whose glorious wealth I cannot measure even in my dreams. The +power and the will, said I? His strongest promises, His profoundest +purposes, are engaged in the fulfilment of the hope which He kindles in +my breast, and which makes me master of the world. Nay, He has staked +His life, the very existence of His throne, upon it. He has subjected +you and me and the vast creation to vanity, “<i>in hope, the hope that the +creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption +into the glorious liberty of the sons of God</i>.” We have no true measure +of these sad scenes and experiences of earth—and they are sad enough, +nothing is to be gained by painting them as lighter than they are; but +we can measure them fairly when we get up into the higher region, strong +in faith, and share the thought and hope of God. <i>We are saved by hope.</i> +Let us bless God for it, for the blessed and boundless future in which +the far-off interest of tears will be our eternal portion, and the +harvest of brave endurance and patient pain. “<i>Behold we count them +patient which endure.</i>” And who are they? The world’s weaklings and +fools. Listen to the bead-roll,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_115">[115]</a></span> and hush your moans for very shame. +Abel, Enoch, Noah head the line; Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. “<i>These all died +in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar +off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that +they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such +things declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they had +been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have +had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better country, +that is an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their +God: for he hath prepared for them a city.</i>” (Heb. xi. 13-16.) “<i>And +what shall I more say? for the time would fail me to tell of Gedeon, and +of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthae; of David also, and Samuel, and +of the prophets: who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought +righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched +the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness +were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of +the aliens. Women received their dead raised to life again: and others +were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a +better resurrection: and others had trial of cruel mockings and +scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment; they were stoned, +they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they +wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, +tormented; (of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, +and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.</i>” (Heb. xi. +32-38.) “<i>And these all</i>”—the world’s chief heroes, whose names are +dear and honoured through the ages on earth, as they shine resplendent +as the stars in heaven’s firmament on high—“<i>These all, having obtained +a good report through faith, received not the promise; God having +provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be +made perfect.</i>” (Heb. xi. 39, 40.) “Wherefore seeing ye are compassed +about with so great a crowd of witnesses”—these grand and glorious +forms, who watch<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_116">[116]</a></span> your battles from their thrones, and prepare to hail +your triumphant entrance to the kingdom which the victory of faith shall +win—“<i>lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset +you, and run with patience the race that is set before you, looking unto +Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set +before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at +the right hand of the throne of God</i>.” (Heb. xii. 1, 2.)</p> + + + +<hr> + +<div class='chapter'><h2><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_117">[117]</a></span> +<a id="IX"></a>IX.<br> + +THE LAW OF ABSTINENCE.</h2></div> + +<div class="quote"> +“Wherefore, if meat (food) make my brother to offend, I will eat +no flesh while the world standeth, lest I make my brother to +offend.”—<span class="smcap">1 Cor.</span> viii. 13. +</div> + + +<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">Of</span> all the great writers of the world, the apostle Paul perhaps most +needs to be read with the eye of the heart, as well as with the eye of +the understanding. Moral sympathy is an essential condition of the full +understanding of the apostle’s words. Most especially is it needed in +such passages as the present, in which he gives vehement and even +passionate utterance to his vivid sympathies with the weaker brethren +who were still struggling with the difficulties and perplexities from +which his powerful genius had already emancipated him, or who were +tormented by doubts which he had laid happily at rest for ever. There is +no great writer who is less careful to guard himself from even grave +misconstructions, or whose eager, impetuous sentences, when matters +which touch his sympathies and affections are in question, are more +likely, if formulated into maxims and rules of action, to lead weak +minds astray. Indeed, there is a sense in which the Bible is the most +unguarded of all books. Meant more than any other book to be a guide of +action, it is less careful about misunderstandings of its meaning, and +lays itself open to more complete misapprehensions, than any other book +in the world. And this precisely because it will be read with the spirit +as well as with the understanding. It needs no worldly scholarship; but +it will not make its meanings plain to those who do not care to bring to +bear on it, not the attention of their heads only, but that of their +hearts. How many startling sentences<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_118">[118]</a></span> are there which, in the first +flash of their meaning, seem to strike at the root of institutions or +principles which we learn from other passages the Bible is most +earnestly solicitous to maintain and secure. Take some utterances of the +mind of the apostle Paul about women for instance, as isolated dicta; +treat them as complete authoritative utterances, giving the law to us; +the result would be the utter confusion of all man’s most sacred +relations, and the overthrow of human society. There are words too, +uttered by yet more sacred lips, which it needs no little spiritual +experience and insight to avoid misunderstanding, and applying to uses +which the whole tenour of the Saviour’s life and teaching would sternly +condemn. Paul, a man vividly sympathetic and tender, easily touched by +suffering, easily drawn by love, intense, passionate, and impetuous, +suffers himself ever and anon to express in one short, startling +sentence some vivid impression which for the moment occupied his whole +soul. But we must pause—as he would have paused, nay, did manifestly +pause—before we treat it as a mould in which we are to cast our rules +of action or habits of life. The sentence expresses the desire and +purpose of the apostle’s heart, that which would animate and give aim to +all its action; but the action itself would be wisely modulated by a +hundred secondary considerations, and by other co-ordinate principles, +so as to secure, as far as might be possible, the end at which he aimed, +without imperilling other and it might be yet higher things. It would be +a grand mistake then to formulate such a sentence as this into a rigid +rule of action. Treated thus, the first thing which would fall under +condemnation would probably be the apostle’s life.</p> + +<p>These words are very constantly employed as though they laid down a rule +of action concerning things indifferent which might lead easily to sin, +and set before us a way of helping men against vicious habits at the +cost of some personal self-sacrifice. That may be a very important +subject, and it has plenty of passages bearing on<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_119">[119]</a></span> it in the word of +God. But it is not the difficulty here. This passage has quite a +different bearing. It is a case, not of a weak will, but of a weak +judgment, a weak conscience, in which there is danger of false beliefs +or of a lowering of the tone of the conscientious principle of action. +It is this, and not any question of vicious habits, which draws from the +apostle, who had fought his way through the whole jungle of doubts and +difficulties and perplexities in which the weaker brethren were +struggling painfully still, these ardent and decisive words.</p> + +<p>I. At the root of this declaration lies the conviction that there is no +consideration which may compete in a man’s motives with the desire to +promote the spiritual welfare and progress of mankind. It is the object +dearest to God. It was the object dearest to the apostle’s heart. It +seemed so great to God, so essentially glorious, that God came forth in +the form of a man to die for it. This is the true form of the +Calvinistic tenet that to God His own glory is His highest end. And Paul +was prepared to die for it too. “<i>And as we tarried there many days, +there came down from Judæa a certain prophet, named Agabus. And when he +was come unto us, he took Paul’s girdle, and bound his own hands and +feet, and said, Thus saith the Holy Ghost, So shall the Jews at +Jerusalem bind the man that owneth this girdle, and shall deliver him +into the hands of the Gentiles. And when we heard these things, both we, +and they of that place, besought him not to go up to Jerusalem. Then +Paul answered, What mean ye to weep and to break mine heart? for I am +ready not to be bound, only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name +of the Lord Jesus.</i>” (Acts xxi. 10-13.) When a man has settled that, and +has taken his life in his hand to fulfil a ministry to mankind, he has +but one supreme consideration; his own interests vanish; man’s +interests, the estate of the poorest and most wretched of mankind, fill +the sphere of his aims and hopes. (1 Cor. iv. 9-13.) No wonder that +nothing could move him from this ministry, and that life was valueless +save as it might be a “<i>finishing<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_120">[120]</a></span> his course with joy, and the ministry +which he had received of the Lord Jesus to testify the gospel of the +grace of God</i>.” Of course, if life was freely laid on that altar, “<i>as +the life is more than meat, and the body than raiment</i>,” meats would be +freely offered as a sacrifice too. The man who was ready to die for man +was not likely to suffer a morsel of meat, any worldly possession, any +physical or mental pleasure, to stand for an instant in the way of any +help or guidance which he might offer to the weakest of mankind. “<i>For +though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, +that I might gain the more. And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I +might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, +that I might gain them that are under the law; to them that are without +law, as without law, (being not without law to God, but under the law to +Christ,) that I might gain them that are without law. To the weak became +I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men, +that I might by all means save some. And this I do for the gospel’s +sake, that I might be partaker thereof with you.</i>” (1 Cor. ix. 19-23.) +We must take this sentence then, as explaining the full readiness of the +apostle, as far as his own tastes, habits, and appetites were concerned, +to eat no meat to his dying day, if he saw that such a course of action +would remove effectually an offence, a stone of stumbling, from the path +of the weakest of his fellow-men.</p> + +<p>But all are not apostles. How far is the conduct of this great Christian +teacher to be regarded as giving the rule to us? This is but another +form of a yet graver question—How far do we feel ourselves bound to be +followers of the Son of man in the regeneration, in the reconstruction +of man’s nature and of human society, in the working out of His benign +plans and purposes for mankind? “<i>Be ye followers of me</i>,” said Paul, +“<i>as I am of Christ</i>.” The apostle’s life was simply the most Christlike +life, and those who care to follow Christ must drink of the same +springs, and aim at the same ends,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_121">[121]</a></span> while they pursue the various +callings by which society is sustained and developed. To be Christian is +to have in us the same mind which was likewise in Christ Jesus. The +measure of our Christian vitality is the measure in which that mind is +in us, and in which we are able thereby to enter into this language of +the apostle Paul. Those that can enter into it perfectly, and can live +it, following Paul as Paul followed Christ, are the heaven-sent leaders +and ministers of mankind. It is a sacred line which God keeps unbroken +through all the ages, the men of apostolic spirit and self-devotion to +the good of their fellows. But those who follow can only follow through +sympathy. They must be able to believe in this spirit, to make it the +aim of their lives to work it out in their limited spheres, with feebler +it may be, but with honest and manly effort; or Christianity becomes +simply the efflorescence of civilization, and the sad world has to seek +its helper, teacher, and saviour still. Clearly then Paul was ready for +this, and far more than this, if thereby he might effectually help a +weak brother on his way.</p> + +<p>II. Actually, as far as we have the means—and we have some means—of +knowing, Paul continued to eat meat to his dying day, while the +difficulty still remained a pressing one, and the stone of stumbling +still continued to block many a weak Christian’s path.</p> + +<p>What was the difficulty? How did the offence arise? The meat spoken of +here is meat which had been offered in an idolatrous temple, and which +might be supposed by those who had not the lofty intelligence of the +apostle to have contracted some moral contamination thereby. Under all +systems the meat offered in sacrifice was in some measure the perquisite +of the priest. (Lev. vii. 7-19.) The abuse of the custom is thus +described:—“<i>Now the sons of Eli were sons of Belial; they knew not the +Lord. And the priest’s custom with the people was, that, when any man +offered sacrifice, the priest’s servant came, while the flesh was in +seething, with a flesh-hook of three teeth in his hand; and he struck it +into the pan, or kettle, or caldron,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_122">[122]</a></span> or pot: all that the flesh-hook +brought up, the priest took for himself. So they did in Shiloh unto all +the Israelites that came thither. Also before they burnt the fat, the +priest’s servant came, and said to the man that sacrificed, Give flesh +to roast for the priest; for he will not have sodden flesh of thee, but +raw. And if any man said unto him, Let them not fail to burn the fat +presently, and then take as much as thy soul desireth; then he would +answer him, Nay; but thou shalt give it me now; and if not I will take +it by force. Wherefore the sin of the young men was very great before +the Lord: for men abhorred the offering of the Lord.</i>” (1 Sam. ii. +12-17.) There is a very interesting question behind this, into which I +must not enter here; how far all animal sacrifice is to be regarded as +the consecration of food; the recognition of God as the giver, as the +lord of the animal slain, and of man’s right to slay as a right which +had been delegated by the Lord. That there is some deeper idea in animal +sacrifice no thoughtful reader of the Bible, I imagine, can well +question; but that this is a very important part of the meaning I feel +well assured. It casts a flood of light on the immense slaughter of +victims at the consecration of the temple and other high occasions; +while it is itself illustrated by the customs of orientals with +reference to the slaughter of animals to this day. But the priest’s +portion was a recognised thing. Portions of this, not needed by the +priest’s household, would be sold in the shambles. Portions belonging to +those who offered the sacrifice might be similarly exposed. Sometimes a +feast would be made in the temple, the animal which furnished the flesh +being sacrificed there (ver. 10); sometimes in a private house (x. 27), +where Christians, following the liberal law, the law of liberty laid +down by the apostle (1 Cor. v. 9, 10), would be constantly brought into +contact with it, and through it, it might seem to them, with the idol by +whose name it had been consecrated. A serious difficulty would thus +arise. I beg you to mark carefully where the real heart of the +difficulty lay. It was not<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_123">[123]</a></span> at all a question of meat in itself, noxious +in quality or becoming noxious by quantity. If it had been a question of +a man eating unwholesome food, or eating good food to excess, damaging +health of body and mind thereby, I cannot imagine that Paul would have +treated it as a difficult question at all. You have a sinful habit he +would say, you are injuring and destroying your system; you must break +it, absolutely, decisively, or perish: what help I can give you as man +to man, by the influence of my words or works, is at your service; but +it is no question of what I do or do not: it is a simple point, it is +between you and God; fly to Him for grace and strength, and master your +lust.</p> + +<p>But here the case is quite different. It is a case not of a vicious +habit, but of a puzzled conscience; a feeble apprehension of truth, a +doubt as to what is right or wrong, in which the conduct of the wise and +enlightened would be a most wholesome and valuable guide. This weak soul +trying to see its way needed guidance. What a glutton or a sot needs is +power. For the one use, example is most precious; the other need can +only be supplied from a yet deeper spring. How far am I in contact with +idolatry in this eating of meat offered to idols? might easily be a very +fair question; and not only with the weakest of the young Gentile +Church. Some would eat it with conscience of the idol. They would be +pained and distressed, and a constant tolerance of such pain and +distress is demoralizing. Doing great acts of life with a half heart, +with a troubled faith, paralyses conscience, and in the end opens the +way to tremendous sins. The constant converse with idolatry which +attending these feasts with a “conscience of the idol” would generate, +might easily end in apostasy, shipwreck of faith and hope for ever.</p> + +<p>How beautiful is the mingled wisdom and charity with which the apostle +handles the difficulty! It was absolutely none to him. The idol to him +was not anything at all. It was a vain imagination of man’s vain heart.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_124">[124]</a></span> +There could be no conscience of an idol in his mind in dealing with +anything created by God, however the idol might have been connected with +it by others. Who would recognise an usurper because he occupies the +palace and assumes the signet of the rightful king? “<i>The earth is the +Lord’s, and the fulness thereof.</i>” The creature is the Lord’s, every +limb, every particle. If I can but use it for the end for which the Lord +created it and put it under my hand, I will rejoice and give thanks that +so far the usurper is despoiled. Thus the instructed Jew would look at +the matter: “<i>the idol is not anything at all</i>.” But the Corinthians +were converted Gentiles. The idol was a reality, and a very terrible +reality to them; in memory and association at any rate, if not in +conviction. Relapse into idolatry, which was all round them, many dear +to them being devoted to it, was a very pressing peril; and association +with idolaters, with conscience of the idol in the act of association, +might easily bring the danger near.</p> + +<p>There was but one thing which could deliver them; a thoroughly Christian +conviction that the idol is not anything at all: that “<i>every creature +of God is good and is to be received with thanksgiving, being sanctified +by the word of God and by prayer</i>.” But these noble and lofty beliefs +are not born in a moment. God had been for ages educating the Jews to +the belief of which the Christian Paul, the Hebrew of the Hebrews, in +this as in other things was reaping the fruit. And education is a slow +and delicate process, and needs to be managed by a nursing hand. While +these Gentile converts are being trained to this loftier view, beware +lest, puffed up by your superior knowledge, your conduct tempts them to +a course which will deaden that fine tact of conscience, by which alone, +when it has fastened on the higher truth, the emancipation can be +gained. Act on your higher knowledge as your rule of living. The fools +and the weaklings are not to be the lords of life and the masters of the +world. But if you see any attempt made to draw<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_125">[125]</a></span> you into visible contact +with the idol, that those weaker than you, led by your example, may be +drawn into a contact which to them would be detrimental and degrading, +bend the higher law for the moment, or rather lift it higher still—lose +it in the lovelier law of charity, and practise a forbearance the motive +of which is a brother’s good. “<i>All things are lawful for me, but all +things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but all things +edify not. Let no man seek his own, but every man another’s wealth. +Whatsoever is sold in the shambles, that eat, asking no question for +conscience sake; for the earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof. +If any of them that believe not bid you to a feast, and ye be disposed +to go; whatsoever is set before you, eat, asking no question for +conscience sake. But if any man say unto you, This is offered in +sacrifice unto idols, eat not for his sake that shewed it, and for +conscience sake: for the earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof: +conscience, I say, not thine own, but of the other: for why is my +liberty judged of another man’s conscience? For if I by grace be a +partaker, why am I evil spoken of for that for which I give thanks? +Whether ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of +God.</i>” (1 Cor. x. 23-31.)</p> + +<p>Free use of all God’s good gifts with bold conscience is to be the law +of Christian living, the daily practice and habit of the life. Voluntary +abstinence, forbearance in the use of the freedom, is demanded of us by +a yet higher law, the law of Christian charity, the charity which has +Christ for its model and inspiration; but only when we find that it will +be helpful to a weak brother in our personal intercourse with and +influence over his soul. That Paul did not adopt this as his rule of +living seems quite indisputable. He could not have omitted to refer to +it and explain it in such a passage as 1 Tim. iv. 1-5, if his own rule +had been abstinence. “<i>Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the +latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing +spirits, and doctrines of devils; speaking lies in hypocrisy; having +their<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_126">[126]</a></span> conscience seared with a hot iron; forbidding to marry, and +commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received +with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth. For every +creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received +with thanksgiving; for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.</i>” +At the same time we cannot question that he frequently acted on it when +brought into personal contact with brethren of weak faith and tender +conscience, whom he sought, by sympathy with their doubts and +difficulties, to educate to a more vigorous and healthy life. In order +to understand what we have every reason to believe was the habit of the +apostle’s life, the free and temperate use of all the good gifts of God, +we must consider—</p> + +<p>III. That the adoption of a rule of abstinence, in permanent deference +to weak consciences, would simply transfer to the weak the regulation of +the order of human life and the progress of the world. The pace of +progress would thus be permanently adjusted to the strength of the +weakest, instead of being so regulated as to stimulate and help the +weaker to press on into the front line. The result would be a grievous +impoverishment of moral and mental power; and Christianity, instead of +being the power of God unto salvation, would be the instrument of +decline and a ministry of death. Surely it is a fundamental principle +that the framework of a man’s life, his daily habits, should be set in +the measure of his own personal stature and power. What suits his +character and life, and ministers to his development, he is to embody in +his habits, as the best service which he can render to God and to his +fellow-men. To be strong, wise, self-controlled, is the best beginning, +the only true beginning of real service to mankind. The best work which +a man can work at, for the service of his fellows, is his life. To +regulate permanent habits on the wants and the weaknesses of others is +to deny this principle, and to exalt the influence of spasmodic effort +above the broad, grand ministry of life. Paul was far from such +illusions.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_127">[127]</a></span> Freedom was with him the fundamental condition of vital +progress; and if his sympathy with the weak and perplexed led him again +and again to veil his freedom for the moment, it was that he might help +the weak to strength, the perplexed to clearness of vision, the bondsmen +to liberty—strength, clearness, and freedom of which he offered +conspicuous examples in his own constant habits of life. “Be ye as I +am,” was his appeal: free and strong; able to see the Lord’s mark on all +things and creatures, and not the idol’s. To live habitually as if he +saw the idol’s mark would have seemed to him a base act of treason, a +shameful forsaking of that liberty which he had in Christ, and which he +was resolved to hold for himself and his brethren even unto death.</p> + +<p>To generalize and formalize into laws of action the impulses and +purposes which inspire the spirit in its personal contact with the will, +the consciences, and the affections of its fellows, is in most cases to +rob charity of its life and grace of its power. It is to substitute law +for grace in our personal relations and dealings with mankind. Had Paul +laid down the rule,—There are weak consciences, which cannot get rid of +the savour of the idol; they shall rule our conduct; I will never eat +meat offered to idols, and I ordain the same to the Church,—the +development of mankind by Christianity would have been killed at the +very root. Scruples would have become the consecrated thing instead of +liberty, and Christianity would have made manifest the weakness of man, +instead of the power of God, to the world. No! his supreme concern was +that they might master their weakness, break their bonds, and grow from +babes to men. If this abstaining from flesh while the world stood would +have helped them to that progress, he loved them well enough to do it +without a pang of regret. But he evidently was eager to see them rise +out of the lower region which is haunted and tormented by such scruples. +He ignored them as far as possible, though he dealt with them in tender +charity, when, as in chap. x. 28, they were forced on his sight.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_128">[128]</a></span> +Something very parallel to this difficulty of the meat offered to idols +was the question about the theatre which was a sore perplexity to pious +but intelligent spirits a few years ago. There was something, which had +in it essentially no element of evil. But it was closely connected with +a world and a worldly life which those nurtured in the Church or brought +under its influence were sedulously taught to shun. Many who felt +themselves strong abstained. They saw no harm, and would get no harm, +but rather a positive good. But they denied themselves, that others of +weaker faith might not be in the way of harm, and that no sin or ruin of +a brother might by any chance be laid at their door. Whether the rule of +abstinence was wise I am not called here to consider. It was complicated +by moral considerations—which too were not absent in the case which the +apostle treats of here—which make it less easy to pronounce judgment in +a word. But it must always be remembered that a rule or law of +abstinence in such cases on the part of the strong consecrates the +scruple, associates evil permanently with that which has no essential +evil in it, and multiplies thereby the stumbling-blocks of mankind.</p> + +<p>The case of actual vice, like drinking to excess, seems to me to fall +under quite another category; though it is constantly regarded as +settled by the text, as though it had been written, “Wherefore, if drink +make my brother to offend I will drink no wine while the world standeth, +lest I make my brother to offend.” We have no call here to discuss and +pass judgment on a movement by which men of most unquestioned goodness, +and self-devotion to the best interests of others, think that they see a +means of largely helping the morally weak by removing a fatal temptation +from their path. We only say that it is a question well worthy of the +most careful consideration, how far in the long run and on a large scale +a permanent confession of weakness can be helpful to human development; +how far a habit of life confessedly built on the weakness of others can +offer a noble and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_129">[129]</a></span> inspiring example to those who it is hoped would +profit by it; and how far an unnatural condition can have in it the +elements of a true and vital reformation. But these considerations are +really beside the true scope of the text, though they are naturally +suggested by it. And in closing this discussion of a perplexed and +difficult subject I would say in brief:—(1) That isolated acts of +abstinence, which may have their special reason and justification, when +moulded into habits fall in the way of the withering denunciation which +the passage I have quoted from 1 Tim. iv. 1-4 expresses; (2) That the +moulding of our personal habits on the follies, weaknesses, or vices of +others, is a betrayal of trust, for that which we have chiefly in trust +is life—to live a life free, strong, and fearless, shining as a light, +not of rebuke or of caution, but of guidance to mankind; and (3) That +every concession to doubt and weakness to which Divine charity moves us +is futile and vicious, unless in the very act we are putting forth a +hand to lift a weak brother to a standing ground where he will be above +these fogs of fear and infirmity for ever.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 143px;"> +<img src="images/end.jpg" width="143" height="80" alt="End marker" title=""> +</div> + + +<p class="center">Butler & Tanner, The Selwood Printing Works, Frome, and London.</p> + + + +<div id="box2"> +<div class='chapter ph2'><i>BY THE SAME AUTHOR.</i></div> + +<p class="center"><i>In crown 8vo, 5s., cloth.</i></p> + +<p class="center"><span class="pub1">IDOLATRIES, OLD AND NEW:</span><br> + +<span class="pub2">THEIR CAUSE AND CURE.</span></p> + +<hr class="hr2"> + +<p class="center oldeng">Opinions of the Press.</p> + +<p>“The present volume we should think is by far the best which the author +has sent forth. This, indeed, is the most fundamental and comprehensive +argument on the principles involved in the ritualistic controversy which +we have yet seen.”—<i>London Quarterly Review.</i></p> + +<p>“We heartily recommend to our readers this eloquent, vigorous, and +well-reasoned book. It puts things familiar to only a few strong +thinkers in fresh and forcible lights; it is a noble vindication of the +spirituality and freedom of the Christian life; it is written in a manly +chastened style, and is inspired by a high-toned and earnest spiritual +feeling,”—<i>English Independent.</i></p> + +<p>“His style is as forcible and eloquent as his thinking is clear and +vigorous. Of the genuine power of the book—a power derived from its +high-toned principle, its manly freedom, its intense earnestness—there +can be no question.”—<i>Nonconformist.</i></p> + +<p>“A thoughtful, earnest, and intelligent protest against the idolatry of +the priest, of the sacrament, and of the word, written with manly vigour +and much beauty.”—<i>Freeman.</i></p> + +<hr class="hr2"> + +<p class="center">LONDON:<br> +HODDER & STOUGHTON, 27, PATERNOSTER ROW.</p> +</div> + +<hr> + +<div id="boxtn"> +<p class="center">Transcriber’s Note:</p> + +<p class="noi">Punctuation has been standardised. Paragraph enumeration and +hyphenation have been retained as they appear in the original publication. +A table of contents has been added above the beginning of the book. Changes +have been made as follows:</p> + +<p class="noi">Page 40<br> + nature of things befal a free spirit <i>changed to</i><br> + nature of things <a href="#befall">befall</a> a free spirit</p> + +<p class="noi"> Page 77<br> + bring forth judgmedt unto truth <i>changed to</i><br> + bring forth <a href="#judgment">judgment</a> unto truth</p> +</div> + + + + +<div style='display:block;margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MISREAD PASSAGE OF SCRIPTURES ***</div></body> +</html> diff --git a/33515-h/images/cover.jpg b/33515-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e4be895 --- /dev/null +++ b/33515-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/33515-h/images/divider.jpg b/33515-h/images/divider.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..1e00f7e --- /dev/null +++ b/33515-h/images/divider.jpg diff --git a/33515-h/images/end.jpg b/33515-h/images/end.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..0ba9644 --- /dev/null +++ b/33515-h/images/end.jpg |
