Chapter II: Samuel, Xxiv., 24

“Neither will I offer . . . unto the LORD my GOD of that which doth
cost me nothing.”

IT was a thrice enforced precept of the law that none should appear before GOD empty; that when men drew near to Him to celebrate His past mercies and deliverances, to ask for blessings, to deprecate wrath, to render thanks, to acknowledge dependence on His providence, they should at the same time present unto Him some offering of their substance. And this, be it observed, was not a mere temporary ordinance. It was not, like the sacrifices of bulls and goats, a ceremonious shadowing forth and pleading of the one sacrifice by which alone GOD could be approached and propitiated. It was a free-will offering, an acknowledgment that all things come of GOD, and that all things, though intrusted to them, belonged still to GOD. It was a confession of His Lordship, an act of homage, an exhibition of gratitude, a pledge of readiness to yield all that He might require. As such, it was to be offered whenever man perceived GOD to be operating upon, or for him, or whenever he would have GOD to be thus operating; it was to be presented at prescribed places, and under prescribed circumstances, which rendered pains and exertion necessary in the offerer; and it was to be of a kind and in a measure which should make it a real sacrifice—the giving up of something valuable and valued. “Every man shall give as he is able,” says Moses. “I will not offer unto the LORD my GOD,” exclaims David, “of that which doth cost me nothing.”

Under the Gospel, this duty is not only continued, but, like all the other moral sanctions of the law, enlarged and spiritualised. We Christians are to present ourselves, our souls and bodies, continually, as a reasonable sacrifice unto GOD. We are to give up our wills, our powers, our affections, our time, our substance, our lives to Him. Our prayer is to be instant; our praise continual; our sacrifice perpetual; our offering all that we are and have. He who withholds anything from GOD, gives Him nothing. He who does not deny himself, denies GOD; he who loves any one or anything more than GOD, hates GOD; he who bestows more thought and pains, and spends more of his substance on any other object than on religion, takes no thought, bestows no pains, spends none of his substance on GOD. Lip-service, stinted service, careless or partial service is no service; easy religion, cheap religion, intermittent religion is no religion. Religion, to be worthy of the name, must cost something; yea, and much—much thought, much feeling, much affection, much labour, much self-denial, much submission, much renunciation, much cheerful sacrifice of self and substance. The only limit to our offering is to be our capability; the only time when we may forbear to offer it, is when GOD gives us no opportunity. Hence it was, that the young man who would not sell all that he had, and give to the poor, and follow Christ whithersoever He went, could not be His disciple. Hence it is, that selfishness, and worldliness, and pride, and self-glorying, and covetousness, are such grievous sins. Hence it is, that life must not be counted dear, when to be faithful to religion would endanger it. Hence it is, that not only _directly_ spiritual acts are to be frequent, and spiritual offerings to be many and large, but that everything we have is to be held for religion, and everything we do, to be done for religion; our daily tasks, our rest and labour, our very eating and drinking. Christ has purchased us entirely soul and body, talents and possessions, to glorify Him by perpetually offering to Him the sacrifice of love; and there is no love in that offering which is formal, indolent, unwilling, self-saving; which is restrained from thought, and effort, and hazard, and bountifulness, by the consideration, how much it will cost. “I will not offer unto the LORD my GOD,” and the LORD my GOD will not accept “of that which doth cost me nothing.’”

This is the principle and measure of Christian offering to GOD. Would we offer affection? it must be all affection. “My Son, give me Thy heart.” Submission? Deny Thyself in all things. Time? Let it be all time—instant, continual, day and night. Substance? Be ready to part with all that thou hast. Work? It must be all work; every labour, and every occupation. Whatsoever thou doest, do all to the glory of GOD, that GOD in all things may be glorified through JESUS CHRIST. We, and all that we are and have, are claimed as whole sacrifices to GOD. The duration of the offering is to be the length of our life. The altars upon which we are to be offered, are all the places and all the circumstances in which GOD puts us, or we put ourselves; and we are to be continually laying ourselves upon these altars, without fear or grudging of the cost, yea, rather with cheerful incurring of it.

It is a great and difficult service. The very best of our fallen race, the Abrahams and the Pauls, who have most realised this service, and loved it, and laid themselves out to render it, have yet fallen short, very far short of the perfect offering. Many a time have they reluctantly laid the costly sacrifice on the altar; many a time, alas! have they substituted the lame, the halt, the lean, the blemished, for the firstling of the flock; many a due sacred journey has not been undertaken; many a holy service has been unperformed, or performed amiss; many an altar has been bare, without an offering. Yes, the most godly, the saints that excel, have fallen far short of GOD’S standard, and have withheld or offered amiss what GOD required. But yet through infirmity, not through wilfulness or selfishness, have they done it, and speedily and deeply have they repented of it, and then have they straightway laid upon the nearest altar the sacrifice of a broken and a contrite heart, in whose fragrance the ill savour of the other has been lost, with whose costliness GOD has been well pleased. Such a sacrifice He never despises. Those who offer it shall be forgiven all that is past. They shall be dealt with by the after, not the former life. But, my brethren, if such as these fall short of GOD’S standard, what of us, who, alas! can lay no claim to attempted perfection, or to grief and contrition for shortcomings? What of our service of GOD? What do _we_ offer Him? What does religion cost us?

It should cost us much thought—more thought than anything else. Does it? Is it the most frequent and most encouraged employment of our minds to meditate on GOD, our Creator and Preserver, our Redeemer, our Sanctifier, our Lord and Judge, on heaven, on holiness, on trial and reward, duties and hopes? We all of us have some favourite subject of thought and meditation, something which we ponder chiefly, and lay most plans about, and zealously occupy our mental faculties upon. Is it religion? Does that cost us more thought than anything else? or does business or pleasure, or politics or philosophy, or worldly prospects or cares? If so—no matter how innocent the object, how laudable in some respects its concern—in making it a chief consideration, we leave nought to offer GOD but that which costs us nothing, and which is therefore nothing accounted of, yea, rather is rejected by Him.

Again, religion should cost us much affection. Our affections should be chiefly set on it, and only on other things when they can be lawfully considered the adjuncts of religion. Is it so? Do we love GOD more than anything else? Do we desire heaven’s treasures more than earth’s; eternal glories more than temporal? Do we delight above all things in spiritual pursuits? If any other person, any other thing presents itself as a candidate for our best affections, is it rejected because the place is already filled? Is it disliked, if opposed to religion? Is it but moderately esteemed and distantly entertained, when though not opposed to it, is not religion itself? If otherwise, then religion costs us not our best affections, and so of our hearts we offer unto GOD of that which doth cost us nothing.

Again, religion should cost us much labour, much self-denial, much zeal and patience, more than anything else. Does it? Is there nothing for which we toil more, and endure more, and encounter more; nothing which we pursue more constantly and zealously? Do we take more pains to please GOD than man? Do we make more strenuous endeavours to become good Christians than to become apt scholars, profound philosophers, able and respected politicians, successful tradesmen, accomplished members of society? Would we, and do we rather rise early, and late take rest, go without our usual meals, undertake fatiguing journeys, contend with difficulties, suffer reproaches for religion than for anything else? Do we bear the inconvenience of a warm church more cheerfully than that of a close shop, a crowded hall of business or pleasure? Do we venture forth on religious errands, in cold, and wet, and forbidding weather, more readily than we do for anything else? In what do we wear out our strength and energies, run our greatest risks, and consume our time? Is it, directly or indirectly, in religion; or is it in business or in pleasure? For what do we renounce all needless occupations, for what do we get through as speedily as may be our necessary work? Is it to have time and strength for religion, or for what? The answer, my brethren, which your consciences honestly give to these questions, and many like them that might be asked, will help to determine what religion costs you in this respect, and whether or no, you offer unto GOD only of that which doth cost you nothing.

Again, religion should cost much of our substance. In one sense, it should cost us all our substance, _i.e._ we should never spend one mite on a sinful or doubtful pleasure or business, or in contributing to an unhallowed end. Much, indeed, we must lay out in the sustenance of our natural life, in the prosecution of our worldly calling, in the support and advancement of our families, in the maintenance of our social position. Something, too, we are allowed to spend on our innocent recreations and those of others. But that which is to cost us most, on which we are to spend all that we can, and to yearn to be able to spend more, is on GOD; directly, by spreading the knowledge of His name, by promoting His service, by building fit temples for His worship, and adorning them suitably to our devotion and His glory; indirectly, by ministering to His representatives, the poor, and afflicted, and helpless, and ignorant.

What, my brethren, let me ask in all plainness, for I speak for GOD, and GOD’S representatives—the poor—what does religion cost you in this respect? Are you sure that you have left no Lazaruses to perish of hunger? no pining sick to die for want of the nutriment or attention which you could have afforded? no children to grow up in ignorance and blasphemy whom you could have maintained at school, and helped to make enlightened, serious, holy men and women? Have you looked to these things, yourselves? or have you ungrudgingly, liberally supported those who do? Have you ascertained that the sick and visiting funds of your parish are able to meet the many demands upon them? that there is no difficulty in maintaining the necessary staff of the poor’s best guardians, the clergy? that the alms-boxes will hold no more, or that there is no demand on their contents? Have you done all this before you have laden your tables with rich viands and costly wines, and bought expensive toys and ornaments, and gone on unnecessary excursions, and paid much for amusements? Or have you consulted self first, and fed, and decked, and petted, and amused self, and then been ready (not, perhaps, even then, _forward_, but waiting to be asked) to give up something of what self could conveniently spare, for crying, grievous necessities—sparing GOD your leavings, that which you did not want, or, at least, could easily do without? Remember, brethren, I lay no charge against any one of you. I only, in faithfulness, put to you plain questions, which it is your duty to consider; and bid you speedily discover, from their consideration, what your religion costs you; whether, in your succour, temporal and spiritual, of those worse off than yourselves, you deny and inconvenience yourselves, giving what you cannot part with without feeling its loss and curtailing from other things on account of it (as you all ought to do); or whether you offer unto GOD, in this way, of that which doth cost you nothing.

Once more, religion should cost you much in the direct service of GOD; in providing amply for His wide and becoming worship. I pass by now, as duties which there are other opportunities of enforcing, the maintenance of missions, at home and abroad; the building and endowing of schools and churches, and many like things, that I may dwell for a few moments upon the costliness of the materials of our churches, and their furniture, and, let me add, their ornaments; for all which, if I understand the Bible, we Christians are bound to provide. In the descriptions given us in the Bible, of heaven and heavenly things, there is frequent mention and great display, as it were, of gold, and precious stones, and musical instruments, and beautiful robes, and the like. There are some who understand these descriptions literally, and who suppose that, being raised in material, though glorified bodies, the redeemed will inhabit a material heaven—either this earth transformed, or some other planet—and will be surrounded with glorious material objects, the most beautiful and precious of nature’s productions, fashioned like to art’s best accomplishments. If this is to be so, then it is urged, earth’s tabernacles, as the type of heaven, should be as nearly assimilated to heaven as possible; we should improve and furnish our plainer and barer churches as much as we can; we should build our new churches in the best, the handsomest style of art; and decorate and furnish them in the most substantially costly manner.

Without subscribing to this view (though there is really much to be said for it), I would humbly suggest that, since GOD, when He designed an earthly tabernacle, prescribed that it, and all in it, should be costly and ornamental; and that when He speaks of heaven He does so under the image of all that is accounted splendid and costly on earth, He either must have meant to require that we should erect and adorn our churches after this description, or He must have taken for granted that we should best understand spiritual beauties and excellencies by their comparison with what we account earthly beauties and excellencies, and that we should naturally honour and worship Him with the best of these within our reach. It seems, then, to be our duty, nay, to be natural to us, if we are in earnest, whichever view we take, to make our churches and their contents beauteous and costly, either as images of the future church in heaven, or as the nearest representations to it which we can furnish, and the best copies of GOD’S own pattern.

To this it has been objected, firstly, that the primitive Christians afford us no such example; and, secondly, that it seems unfitting, trifling, unseemly, to decorate the spiritual palace as we would an earthly mansion. The first objection falls to the ground, when we remember, that the early Christians were very poor, and, moreover, were obliged to hide themselves, and, therefore, to refrain from all that would attract attention; and that, as soon as they had the means and liberty, they made their churches very splendid, and furnished them very gorgeously. And the second objection is as soon disposed of. What is unfitting, trifling, unseemly, for the Master, is surely as much, and more so, for the disciple. If GOD is to dwell in tents, we ought not to dwell in ceiled houses; if gold, and precious stones, and beautiful arts are unfit for Him, then they are pre-eminently unfit for us. If we may not furnish His house with rich furniture, and put into it, for instance, the best musical instrument, we must not do so in our own houses. It is enough for us, that we should be as our LORD. We must not be above Him, or different from Him. We must not glory in what is unfit for Him. Be then our own abodes rude; let everything in them be homely, unadorned, inferior; banish from them all traces of the artist’s skill; or give all, and use all, more exceedingly upon and in the house of GOD.

One more argument for adorning and furnishing to the utmost, the house of GOD:—We must not offer unto GOD of that which doth cost us nothing of our substance. Now, all that we offer indirectly, no matter how much, how frequently, may yet cost us nothing—that is, it may be only the laying out of that for which we get an immediate equivalent. When you relieve the sick, rescue the tempted, raise the fallen, by the contribution of your substance, if you have not the reward of their gratitude, there is at least the felt human satisfaction of the act; and that would and has remunerated many an infidel. The sacrifice, therefore, in this case, ceases to be a sacrifice; it is a laying out for those who pay you again. But when you expend your substance largely on the direct service of GOD, hoping for nothing again, perhaps getting nothing, then you offer of that which costs you something; something for which you do not expect an equivalent. The exercise is a good one, and the duty is imperative. If you got your money’s worth, and your human satisfaction, for its outlay, then you would be offering to GOD of that which doth cost you nothing.

Let this consideration urge you, then, first, indeed to provide what is _necessary_ for the service of GOD by yourselves; afterwards, what may help others in like manner to serve Him; and then, not by mulcting them, but by denying yourselves, to give some true gift, some free-will offering, which is costly in itself, and promises no present equivalent. Thus shall you overcome selfish and mere human feelings, and render dutiful, and grateful, and costly sacrifice unto the LORD your GOD.

My brethren, depart not with the notion that you have heard nothing of Christ this morning. It is a deep-rooted error that, under the law men were commanded to do, but under the Gospel they are forbidden; that _then_ salvation was a work, but _now_ it is only a contemplation. The contrary is the truth. Men might contemplate and wait idly and dreamily before their Redeemer came; they must be up and doing now that He has laid His hand upon them, and given them a lifelong, arduous, self-sacrificing work to do.

It is because Christ has purchased you wholly, body, and soul, and spirit, thoughts, words, and deeds, talents and substance, to be an entire and constant sacrifice unto Him; it is because He is watching over you, and working for and in you, to make you that sacrifice; it is because presently He will judge and deal with you, according as you have been, or have not been what He required, that I have enforced on you the pre-eminently Christian lesson of taking solemn, anxious heed, that you offer not unto the LORD your GOD of that which doth cost you nothing.

SERMON IX. SPIRITUAL PROGRESS.

PHILIPPIANS, III., 13, 14.

“Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing
I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth
unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the
prize of the high calling of GOD in Christ JESUS.”

TO have apprehended; to have attained unto the perfection of the knowledge of Christ; to have gone through the Christian’s appointed course of discipline and duties; to have acquired the acceptable and approved character; to have laid such a hold on salvation as could not be shaken off—this even Paul did not claim to have done. Divinely enlightened as he was, greatly zealous, blamelessly righteous, the chosen vessel of the LORD, he could not be satisfied with the past, he could not rest in the present, he could not calculate on the future. “If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead”—be made one of those who shall be raised in Christ to glory—“not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect. . . . I count not myself to have apprehended.”

Brethren, if Paul, with all his light, all his labours, all his holiness, all his love, felt that heaven, was, after all, not his sure inheritance, how can any among us count themselves to have secured it, to have become perfect? And yet, not a few do! I am not alluding now to those who are called Calvinists, to those who believe that salvation will infallibly be conferred on a few, chosen without regard to their former, or care for their after life; and that they who believe this doctrine are certainly of the chosen few (every Calvinist, according to his own creed, is sure of salvation)—to those who fancy that a peculiar flutter of strange feelings in the breast which they felt at a certain moment of some day or night, perhaps long past, was the impression of GOD’S seal upon them; a seal which cannot be broken, which has marked them GOD’S for ever; and that all they have to do in anticipation, in preparation for glory, is to talk and think about man’s depravity, and GOD’S electing grace. No! I am alluding to such as are most of you, brethren; who have probably never concerned yourselves about supposed absolute decrees, and irresistible grace, and final perseverance; who do not claim to be objects of any signal conversion; who have felt, and feel no ecstacy and rapture which betoken sure acceptance; and of you, I say, that many of you count yourselves to have apprehended, to know as much, to have done as much, to feel as much, to be as perfect, as you need, and to have a sure hope of salvation. None of you have a definite theory of this kind; none of you, if I took you apart and said, “Are you sure of heaven?” would dare to answer, “yes,” or to feel that you might answer, “yes;” but many of you, nevertheless, do persuade yourselves, that it is even so; many of you so spend your lives as though you had already apprehended, as though there were nothing which you had yet to attain.

Listen! You believe that there is another life after this. You believe that it may be one of glory, or one of shame and destruction. You believe that there are necessary qualifications for glory, without which it will not be conferred. You hope and expect to partake of the glory. You all know that the change from this life to the next may come at any moment, to any one of you. Still, the greater part of you make no effort to prepare farther for that change; but go on, day after day, year after year, doing the same deeds, thinking the same thoughts, feeling the same feelings, in the same way and measure as heretofore. Is it not so? And if it is, do you not justify yourselves—do you not at least compose yourselves in your present state—by asserting, or at any rate by not actively denying, that you have attained as much faith, and holiness and love, as you need to fit you for heaven. You have apprehended: at least you think so. Otherwise, how could you be contented? Believing in your heart of hearts that there is a heaven, how could you be satisfied if you did not think you would go to it; if you conceived it possible that the want of something which you have not yet, might shut you out from glory? As I speak to you thus, you feel disposed to protest against my words. You know you are not perfect. You frequently sigh over your lamentable imperfections. You feel that it is only unspeakable mercy which can make any allowance for you. You are not fit for heaven. You are not satisfied with yourselves. You have not attained. You have much to do. You intend to do much. Yes! this is your protest, and it is an honest one; you mean it, you feel it. But, brethren, I am not talking of what you mean and feel _now_; of the momentary stir of right feeling which takes place occasionally, in church when the minister of Christ rouses you; or at home or abroad, when GOD calls loudly to you by some unusual act of Providence; or on a sick bed, when physicians speak doubtfully, and friends wear ominously troubled looks; or at the grave-side, when one of your own age and circumstances of life, and like constitution, is being hidden out of sight. No! I am speaking of your usual feelings, and your every-day life; and I say, on their clear testimony, that many of you count yourselves to have apprehended.

You are at ease about heaven; you do not strive, you do not press forward as though it were yet to gain; you do not imagine that any striving, any pressing forward, is needed. What are the religious exercises of the many? A few words of private prayer, morning and evening; an attendance _once_ on the LORD’S day at church; and now and then, perhaps, a participation of the holy communion. These are the chief, often the only, efforts for grace to attain and apprehend. No perpetual upraising of the soul in prayer; no delight in public worship; no frequent yearning for the communication of Christ through His appointed ordinances; no eager searching of His Word for light, and guidance, and comfort, and encouragement! What, again, are the strivings of the many to attain a heavenly character; to do the work which GOD has given them to do; to put aside the old man, with his affections and lusts; to walk in holy obedience? Alas! they are merely negative; forbearing to offend against the letter of the great commandments. No literal idolatry, no profane swearing, no Sabbath-breaking, no stealing, no deed of lust, no deliberate slander. This is their righteousness; and if, besides, they occasionally sigh, or utter a self-condemnation, on account of the frequently reiterated, uncurbed outbreaks and indulgences of what they call “infirmities,” they seem to themselves to have attained to exemplary excellence. No matter that all their usual feelings are earth-born, and earth-directed; that their affections are set on worldly things; that they continue, year after year, every whit as spiritually indolent, impatient, bad-tempered, sensual in thought, jealous, faithless, unloving, unholy. They might, indeed, be better in these respects; perhaps they ought to be; but it is not actually necessary. They have already attained what is absolutely needed. If not quite perfect (no man is) they are perfect enough; better than many others; as good as GOD will require.

Oh, if men do not _think_ this, do they not _act_ it and testify it in their lives? Does not their religion seem to be a mere occasional pastime? something to be taken up only in the intervals of life’s earnest work; a matter of no real moment; which does not demand more than ceremonious observance, leaving the thoughts, the affections, the energy free; offering nothing (worth the while) to be pursued with zeal, and industry, and self-denial; to progress and grow perfect in; having no claims upon us which are not sufficiently discharged in the way of mere routine?

I should wrong many of you, dear brethren, if I meant this charge to be universal. Of not a few of you, “we are persuaded better things, and things that accompany salvation, though we thus speak.” But, in a degree, even _you_ answer to this description, or part of it; coming nearer, now and then, to contentment about your spiritual state than you should; forbearing, frequently, to press forward enough for what is not yet attained.

Well, then, we are all reproved by the apostle’s lowly estimation of his own past and present: “I count not myself to have apprehended.” Let us now seek to be instructed by his proposals for the future: “Forgetting the things that are behind, I reach forth.” First, then, we are to forget the things that are behind. In the figure which the apostle uses, that of a runner in a race, to forget what is behind is, not to pride ourselves upon, not to think of the progress we have already made. Paradox though it seem, the Christian religion often bids us both remember and forget the same thing; and it does so in this case. We are to remember the success which has attended us hitherto in the attempt to serve GOD, both to prompt our gratitude for the past, and to encourage us to persevere, as having hope that we may prevail. We are to forget it, so as not to presume on our goodness; not to rest satisfied with aught we have done, or to count ourselves as having in any measure attained to what GOD requires of us. There is much temptation to such self-satisfaction, and there is much danger in it. Few, if any of us, who have been earnestly endeavouring to work out our salvation, can fail to observe that we have accomplished something. We have come to feel an interest in spiritual things. Prayer, instead of being altogether a wearisome task, or a mere matter of routine, has begun to be an enjoyable exercise. The pursuit of godliness, instead of being altogether a hard task, requiring us to forego all that is pleasant, to encounter much that is trying, to do that for which we have no taste, has begun to bestow on us its reward, in fulfilling its promise of making glad the life that now is, in elevating us, though, perhaps, but little, towards the hope of the life which is to come. We like now (that is, we dislike less) the exercises of devotion. We more readily give up what once we clung to as the chiefest good. We begin to realise, that there is something worth striving for beyond; and we make efforts, though they may be feeble, to reach it, and lay hold on it. But, perceiving this change, this improvement in ourselves, we run the risk of coming to think, that we are not like other men; that we have come out, and are separate; that we are in the right way; that GOD approves us. And the natural effect of this perception, or rather the effect which Satan causes it to produce, is spiritual pride and spiritual indolence. “I love prayer, I cultivate holiness: what lack I yet? I have attained; I have apprehended Christ; knowing and loving Him, and laying fast hold on His salvation.”

Such a feeling once harboured in the breast, and thus interpreted, soon begins to deaden our spiritual energies. We cease to be holy as soon as we fancy ourselves holy. We relinquish effort as soon as we find that we have been using it. In the remembrance of the past, in the spiritual pride which it produces, we forget the future and unlearn humility. Therefore we are to forget the past of progress.

But, besides this, we are to forget what is behind of failure and trial, and former superiority. There is nothing so apt to beget despondency, to discourage further effort, as the review of unsuccess: “I have tried this before, and failed; it is of no use to try it again. Destiny, or innate corruption seems to thwart me and bind me down; it is vain to contend against it.” Thus it is that men persuade themselves to yield unresistingly to evil. When bidden to forsake it, when desiring to forsake it, instead of making the effort as though it were a first one, the beginning of a right course, in which, if they persevere, they may hope by GOD’S grace to do well, they recall to memory how they have failed before, and persuade themselves, from their remembrance, that in like manner they should surely fail again: and so they refuse to try. And so, too, the remembrance of former superiority discourages. “How pure, how temperate, how steady, how comparatively good was I once. Alas! that cannot be again. I cannot undo what I have done. I cannot recover what is lost. The past can never be the present.” No, it cannot, brethren, and therefore forget it. Do not seek to undo, to recover. Since that cannot be, aim at something else; and, that you may aim the more steadily, do not let your eye wander elsewhere. If you have left your father’s house, and wasted your substance in riotous living, it is too late to prevent you from being a prodigal; but it is not too late to become a returning prodigal. Forget your former independence; forget the going away into the far country. Remember, that your Father still lives; that He is a merciful, a pardoning Father; that His arms are spread out to enfold you; that there is still room, and welcome room, for you in His house. Forget what you have abandoned, and seek what you may yet have: not former innocence, not the inheritance of uninterrupted dutifulness, but reformed life, and fresh favour, a new place as a new character.

Once more, forget the things that are behind, as you start, as you run along the course from the world to heaven. Do not delay in considering what you have to give up; do not grudge the effort; do not turn aside your eyes to behold what you are leaving behind, what you are passing by the way. Temporal things, though so infinitely inferior to eternal, are near and palpable; while the spiritual are distant and indistinctly seen. If you ponder and weigh, if you count over too frequently the cost, your own carnal judgment, and Satan’s blinding influence, will check you at starting, or lure you aside. To look back, to gaze about you, to stand still for a moment, is perhaps to lose the race. “See,” says Satan, “what you are leaving, what you are passing. Here are riches, honour, friends, pleasure, ease.” You look, and the look leads you back, or makes you stumble, perhaps fall. “Onward, onward!” be this your cry; this your aim. Stay not in all the plain; look not behind you; look on; behold the goal; remember the prize. Think not of the past; regard not the present; aim at the future. Forgetting the things that are behind, reach forth unto those that are before.

I have anticipated the other lesson of wisdom; that of reaching forth; of concentrating all your thoughts, and all your energies, on what is held out to you by GOD in Christ. You are not to measure the distance you have come; you are not to brood over stumblings, and falls, and past slowness; you are not to recall the things that you have left, nor to look at those you are passing. You are to run on, as if the race were all before you; as if the course were an untrodden one; as if there were good hope of reaching the goal. And you are to look steadfastly at the goal, and run eagerly towards it. This is your position; this your course; these your hopes.

Gird up your loins then, lay aside every weight, the weight of worldly temptation, the weight of experienced failure, the weight of difficulties and troubles. Assured that the race may be run, assay to run it. Knowing that the prize is still proffered, attempt to gain it. Gather experience from the past, what to do, what to avoid. Redouble your efforts, quicken your pace, because the time is short, and much of it has been trifled away. Take hope from the future, because the lists are still open, because you are accepted candidates for the prize, because the king waits to crown you.

What does all this mean in plain language? Sinners! repent, cry for mercy, pray for grace, aim at godliness. Lovers of the world! unloose your affections from what is worthless and perishable; fix them upon what is above value and everlasting; let go what you have, cast it behind you, and seek what you have not. Loiterers! move on. Crawlers! rise upon your feet and run. There is no time for delay, for tardy pace. The LORD waits to crown you, but He will not wait long. Racers! race on, faster, more intent. Let your desires outstrip your feet. Quicken your feet, to come up to your desires. But a little, and the trial of your speed will be over, and the conquerors will be crowned, and all others be rejected.

Brethren, one and all, consider the prize of your high calling of GOD in Christ JESUS. Enlist heartily in its pursuit; shake off everything that hinders; shut your eyes against all that allures; seek guidance, strength, and perseverance, in prayer, study of GOD’S Word, and other holy ordinances. Use those graces in daily instant increasing efforts; animate yourselves more and more by anticipations of what is held out, by nearer and more constant beholding of it. Stay not, and pause not till the arms of acceptance enfold you, the Voice of approval greets you, “Well done,” and grateful, realised joy enables you to exclaim, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course, henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness.”

SERMON X. SPIRITUAL THINGS NOT REVEALED TO THE NATURAL MAN.

1 CORINTHIANS, II., 14.

“The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of GOD: for
they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they
are spiritually discerned.”

ALL of you, my brethren, to some extent profess, and to some extent desire, to be religious. All of you assent to the truth, that religion is the “one thing needful,” and yet many of you, if you knew your hearts, and examined your ways, would be constrained to admit that religion is not the ruling power of your life. You are indeed religious according to the standard of the age, _i.e._, you come to church on Sunday, perhaps occasionally to holy communion, you say your prayers morning and evening, you read the Bible now and then, you do not grossly offend against any one of the ten commandments, you sigh over your frailties and infirmities, you give _something_ to the poor. All this entitles you, in the estimation of others, to be classed among what are called religious people; and suggests to yourselves the comfortable thought, that, at least, you are not worse than other men; that, in fact, you are much better than many. Still, if you are careful readers of your Bible, if you are observant of the world within and around you, if you are given to self-searching, you must often feel that your religion is but a sorry counterfeit of what GOD has taught and saints have reflected; that you are scarcely half in earnest about it; that you experience very little advantage from it; that you render very empty homage to it. For instance, you read the Sermon on the Mount, or the reiteration of many parts of it here and there, in the epistles; you put together the several characteristics of true religion there displayed; and then, turning an eye upon yourselves, looking back upon the path you have trodden, surveying the ground upon which you now stand, testing your practice, scanning your motives, asking yourselves, “By what am I mainly influenced? whither tend my chief desires? what are my feelings?” “Alas!” you exclaim, “where, in all these, are the influences and operations of the religion taught by Christ and His apostles?”

Or, again, you read of Joseph, stoutly refusing the safe indulgence of a forbidden pleasure, under a heartfelt conviction of required sanctity, and present accountability, which found its vent in those memorable words, “How can I do this great wickedness and sin against GOD?” And then you find him, after shining thus brilliantly as a saint, patiently, religiously bearing the treatment of a sinner. Or you read of Abraham, giving up at a word’s bidding the comforts of home, the ties of kindred, and the means of support; wandering henceforth throughout his life in a strange land, apparently coming no nearer to the promised rest and blessedness, yet cheerfully, hopefully, thankfully, admitting and feeling that all was, and would be right and well for him. Or you read of Moses, refusing the honours, the pleasures, the riches of a court life, and choosing to be a wanderer, to endure all kinds of hardships and reproaches, that he might avoid sin and serve GOD. Or you read of Job, subjected to concentrated miseries and undeserved chastisements and rebukes, and blessing the Hand which had imposed them, or at least had not interfered to ward them off. Or you read of David, weeping over a forgiven sin, setting it always before him, making frequent mention of it in his prayers, accepting often reverses as the due chastisement of it, and thanking GOD for them. Or you read of Stephen, cruelly maligned, savagely beaten to death, and yet spending his dying breath, not in protesting, not in invoking vengeance, but in praying, “LORD, lay not this sin to their charge.” Or, once more, you read of Paul, testifying that to die is gain, and, in the least adverse circumstances of his converted life, coveting to depart.

You read, I say, of these things; you consider under what feelings and hopes they were borne and encountered, and you sadly exclaim, “Where, in me, in deed or feeling, in aim or restraint, in perseverance or patience, is the religion of Joseph, of Abraham, of Moses, of Job, of David, of Stephen, of Paul? Do I thus resist temptations to unlawful pleasures? Do I set loose my natural affections, give up my worldly goods, go forth into unknown and unguessed-at circumstances at Divine bidding? Do I refuse proffered honours, riches, pleasures, not because they are in themselves sinful, but because they _may_ possibly lead me into sin? Do I patiently and thankfully endure even merited chastisements? Do I struggle with myself and with GOD to prevent past sins from escaping out of my remembrance? Do I seek to bless those who revile or injure me? Do I feel that to die is gain; and do I covet to depart?”

If not, why not? It is so that GOD willed men to do; it is so they have in many cases done; and it is so that many still do. Yes, there are still such saints; men and women who steadfastly resist wrong pleasures, under the heart-conviction of required sanctity, and of accountability to a present GOD; who give up, even while they hold them, all worldly possessions, and go forth, in feeling, in desire, in deed if need be, without distrust, with happy, thankful, confidence, when and whithersoever GOD bids them; who forego proffered advantages, and content themselves with a low seat when they might, perhaps, have the highest, because it is _safer_ for them as servants of GOD; who weep and abhor themselves, and desire to be chastened for their sins; who love to do good to their enemies; who holily yearn to die. There are men and women who do make religion the one thing needful; who hold themselves in check by its restraints; who urge themselves on by its promises; who bask in its sunshine, and reflect its glorious image in their lives. There are men and women whose business is religion; who kneel long and often in prayer; who meditate day and night on the Bible; whose hearts ever leap to GOD; who grieve to forego an opportunity of holy communion; who never stop away from church because there are only prayers, or because their favourite preacher will not be in the pulpit, or because it is hot or cold. Good citizens they are, attentive to their callings, provident parents, dutiful children, affectionate husbands and wives, cheerful companions, most useful in their generation, and yet truly religious, bent upon religion; regarding this life as an apprenticeship to it, and striving so to use their apprenticeship as to be perfect in their calling, ere they are summoned to exercise it (their ardent expectation) as partners with angels, and patriarchs, and apostles, and perfected saints, under the rule of the LORD of Glory, in the city of the New Jerusalem.

My brethren, if GOD has prescribed such religion as this; if saints of old, ay, and men and women of our own times too, have been thus religious; it must be important, and, I would fain hope, acceptable, for you who profess and desire to be religious, but are not, to learn wherein you differ, why you fail. The text tells you: “The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of GOD: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” “The things of the Spirit of GOD” (the matters, that is, of revelation) are foolishness to the natural man, and he cannot know or appreciate them. My brethren, are the things of the Spirit of GOD ever regarded by you as foolishness? Start not, nor be offended at the question. You would, doubtless, deem it very blasphemy to say, “it is folly,” of anything GOD has revealed. You would rush from the bare thought. Still, you may practically allow what you thus shudder at when exhibited in its plainness. Let us see. Do you ever deliberately do what religion forbids? Do you ever deliberately omit what religion requires? Do you never weigh the things of the world against the things of the Spirit, and then choose the former? Do you never prefer pleasure to duty? staying away from church, or curtailing your religious worship, to take your leisure, to enjoy a friend’s company, to go for a pleasant walk, to read an interesting book, to see some unusual sight, to frequent some place of secular entertainment, to forward some worldly end? Do you not, at least, excuse yourselves from acts of religion, by pleas that you would not admit in these other cases? Do you not find time for earthly things, that you do not find for spiritual? Do you not make exertions for worldly ends, that you do not make for heavenly? Do you not curb, and restrain, and deny yourselves, in the one case, and use no such discipline in the other? Well, of course you do this through some appreciation of the thing sought; because it interests you, is pleasant, or expedient, or profitable. You do not deliberately choose “folly,” you pursue it as the wise course, _i.e._, you treat the opposite as though it were unwise, not realising it to be wisdom, you put it aside as foolishness. Then, again, of restraints, and sanctions, and hopes. Would you not forbear to do in the presence of a fellow-being what you unhesitatingly do under the eye of GOD? Do you not fear a parent, a husband, a wife, a master, a friend, a customer, more than GOD? Does the thought of eternal punishment concern you as much as the prospect of chastisement at the hand of man? of failure in business? of serious illness? of bodily disfigurement? Do you act chiefly with regard to the praise of GOD, or the admiration of your fellow-beings? Do you _feast_ on the expectation of heaven, or on that of some worldly joy or honour? Do you like, above all things, the thought of dwelling for ever where there will be no money-getting, no earthly indulgences, no flattery, no vain glory, no frivolity, no unseemliness, no rest from the praising of GOD, and the company of saints? If a message came to you now, that within an hour you should be removed to paradise, would you not shrink from the announcement? would you not cling to earth? would you not wish your removal to be deferred? Then do you not appreciate something more than the things of the Spirit of GOD? Do not your desires, and hopes, and fears, deal with them as though they were comparatively foolishness?

Remember, brethren, I am not now inveighing against sin; I am not attempting to make a catalogue of your offences, that I may reproach you on account of its length. My object is simply to lead you to ascertain how you regard the things of the Spirit of GOD; and so to help you to answer for yourselves the important questions, why you are not more truly religious, why religion is not with you the one thing needful. Murmur not, then, at home-thrusts. Plead not excuses for what is felt to be amiss. Simply answer to yourselves whether or no your life approves the things of the Spirit as _wisdom_; and, if not, be anxious to learn (that you may profit by the knowledge) _why_ it treats them as foolishness.

Now, St. Paul tells us, that it is the natural man to whom these things are foolishness; and the spiritual by whom they are discerned to be wisdom. In proportion, then, as you receive them not, or undervalue them, you are natural in contradistinction to spiritual. And what is it to be thus natural? It is to regard the things of religion as one doth other things, from a mere human point of view; and with the faculties and feelings that belong to our human nature, independently of the operation on it of the enlightening and persuading and strengthening influences of the Holy Spirit. It is to attempt to acquaint ourselves with them by natural observation and scrutiny; to expect to understand them through natural instruction received into natural ears; to try to picture them by the exercise of natural imagination. This is to be natural; and this is what we too frequently are. We get our religious notions as we do our acquaintance with natural science, or with secular history: from observation, or reading, or hearing. We strive to be religious (simply mechanically) by obeying certain laws, and following certain prescribed courses, just as we become peaceful subjects or approved servants; aiming to do what is bidden, to avoid what is prohibited: not from appreciating the sanction or restriction; not from loving what is ordered; but simply from following it as appointed and obligatory obedience. And we get our conception of heaven, of eternal bliss, of GOD Himself (just as we form ideas about countries afar off, or men who lived before us), by putting together for ourselves, and making to assume a shape of fancy, what we have read or heard about them. It is the mere man—the brain, the mind, the human soul, the natural affections, the unassisted innate energy—which conceives and aims at the observance of the things of the Spirit of GOD. Hence the failure. The natural powers, which alone we use, cannot grasp spiritual things. “_Eye_ hath not seen, nor _ear_ heard, neither have entered into the _mind_ of man to conceive the things which GOD hath prepared for them that love Him:” and yet it is the eye, the ear, or the mind, which alone we use to discern them. We have indeed a _theory_ which contradicts our practice. We know of an external power—the Holy Spirit, which alone can take of the things of GOD and show them unto us, and influence us to love, and enable us to follow them. We know how that power is to be appropriated, and sustained, and made effectual. We talk of its imparted gift, and we use certain words of prayer for its continuance and efficacious working, but still we go on thinking our own thoughts and doing our own deeds, as though there were no such power; and we wonder and grieve that we are not religious; that we do not heartily approve and follow what GOD has enjoined and promised.

Believe me, my brethren, or, rather, believe the apostle, it will never be otherwise till you are thoroughly convinced of the utter inability of the natural man to discern the things of the Spirit of GOD; till your religion consists of earnest entreaties for Divine instruction and impulse, of ready, eager use of all appointed means of securing and vivifying within you the operation of Divine grace, of entire submission to the Spirit’s rule, of watchfulness for His motions, of zealous co-operation with Him. You may spend your life in trying to learn and practise religion, and yet be irreligious after all; unless you renounce all the independent thoughts and efforts of the natural man; unless you give yourselves, actively and passively, in all things, to the special illumination and direction of the Holy Spirit of GOD. Trust not to the eye, to the ear, or to the mind: they cannot inform or influence you. Trust not, I say, to the eye. People talk of finding out GOD from the contemplation of His works; of looking from nature up to nature’s GOD; of examining the evidences of religion, and becoming religious. But who ever found out the GOD of the Bible from the works of nature; by the traces of power, and wisdom, and skill, and adaptation, which it is true are marked upon every part of creation; by theorising about a first cause; by investigating Scriptural coincidences, and establishing the authenticity of sacred history? One of the ablest naturalists that ever lived ascribed the various forms and functions of animals to chance, to the operations of winds and streams, to shaping in natural moulds. One of the profoundest astronomers saw no necessity for a first cause; and the man who penned perhaps the sublimest description of our blessed LORD’S character and career, and the most cogent argument for accepting Him as the Messiah, concluded all by saying: “And yet I cannot believe in Him.”

No! brethren; nature is the _handmaid_ of religion. It will corroborate what is already revealed; but it is no ladder to heaven; it is no telescope, to bring near what is afar off. Look at yourselves, and at all around you, by natural light only. You perceive Providence, but not love; sin, but not its remedy; mortality, but not immortality. Read history, ponder probabilities, accredit testimony. Your mind will be instructed; your heart, perhaps, touched; but your spirit will not be quickened.

It is for this reason that the advocates of religion protest so stoutly against harmless, intellectual recreation as a compromise between godliness and ungodliness; and maintain, on Scripture grounds, that however sobered, however civilised, however naturally elevated, the man is not one inch nearer to heaven and spiritual discernment who spends his Sunday in a crystal palace, or a museum of nature, than he who riots in a den of infamy. “Eye hath not seen.” The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of GOD.

Neither, again, hath _ear_ heard them. Others, that is, cannot describe them to us. It was this which made Paul’s preaching foolishness to the Corinthians. Judges of beauty, lovers of philosophy, fertile imaginers they were, but they had no spiritual ear; they were not enabled by the Holy Spirit; and so the preaching of Christianity sounded to them as some unknown tongue would to us; as unintelligible, unmeaning jargon. Ask an unlearned man to give you an account of some abstruse lecture he has heard; and he will be able to tell you as much as the natural man can tell you of the religious instruction he has received. He will have caught certain names and definitions; he will have remembered, that something was to be thought about _this_, and something to be done about _that_; and, if he is enthusiastic, he will, perhaps, attempt the thinking and the doing. But he will not have grasped the subject; he will have no soul to receive it; for the necessary qualification is wanting—learning, and love of learning. And so, when the Bible, or the preacher, sets forth the things of the Spirit, the natural reader, or hearer, receives them not, and cannot know them. When Christ was on earth, and spoke in simplest words, the men who heard Him, even His own disciples, knew not what He said; and if He were now to come down from heaven and preach to us, all His instruction, all his loving remonstrances, all His precepts and promises, all his glowing pictures of bliss, all His threats of wrath, would be heard by the mere natural man (by those who are not spiritually fitted for spiritual instruction) without influence, and all but without comprehension.

It is most important, brethren, to be convinced of this. We are all of us too apt to make our religion consist of hearing sermons; to suppose, that if we listen patiently, and grasp the intellectual meaning, and feel a little emotion about what is pathetic and alarming, and have a desire to do something that the preacher recommended, or to give up something that he denounced, then that we are receiving the things of the Spirit. Whereas preaching cannot, under any circumstances, do the least spiritual good, or at all enlarge spiritual comprehension, unless the hearers are spiritually prepared. We discourse on heaven or hell: we put together all that the Bible says or hints about it; we form a kind of natural picture of a spiritual thing, and we bid you look at it and consider it. Wherefore? If you are spiritual, to quicken your spirit; if you are natural, to speak to you a kind of parable, the meaning whereof you may be prompted to ask of Him who alone can reveal it, the Holy Spirit of GOD. And so of all preaching; it is an important means to an end. It talks to men of GOD, of redemption, of probation, of the Holy Spirit, of heaven and hell: not with any hope of thereby revealing to them these things; but only to convince their eyes, their ears, their hearts, that there is a kind of knowledge which ought to be had, but which they cannot take in; and so to stir them up to the inquiring how it is to be had, and to enlist them in the right effort to obtain it. Through the ear we arrest the natural man, as the voice of thunder did Saul on his road to Damascus; we do not sanctify him; we do not show him the things of GOD; we only convince him that there is something which he has not rightly received, or taken into account, and we bid him go elsewhere, to the Spirit, for instruction and salvation. The only possible good that a sermon can do, is, by working on the feelings, or appealing to the understanding, or cross-questioning the conscience, to stir men up to say: “I will know more of this matter.” And the work of grace is only then beginning, when the hearer of the sermon becomes a learner of the Spirit. Ear hath not heard.

“Neither hath entered into the mind of man to conceive” spiritual things. I need not enlarge on this. We know, indeed, that the imagination has great powers; that it forms a very tangible idea of what neither eye nor ear has had opportunity to discern; that sometimes it surpasses eye and ear, and succeeds in grasping what they have but touched. Hence such sayings as, “It is easier to imagine than describe;” and such practices as shutting the eyes, when we want to realise an idea. But still, in spiritual things, if actual observation and study, if faithful descriptions by qualified persons, a prophet, an apostle, the Bible, the Spirit, utterly fail to inform the natural man, surely he cannot expect illumination from the fancies of his unassisted imagination. Religious ideas come into the _mind_ through the eye and the ear; if, then, these have all along been closed, it must, of course, be empty.

And now, dear brethren, does not all this show you why you are so little religious? Have you not, all along, been dealing with the things of the Spirit too much as though they were things which you could perceive by observation, by investigating their evidence, by intellectually studying them? Have not you tried to learn religion as you would a human language, or a physical science? And have not your highest religious exercises, your searchings into the deep things of GOD, been the hearing of sermons; or the indulging of your reason, or your imagination? What do you know of religion, which you did not in some of these ways acquire? How much has the Spirit of GOD taught you? that Spirit who alone knows the things of GOD, and who alone can reveal them; that Spirit which comes not first into the eye, or the ear, or the mind of man, but into his spirit. How often do you pray for the Holy Spirit, and strive to prepare yourselves for Him? What dependence do you place on Him for guidance? What means do you use to bring Him near; and how much have you Him in mind while using them? What homage do you render Him? How do you serve Him? When do you commune with Him? When you regard nature, is it by the light of the Spirit? When you read the Bible, is it to learn what the Spirit will say to you, the Spirit invoked to speak? When you hear a sermon, do you pray the Spirit, “LORD, declare unto me, unto my spirit, this parable?” When you meditate, is your supplication, “Open thou mine eyes;” “Except Thy presence go with me, carry me not up hence?” Is your life—thoughts, words, and deeds—directed by the consideration, “If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of GOD”? If not, this is why you are not really religious; and the remedy is in seeking to be and do what I have now described.

Only use your spirit as you have hitherto used your eye, your ear, or your mind. Only put yourselves under the tutorship of the Spirit of GOD. Only seek to meet Him in appointed places; at public worship, at holy communion, over the Bible, on your knees. Only seek instruction from Him, and refer to Him for interpretations and explanations; and only ask His help to be spiritually used; and order your life, as far as you can, in accordance with your prayers. And soon you will be, not smatterers, but apt scholars of Divine learning; soon you will walk as seeing Him who is invisible; soon will you _know_ the reality of spiritual things; and, knowing them, love them and seek for them. They will cease to be foolishness to you. You will choose them in every circumstance, as wisdom; you will feel religion to be the one thing needful; you will make it the business and the pleasure of your lives. The life of a Joseph, an Abraham, a Moses, a Job, a David, a Stephen, a Paul, will be found to be not simply possible, but desirable; the only life worthy of the name. Obedience will be easy; trust will expel care; love will cast out fear; selfishness will pass away; temptations will lose their power. No matter will it be to you, where or what you are. Prosperity, adversity, honour, shame, power, weakness, life, and death, will be indifferent to you. If you live, you will live to the LORD; if you die, you will die to the LORD: living and dying, in endurance and desire, thought and deed, you will be the LORD’S.

Brethren, this is what the Spirit of GOD would make you. That Spirit is pledged to all of you who ask for Him; He waits to reveal to you the things of GOD.

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FOOTNOTES.

{38} Hooker.

{65} Ezekiel, xxxvi., 37.

{67} Ps. xxxii., 3, 4, 5, 6.

{71} Matt., v., 23, 24.

{72a} James, v., 16.

{72b} Joshua, vii., 19.

{75} Mal., ii., 7.

{76} In theory, the penitent may reserve the confession of venial sins; but, as he cannot rightly judge what are venial sins, in practice he has to confess all.

{77} See next Sermon.

{80} Repentance, p. 61.

{90} Jer., xviii., 7–10.