Chapter I: SPOKE last Sunday morning of the wonderful way in which the Lord (2)

Free mercy, utter pardon, pardon for all, even for the worst. And what is the argument which Isaiah uses to make his countrymen repent? Is it “Repent, or you shall be damned: Repent because God’s wrath and curse is against you. The Lord hates you and despises you, and you must crawl to His feet like beaten hounds, and entreat Him not to strike you into hell as He intends”? Not so; it was because God loved the Jews, that they were to repent. It is because God loves you that you must repent. “Incline your ear,” saith the Lord, “and come unto me, hear, and your soul shall live; and you shall eat that which is good, and your soul shall delight itself in fatness.” Yes, God is love. God’s delight and glory is to give; in spite of all our sins He gives and gives, sending rain and fruitful seasons to just and unjust, to fill their hearts with joy and gladness; and all the while men fancy that it is not God that gives, but they who take. God has not left Himself, as St. Paul says, without a witness; every fruitful shower and quickening gleam of sunshine cries to us—See! God is love: He is the giver. And men will not hear that voice. They say in their hearts, “The Lord is far away above the skies; He does not care for us: we must help ourselves, each man to what he can get off this earth; nay, even, when we are hard put to it for a living, we must break God’s laws to keep ourselves alive, and so steal from God’s table the very good things which He offers us freely.”

But some will say: “He does not give freely; we must work and struggle. Why do you mock poor hard-worked creatures with such words as these?”

Ask that question of God, my friends, and not of me. Isaiah said that those who hearkened to God diligently should eat what is good. The Lord Jesus Christ Himself said the same—that if we seek first the kingdom of God and His justice, all other things should be added to them. He did not mean us to be idle, God forbid! but this He meant, that if we, each in his business and calling, put steadily before ourselves what is right, what God would wish us, His subjects, to be in His Kingdom—if instead of making our first thought in every business we take in hand, “What will suit my interest best, what will raise most money, what will give me most pleasure?” we said to ourselves all day long, “What will be most right, and just, and merciful for us to do; what will be most pleasing to a God who is love and justice itself? what will do most good to my neighbour as well as myself?” then all things would go well with us. Then we should be prosperous and joyful. Then our plans would succeed and our labour bring forth real profit to us, because they would be according to the will of God: we should be fellow-workers with Jesus Christ in the great work of doing good to this poor distracted world, and His help and blessing would be with us.

And if you ask me, how can this come to pass, I must answer, as Isaiah does in this same chapter: “The Lord’s ways are not as our ways, nor His thoughts as our thoughts, but higher than ours, as the heavens are above the earth.” But if we do turn to God, and repent each man of us of his selfishness, his unfaithfulness, his hard-heartedness, his covetousness, his self-will, his ungodliness—then God’s blessing, as Isaiah says, will come down on us, and spring up among us, we know not how or whence, like the rain and snow, which comes down from heaven and waters the earth, and makes it bud and bring forth to give seed to the sower and bread to the eater. So shall be the Lord’s word, which goes out of His mouth; it will not return to Him void, but will accomplish what He pleases, and prosper in that whereto He sends it. He will teach us and guide us in the right way. He will put His word into the mouths of true teachers to show us our duty. He will pour out His spirit upon us, to make us love our duty. In one way and another, we know not how, we shall be taught what is good for England, good for each parish, good for each family. And wealth, peace, and prosperity for rich and poor will be the fruit of obeying the word of God, and giving up our hearts to be led by His spirit. As it was to be in Judæa, of old, if they repented, so will it be with us. They should go forth with joy and do their work in peace. The hills should break before them into singing, and all the trees of the field should clap their hands; instead of thorns should come up timber-trees: instead of briers, garden-shrubs. The whole cultivation of the country was to improve, and be to the Lord for a name, and a sign for ever that the true way to wealth and prosperity is the way of God, justice, mercy to each other, and obedience to the will of Him who made heaven and earth, trees and fruitful fields, rain and sunshine, and gives the blessings of them freely to His children of mankind, in proportion as they look up to Him as a loving Father, and return to him day by day, with childlike repentance, and full desire to amend their lives according to His holy word.

XXIII. THE LOVE OF CHRIST.

For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that
if one died for all, then were all dead. And that He died for all,
that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but
unto Him which died for them, and rose again.—2 COR. v. 14, 15.

WHAT is the use of sermons?—what is the use of books? Here are hundreds and thousands of people hearing weekly and daily what is right, and how many _do_ what is right?—much less _love_ what is right? What can be the reason of this, that men should know the better and choose the worse? What motive can one find out?—what reason or argument can one put before people, to make them do their duty? How can one stir them up to conquer themselves; to conquer their own love of pleasure, laziness, cowardice, conceit, above all their own selfishness, and do simply what is right, morning, noon, and night? That is a question worth asking and considering, for there ought to be some use in sermons and in books; and there ought to be some use in every one of us too. Woe to the man who is of no use! The Lord have mercy on his soul; for he needs it! It is, indeed, worth his while to take any trouble which will teach him a motive for being useful; in plain words, stir him up to do his duty, to do his rights; for a man’s rights are not, as the world thinks, what is right others should do to him, but what is right he should do to others. Our duty is our right, the only thing which is right for us. What motive will constrain us, that is, bind us, and force us to do that?

Will self-interest? Will a man do right because you tell him it is his interest, it will pay him to do it? Look round you and see.—The drunkard knows that drinking will ruin him, and yet he gets drunk. The spendthrift knows that extravagance will ruin him, and yet he throws away his money still. The idler knows that he is wasting his only chance for all eternity, and yet he puts the thought out of his head, and goes on idling. The cheat knows that he is in danger of being almost certainly found out sooner or later; he knows too that he is burdening his own conscience with the curse of inward shame and self-contempt; and yet he goes on cheating. The hard master knows, or ought to know (for there is quite enough to prove it to him) that it would pay him better in the long run to be more merciful, and less covetous; that by grinding those whom he employs down to the last farthing, he degrades them till they become burdens on him and curses to him; that what he gains by high prices, he will lose in the long run by bad debts; that what he saves in low wages, he will pay in extra poor-rates; and that even if he does make money out of the flesh and bones of those beneath him, that money ill gotten is sure to be ill spent, that there is a curse on it, that it brings a curse in the gnawing of a man’s own conscience, and a curse too in the way it flows away from his family as fast as it flowed to them. “He that by usury and unjust gain increases his wealth, shall gather for him that will pity the poor.” So said Solomon of old. And men who worship Mammon find it come true daily, and see that, taking all things together, a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things which he possesses, and that those who make such haste to be rich, fall, as the apostle says, “into temptation and a snare, and pierce themselves through with many sorrows.” Such a man sees his neighbours making money, and making themselves more unhappy, anxious, discontented by it; he sees, in short, that it is not his interest to do nothing but make money and save money: and yet in spite of that, he thinks of nothing else. Self-interest cannot keep him from that sin. I do not believe that self-interest ever kept any man from any _sin_, though it may keep him from many an imprudence. Self-interest may make many a man respectable, but whom did it ever make good? You may as well make house-walls of paper, or take a rush for a walking-stick, as take self-interest to keep you upright, or even prudent. The first shake—and the rush bends, and the paper wall breaks, and a man’s selfish prudence is blown to the winds. Let pleasure tempt him, or ambition, or the lust of making money by speculation; let him take a spite against anyone; let him get into a passion; let his pride be hurt; and he will do the maddest things, which he knows to be entirely contrary to his own interest, just to gratify the fancy of the moment. Those who call themselves philosophers, and fancy that men’s self-interest, if they can only feel it strong enough, would make all men just and merciful to each other, know as little of human nature as they do of God or the devil.

What _will_ make a man to do his duty? Will the hope of heaven? That depends very much upon what you mean by heaven. But what people commonly mean by going to heaven, is—not going to hell. They believe that they must go to either one place or the other. They would much sooner of course stay on earth for ever, because their treasure is here, and their heart too. But that cannot be, and as they have no wish to go to hell, they take up with heaven instead, by way of making the best of a bad matter.

I ask you solemnly, my friends, each one of you, which would you sooner do—stay here on earth, or go to heaven? You need not answer _me_. I am afraid many of you would not dare answer me as you really felt, because you would be ashamed of not liking to go to heaven. But answer God. Answer yourselves in the sight of God. When you keep yourselves back from doing a wrong thing, because you know it is wrong, is it for love of heaven, or for mere fear of being punished in hell? Some of you will answer boldly at once: “For neither one nor the other; when we keep from wrong, it is because we hate and despise what is wrong: when we do right it is because it is right and we ought to do it. We can’t explain it, but there is something in us which tells us we ought to do right.” Very good, my friends, I shall have a word to say to you presently; but in the meantime there are some others who have been saying to themselves: “Well, I know we do right because we are afraid of being punished if we do not do it, but what of that? at all events we get the right thing done, and leave the wrong thing undone, and what more do you want? Why torment us with disagreeable questions as to _why_ we do it?”

Now, my friends, to make the matter simpler, I will take you at your words, for the sake of argument. Suppose you do avoid sin from the fear of hell, does that make what you do _right_? Does that make _you_ right? Does that make your heart right? It is a great blessing to a man’s neighbours, certainly, if he is kept from doing wrong any how—by the fear of hell, or fear of jail, or fear of shame, or fear of ghosts if you like, or any other cowardly and foolish motive—a great blessing to a man’s neighbours: but no blessing, that I can see, to the man himself. He is just the same; his heart is not changed; his heart is no more right in the sight of God, or in the sight of any man of common sense either, than it would be if he did the wrong thing, which he loves and dare not do. You feel that yourselves about other people. You will say “That man has a bad heart, for all his respectable outside. He would be a rogue if he dared, and therefore he _is_ a rogue.” Just so, I say, my friends, take care lest God should say of you, “He would be a sinner if he dared, and therefore he is a sinner.”

How can the hope of heaven, or the fear of hell, make a man do right? The right thing, the true thing for a man, is to be loving, and do loving things; and can fear of hell do that, or hope of heaven either? Can a man make himself affectionate to his children because he fancies he shall be punished if he is not so, and rewarded if he is so? Will the hope of heaven send men out to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, visit the sick, preach the gospel to the poor?—The Papists say it will. I say it will not. I believe that even in those who do these things from hope of heaven and fear of hell, there is some holier, nobler, more spiritual motive, than such everlasting selfishness, such perfect hypocrisy, as to do loving works for others, for the sake of one’s own self-love.

What feeling then is there left which will bind a man to do good, not once in a way, but always and habitually? to do good, not only to himself, but to all around him? I know but of one, my friends, and that is Love. There are many sides to love—admiration, reverence, gratitude, pity, affection—they are all different shapes of that one great spirit of love. Surely all of you have felt its power more or less; how wonderfully it can conquer a man’s whole heart, change his whole conduct. For love of a woman; for pity to those in distress; for admiration for anyone who is nobler and wiser than himself; for gratitude to one who has done him kindness; for loyalty to one to whom he feels he owes a service—a man will dare to do things, and suffer things, which no self-interest or fear in the world could have brought him to. Do you not know it yourselves? Is it not fondness for your wives and children, that will make you slave and stint yourselves of pleasure more than any hope of gain could ever do? But there is no one human being, my friends, whom we can meet among us now, for whom we can feel all these different sorts of love? Surely not: and yet there must be One Person somewhere for whom God intends us to feel them all at once; or else He would not have given all these powers to us, and made them all different branches of one great root of love. There must be One Person somewhere, who can call out the whole love in us—all our gratitude; all our pity; all our admiration; all our loyalty; all our brotherly affection. _And there is One_, my friends. One who has done for us more than ever husband or father, wife or brother, can do to call out our gratitude. One who has suffered for us more than the saddest wretch upon this earth can suffer, to call out our pity. One who is nobler, purer, more lovely in character than all others who ever trod this earth, to call out our admiration. One who is wiser, mightier than all rulers and philosophers, to call out all our reverence. One who is tenderer, more gentle, more feeling-hearted, than the kindest woman who ever sat by a sick bed, to call out all our love. Of whom can I be speaking? Of whom but of Jesus; He who for us stooped out of the heaven of heavens; for us left His eternal glory in the bosom of the Father; for us took upon Him the form of a servant, and was born of a village maiden, and was called the son of a carpenter; for us wandered this earth for thirty years in sorrow and shame; for us gave His back to the scourge, and His face to shameful spitting; for us hung upon the cross and died the death of the felon and the slave. Oh! my friends, if that story will not call out our love, what will? If we cannot admire Christ, whom can we admire? If we cannot be grateful to Christ, to whom can we be grateful? If we cannot pity Christ, whom can we pity? If we cannot feel bound in honour to live for Christ, to work for Christ, to delight in talking of Christ, thinking of Christ, to glory in doing Christ’s commandments to the very smallest point, to feel no sacrifice too great, no trouble too petty, if we can please Christ by it and help forward Christ’s kingdom upon earth—if we cannot feel bound in honour to do that for Christ, what honour is there in us? Again, I say, if we cannot love Christ, whom can we love? If the remembrance of what He has worked for us will not stir us up to work for Him, what will stir us up?

I say it again, we are bound by every tie, by every feeling that can bind man to man, to devote ourselves to Christ, the Man of all men. I say this is no dream or fancy, it is an actual fact which thousands and hundreds of thousands on this earth have felt. Nothing but love to Christ, nothing but loving Him because He first loved us, can constrain and force a man as with a mighty feeling which he cannot resist, to labour day and night for Christ’s sake, and therefore for the sake of God the Father of Christ. What else do you suppose it was which could have stirred up the apostles—above all, that wise, learned, high-born, prosperous man, St. Paul, to leave house and home, and wander in daily danger of his life? What does St. Paul say himself? “The love of Christ constraineth us, because we thus judge, and if one died for all then were all dead, and that He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him who died for them.” And what else could have kept St. Paul through all that labour and sorrow of his own choosing, of which he speaks in the chapter before?—“We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body; for we which live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.”

We may say that St. Paul was an exceedingly benevolent man, and _that_ made him do it; or that he had found out certain new truths and opinions which delighted him very much, and therefore he did it. But St. Paul gives no such account of himself: and we have no right to take anyone’s account but his own. He knew his own heart best. He does not say that he came to preach a scheme of redemption, or opinions about Christ. He says he came to preach nothing but Christ Himself—Christ crucified—to tell people about the Lord he loved, about the Lord who loved him, certain that when they had heard the plain story of Him, their hearts, if they were simple, and true, and loving, would leap up in answer to his words, and find out, as by instinct, what Christ had done for them, what they were to do for Christ. Ay, I believe, my friends—indeed I am certain—from my own reading, that in every age and country, just in proportion as men have loved Christ personally as a man would love another man, just in that proportion have they loved their neighbours, worked for their neighbours, sacrificed their time, their pleasure, their money, to do good to all, for the sake of Him who commanded: “If ye love _ME_, keep my commandments; and my commandment is this, that ye should love one another as I have loved you.” That is the only sure motive. All other motives for doing good or being good, will fail in one case or another case, because they do not take possession of a man’s whole heart, but only of some part of his heart. Love—love to Christ, can alone sweep away a man’s whole heart and soul with it, and renew it, and transfigure it, and make it strong instead of weak, pure instead of foul, gentle instead of fierce, brave instead of being vain and cowardly, and fearing what everyone will say of him. Only love for Christ, who loved all men unto the death, will make us love all men too: not only one here and there who may agree with us or help us; but those who hate us, those who misunderstand us, those who thwart us, ay, even those who disobey and slight not only us, but Jesus Christ Himself. _That_ is the hardest lesson of all to learn; but thousands have learnt it; everyone ought to learn it. In proportion as a man loves Christ, he will learn to love those who do not love Christ. For Christ loves them whether they know it or not; Christ died for them whether they believe it or not; and we must love them because our Saviour loves them.

Oh! my friends, why do so few love Christ? Why do so few live as those who are not their own, but bought with the price of His precious blood and bound to devote themselves, body and soul, to His cause? Why do so many struggle against their sins, while yet they cannot break off those sins, but go struggling and sinning on, hating their sins and yet unable to break through their sins, like birds beating themselves to death against the wires of their cage? Why? Because they do not know Christ. And how can they know Him, unless they read their Bibles with simple, childlike hearts, determined to let the Bible tell its own story: believing that those who walked with Christ on earth, must know best what He was like? Why? Because they will not ask Christ to come and show Himself to them, and make them see Him, and love Him, and admire Him, whether they will or not. Oh! remember, if Christ be the Son of God, the Lord of heaven and earth, we cannot go to Him, poor, weak, ignorant creatures as we are. We cannot ascend up into heaven to bring Christ down. He must come down out of His own great love and condescension, and dwell in our hearts as He has promised to do, if we do but love Him. He must come down and show Himself to us. Oh! read your Bibles—read the story of Christ, and if that does not stir up in you some love for Him, you must have hearts of stone, not flesh and blood. And then go to Him; pray to Him, whether you believe in Him altogether or not, upon the mere chance of His being able to hear you and help you. You would not throw away a chance on earth; will you throw away such a chance in heaven as having the Son of God to help you? Oh, cry to Him; say out of the depths of your heart: “Thou most blessed and glorious Being who ever walked this earth, who hast gone blameless through all sorrow and temptation that man can feel; if Thou dost love anyone, if Thou canst hear anyone, hear me! If thou canst not help me, no one can. I have a hundred puzzling questions which I cannot answer for myself, a hundred temptations which I cannot conquer for myself, a hundred bad habits which I cannot shake off of myself; and they tell me that Thou canst teach me, Thou canst guide me, Thou canst strengthen me, Thou canst take out of my heart this shame and gnawing of an evil conscience. If Thou be the Son of God, make me clean! If it be true that Thou lovest all men, show Thy love to me! If it be true that Thou canst teach all men, teach me! If it be true that Thou canst help all men, help my unbelief, for if Thou dost not, there is no help for me in heaven or earth!” You, who are sinful, distracted, puzzled, broken-hearted, cry to Christ in that way, if you have no better way, and see if He does not hear you. He is not one to break the bruised reed, or quench the smoking flax. He will hear you, for He has heard all who have ever called on Him. Cry to Him from the bottom of your hearts. Tell Him that you do _not_ love Him, and that yet you _long_ to love Him. And see if you do not find it true that those who come to Christ, He will in no wise cast out. He may not seem to answer you the first time, or the tenth time, or for years; for Christ has His own deep, loving, wise ways of teaching each man, and for each man a different way. But try to learn all you can of Him. Try to know Him. Pray to know, and understand Him, and love Him. And sooner or later you will find His words come true, “If a man love me, I and my Father will come to him, and take up our abode with him.” And then you will feel arise in you a hungering and a thirsting after righteousness, a spirit of love, and a desire of doing good, which will carry you up and on, above all that man can say or do against you—above all the laziness, and wilfulness, and selfishness, and cowardice which dwells in the heart of everyone. You will be able to trample it all under foot for the sake of being good and doing good, in the strength of that one glorious thought, “Christ lived and died for me, and, so help me God, I will live and die for Christ.”

XXIV. DAVID’S VICTORY.

Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield:
but I come to thee in the name of the Lord of armies, the God of
Israel, whom thou hast defied.—1 SAMUEL xvii. 45.

WE have been reading to-day the story of David’s victory over the Philistine giant, Goliath. Now I think the whole history of David may teach us more about the meaning of the Old Testament, and how it applies to us, than the history of any other single character. David was the great hero of the Jews; the greatest, in spite of great sins and follies, that has ever been among them; in every point the king after God’s own heart. Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself did not disdain to be called especially the Son of David. David was the author, too, of those wonderful psalms which are now in the mouths and the hearts of Christian people all over the world; and will last, as I believe, till the world’s end, giving out fresh depths of meaning and spiritual experience.

But to understand David’s history, we must go back a little through the lessons which have been read in church the last few Sundays. We find in the eighth and in the twelfth chapters of this same book of Samuel, that the Jews asked Samuel for a king—for a king like the nations round them. Samuel consulted God, and by God’s command chose Saul to be their king; at the same time warning them that in asking for a king they had committed a great and fearful sin, for “the Lord their God was their king.” And the Lord said unto Samuel, that in asking for a king they had rejected God from reigning over them. Now what was this sin which the Jews committed? for the mere having a king cannot be wrong in itself; else God would not have anointed Saul and David kings, and blessed David and Solomon; much less would He have allowed the greater number of Christian nations to remain governed by kings unto this day, if a king had been a wrong thing in itself. I think if we look carefully at the words of the story we shall see what this great sin of the Jews was. In the first place, they asked Samuel to give them a king—not God. This was a sin, I think; but it was only the fruit of a deeper sin—a wrong way of looking at the whole question of kings and government. And that deeper sin was this: they were a free people, and they wanted to become slaves. God had made them a free people; He had brought them up out of the land of Egypt, out of slavery to Pharaoh. He had given them a free constitution. He had given them laws to secure safety, and liberty, and equal justice to rich and poor, for themselves, their property, their children; to defend them from oppression, and over-taxation, and all the miseries of misgovernment. And now they were going to trample under foot God’s inestimable gift of liberty. They wanted a king like the nations round them, they said. They did not see that it was just their glory _not_ to be like the nations round them in that. We who live in a free country do not see the vast and inestimable difference between the Jews and the other nations. The Jews were then, perhaps, so far as I can make out, the only free people on the face of the earth. The nations round them were like the nations in the East, now governed by tyrants, without law or parliament, at the mercy of the will, the fancy, the lust, the ambition, and the cruelty of their despotic kings. In fact, they were as the Eastern people now are—slaves governed by tyrants. Samuel warned the Jews that it would be just the same with them; that neither their property, their families, nor their liberty would be safe under the despots for whom they wished. And yet, in spite of that warning, they would have a king. And why? Because they did not like the trouble of being free. They did not like the responsibility and the labour of taking care of themselves, and asking counsel of God as to how they were to govern themselves. So they were ready to sell themselves to a tyrant, that he might fight for them, and judge for them, and take care of them, while they just ate and drank, and made money, and lived like slaves, careless of what happened to them or their country, provided they could get food, and clothes, and money enough. And as long as they got that, if you will remark, they were utterly careless as to what sort of king they had. They said not one word to Samuel about how much power their king was to have. They made not the slightest inquiry as to whether Saul was wise or foolish, good or bad. They did not ask God’s counsel, or trouble themselves about God; so they proved themselves unworthy of being free. They turned, like a dog to his vomit, and the sow to her wallowing in the mire, cowardly back again into slavery; and God gave them what they asked for. He gave them the sort of king they wanted; and bitterly they found out their mistake during several hundred years of continually increasing slavery and misery.

There is a deep lesson for us, my friends, in all this. And that is, that God’s gifts are not fit for us, unless we are more or less fit for them. That to him that makes use of what he has, more shall be given; but from him who does not, will be taken away even what he has. And so even the inestimable gift of freedom is no use unless men have free hearts in them. God sets a man free from his sins by faith in Jesus Christ; but unless that man uses His grace, unless he desires to be free inwardly as well as outwardly—to be free not only from the punishment of his sins, but from the sins themselves; unless he is willing to accept God’s offer of freedom, and go boldly to the throne of grace, and there plead his cause with his heavenly Father face to face, without looking to any priest, or saint, or other third person to plead for him; if, in short, a man has not a free spirit in him, the grace of God will become of no effect in him, and he will receive the spirit of bondage (of slavery, that is), again to fear. Perhaps he will fall back more or less into popery and half-popish superstitions; perhaps, as we see daily round us, he will fall back again into antinomianism, into the slavery of those very sins from which God once delivered him. And just the same is it with a nation. When God has given a nation freedom, then, unless there be a free heart in the people and true independence, which is dependence on God and not on man; unless there be a spirit of justice, mercy, truth, trust of God in them, their freedom will be of no effect; they will only fall back into slavery, to be oppressed by fresh tyrants.

So it was with the great Spanish colonies in South America a few years ago. God gave them freedom from the tyranny of Spain; but what advantage was it to them? Because there was no righteousness in them; because they were a cowardly, profligate, false, and cruel people, therefore they only became the slaves of their own lusts; they turned God’s great grace of freedom into licentiousness, and have been ever since doing nothing but cutting each other’s throats; every man’s hand against his own brother; the slaves of tyrants far more cruel than those from whom they had escaped.

Look at the French people, too. Three times in the last sixty years has God delivered them from evil rulers, and given them a chance of freedom; and three times have they fallen back into fresh slavery. And why? Because they will not be righteous; because they will be proud, boastful, lustful, godless, cruel, making a lie and loving it. God help them! We are not here to judge them, but to take warning ourselves. Now there is no use in boasting of our English freedom, unless we have free and righteous hearts in us; for it is not constitutions, and parliaments, and charters which make a nation free; they are only the shell, the outside of freedom. True freedom is of the heart and spirit, and comes down from above, from the Spirit of God; for where the Spirit of God is, there is liberty, and there only. Oh, every one of you! high and low, rich and poor, pray and struggle to get your own hearts free; free from the sins which beset us Englishmen in these days; free from pride, prejudice, and envy; free from selfishness and covetousness; free from unchastity and drunkenness; free from the conceit that England is safe, while all the rest of the world is shaking. Be sure that the spirit of freedom, like every other good and perfect gift, is from above, and comes down from God, the Father of lights; and that to keep that spirit with us, we must keep ourselves worthy of it, and not expect to remain free if we indulge ourselves in mean and slavish sins.

So the Jews got the king they wanted—a king to look at and be proud of. Saul was, we read, a head taller than all the rest of the people, and very handsome to look at. And he was brave enough, too, in mere fighting, when he was awakened and stirred up to act now and then; but there was no wisdom in him; no real trust in God in him. He took God for an idol, like the heathens’ false gods, which had to be pleased and kept in good humour by the smell of burnt sacrifices; and not for a living, righteous Person, who had to be obeyed. We read of Saul’s misconduct in these respects, in the thirteenth and fifteenth chapters of the First Book of Samuel. That was only the beginning of his wickedness. The worst points in his character, as I shall show in my next sermon, came out afterwards. But still, his disobedience was enough to make God cast him off, and leave him to go his own way to ruin.

But God was not going to cast off His people whom He loved. He deals not with mankind after their sins, neither rewards them according to their iniquities; and so he chose out for them a king after His own heart—a true king of God’s making, not a mere sham one of man’s making. You may think it strange why God should have given them a second king; why, as soon as Saul died, He did not let them return back to their old freedom. But that is not God’s way. He brings good out of evil in His great mercy. But it is always by strange winding paths. His ways are not as our ways. First, God gives man what is perfectly proper for him at that time; sets man in his right place; and then when man falls from that, God brings him, not back to the place from which he fell, but on forward into something far higher and better than what he fell from. He put Adam into Paradise. Adam fell from it, and God made use of the fall to bring him into a state far better than Paradise—into the kingdom of God—into everlasting life—into the likeness of Christ, the new Adam, who is a quickening, life-giving spirit, while the old Adam was, at best, only a living soul.

So with the church of Christian men. After the apostles’ time, and even during the apostles’ time, as we read from the Epistle to the Galatians, they fell away, step by step, from the liberty of the gospel, till they sunk entirely into popish superstition. And yet God brought good out of that evil. He made that very popery a means of bringing them back at the Reformation into clearer light than any of the first Christians ever had had. He is going on step by step still, bringing Christians into a clearer knowledge of the gospel than even the Reformers had.

And so with the Jews. They fell from their liberty and chose a king. And yet God made use of those kings of theirs, of David, of Solomon, of Josiah, and Hezekiah, to teach them more and more about Himself and His law, and to teach all nations, by their example, what a nation should be, and how He deals with one.

But now let us see what this true king, David, was like, whom God chose, that He might raise, by his means, the Jews higher than they ever yet had been, even in their days of freedom. Now remark, in the first place, that David was not the son of any very great man. His father seems to have been only a yeoman. He was not bred up in courts. We find that when Samuel was sent to anoint David king, he was out keeping his father’s sheep in the field. And though, no doubt, he had shown signs of being a very remarkable youth from the first, yet his father thought so little of him, that he was going to pass him over, and caused all his seven elder sons to pass before Samuel for his choice first, though there seems to have been nothing particular in them, except that some of them were fine men and brave soldiers. So David seems to have been overlooked, and thought but little of in his youth—and a very good thing for him. It is a good thing for a young man to bear the yoke in his youth, that he may be kept humble and low; that he may learn to trust in God, and not in his own wit. And even when Samuel anointed David, he anointed him privately. His brothers did not know what a great honour was in store for him; for we find, in the lesson which we have just read, that when David came down to the camp, his elder brother spoke contemptuously to him, and treated him as a child. “I know thy pride,” he said, “and the naughtiness of thy heart. Thou art come down to see the battle.” While David answers humbly enough: “What have I done? is there not a cause?” feeling that there was more in him than his brother gave him credit for; though he dare not tell his brother, hardly, perhaps, dare believe himself, what great things God had prepared for him. So it is yet—a prophet has no honour in his own country. How many a noble-hearted man there is, who is looked down upon by those round him! How many a one is despised for a dreamer, or for a Methodist, by shallow worldly people, who in God’s sight is of very great price! But God sees not as man sees. He makes use of the weak people of this world to confound the strong. He sends about His errands not many noble, not many mighty; but the poor man, rich in faith, like David. He puts down the mighty from their seat, and exalts the humble and meek. He takes the beggar from the dunghill, that He may set him among the princes of His people. So He has been doing in all ages. So He will do even now, in some measure, with everyone like David, let him be as low as he will in the opinion of this foolish world, who yet puts his trust utterly in God, and goes about all his work, as David did, in the name of the Lord of hosts. Oh! if a poor man feels that God has given him wit and wisdom—feels in him the desire to rise and better himself in life, let him be sure that the only way to rise is David’s plan—to keep humble and quiet till God shall lift him up, trusting in God’s righteousness and love to raise him, and deliver him, and put him in that station, be it high or low, in which he will be best able to do God’s work, or serve God’s glory.

And now for the chapter from which the text is taken, which relates to us David’s first great public triumph—his victory over Goliath the giant. I will not repeat it to you, because everyone here who has ears to hear or a heart to feel ought to have been struck with every word in that glorious story. All I will try to do is, to show you how the working of God’s Spirit comes out in David in every action of his on that glorious day. We saw just now David’s humbleness and gentleness, the fruits of God’s Spirit in him, in his answer to his proud and harsh brother. Look next at David’s spirit of trust in God, which, indeed, is the key to his whole life; that is the reason why he was the man after God’s own heart—not for any virtues of his own, but for his unshaken continual faith in God. David saw in an instant why the Israelites were so afraid of the giant; because they had no faith in God. They forgot that they were the armies of the living God. David did not: “Who is this uncircumcised, that he shall defy the armies of the living God?” And therefore, when Saul tried to dissuade him from attacking the Philistine, his answer is still the same—full of faith in God. He knew well enough what a fearful undertaking it was to fight with this giant, nearly ten feet high, armed from head to foot with mail, which perhaps no sword or spear which he could use could pierce. It was no wonder, humanly speaking, that all the Jews fled from him—that his being there stopped the whole battle. In these days, fifty such men would make no difference in a battle; bullets and cannon-shot would mow down them like other men: but in those old times, before firearms were invented, when all battles were hand-to-hand fights, and depended so much on each man’s strength and courage, that one champion would often decide the victory for a whole army, the amount of courage which was required in David is past our understanding; at least we may say, David would not have had it but for his trust in God, but for his feeling that he was on God’s side, and Goliath on the devil’s side, unjustly invading his country in self-conceit, and cruelty, and lawlessness. Therefore he tells Saul of his victory over the lion and the bear. You see again, here, the Spirit of God showing in his _modesty_. He does not boast or talk of his strength and courage in killing the lion and the bear; for he knew that that strength and courage came from God, not from himself; therefore he says that the Lord _delivered him_ from them. He knew that he had been only doing his duty in facing them when they attacked his father’s sheep, and that it was God’s mercy which had protected him in doing his duty. He felt now, that if no one else would face this brutal giant, it was _his_ duty, poor, simple, weak youth as he was, and therefore he trusted in God to bring him safe through this danger also. But look again how the Spirit of God shows in his prudence. He would not use Saul’s armour, good as it might be, because he was not accustomed to it. He would use his own experience, and fight with the weapons to which he had been accustomed—a sling and stone. You see he was none of those presumptuous and fanatical dreamers who tempt God by fancying that He is to go out of His way to work miracles for them. He used all the proper and prudent means to kill the giant, and trusted to God to bless them. If he had been presumptuous, he might have taken the first stone that came to hand, or taken only one, or taken none at all, and expected the giant to fall down dead by a miracle. But no; he _chooses five smooth_ stones out of the brook. He tried to get the best that he could, and have more ready if his first shot failed. He showed no distrust of God in that; for he trusted in God to keep him cool, and steady, and courageous in the fight, and that, he knew, God alone could do. The only place, perhaps, where he could strike Goliath to hurt him was on the face, because every other part of him was covered in metal armour. And he knew that, in such danger as he was, God’s Spirit only could keep his eye clear and his hand steady for such a desperate chance as hitting that one place.

So he went; and as he went his courage rose higher and higher; for unto him that hath shall more be given; and so he began to boast too—but not of himself, like the giant. He boasted of the living God, who was with him. He ran boldly up to the Philistine, and at the first throw, struck on the forehead, and felled him dead.

So it is; many a time the very blessing which we expect to get only with great difficulty, God gives us at our first trial, to show that He is the Giver, to cheer up our poor doubting hearts, and show us that He is able, and willing too, to give exceeding abundantly more than we can ask or think.

So David triumphed: and yet that triumph was only the beginning of his troubles. Sad and weary years had he to struggle on before he gained the kingdom which God had promised him. So it is often with God’s elect. He gives them blessings at first, to show them that He is really with them; and then He lets them be evil-entreated by tyrants, and suffer persecution, and wander out of the way in the wilderness, that they may be made perfect by suffering, and purified, as gold is in the refiner’s fire, from all selfishness, conceit, ambition, cowardliness, till they learn to trust God utterly, to know their own weakness, and His strength, and to work only for Him, careless what becomes of their own poor worthless selves, provided they can help His kingdom to come, and get His will to be done on earth as it is in heaven.

And now, my friends, surely there is a lesson in all this for you. Do you wish to rise like David? Of course not one in ten thousand can rise as high, but we may all rise somewhat, if not in rank, yet still, what is far better, in spirit, in wisdom, in usefulness, in manfulness. Do you wish to rise so? then follow David’s example. Be truly brave, be truly modest, and in order to be truly brave and truly modest, that is, be truly manly, be truly godly. Trust in God; trust in God; that is the key to all greatness. Courage, modesty, truth, honesty, and gentleness; all things, which are noble, lovely, and of good report; all things, in short, which will make you men after God’s own heart, are all only the different fruits of that one blessed life-giving root—FAITH IN GOD.

XXV. DAVID’S EDUCATION.

Made perfect through sufferings.—HEBREWS ii. 10.