{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_33515/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_33515","id":"gutenberg_33515","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/33515","summary":null,"tags":["Bible -- Criticism, interpretation, etc.","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Congregational churches -- Sermons","Sermons, English"],"text":"MISREAD PASSAGES\n    OF\n    SCRIPTURE.\n\n\n    BY\n    J. BALDWIN BROWN, B.A.,\n    _Author of \u201cThe Divine Life in Man,\u201d \u201cThe Home Life,\u201d &c., &c._\n\n    New York:\n    CARLTON & LANAHAN,\n    805, BROADWAY.\n    1869.\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE.\n\n\nThe accompanying Sermons on \u201cMisread Passages of Scripture\u201d form part of\na series which the author projected, but which through ill health he has\nbeen unable to complete. He sends them forth in this imperfect form, in\ncompliance with the wish of the publishers; and in the belief too that\nthe topics of some of them will not be without interest, in the conflict\nof thought on theological subjects which waxes rather than wanes year by\nyear.\n\nThe reader will see that much space has not been occupied with critical\ndiscussions; nor has the author gone out of his way to correct the\nEnglish version of the Scriptures. He appreciates fully the value of\ncritical inquiries; but it is wonderful how the sense of leading\npassages of the Bible gets moulded, apart from, and even in defiance of,\ncritical considerations, by the bias of the various theological schools.\nEach school makes, if not its own version of the Bible, its own\ninterpretation of the leading passages; and tradition plays an important\npart in the Protestant as well as in the Roman Church. The text being\naccepted, each party makes its own version of it, and widely different\nsenses are extracted from the same words. Hence it happens that\nimportant passages of Scripture have certain ideas associated with them\nin the popular mind, which, if they are erroneous, are not to be\ncorrected by a simple announcement, on competent critical authority, of\nthe true rendering of the text.\n\nThe author of this little volume believes that there are some very\npopular but very detrimental misapprehensions, not of the true reading\nonly, but of the true bearing of many important passages; and he offers\nthis slight contribution towards a true understanding of them in the\nearnest hope that it may stimulate some so to search the Scriptures as\nto find in them not the confirmation of cherished dogmas, far less\nstones for the slings of theological war, but the Word of Eternal Life.\n\n                                                   J. BALDWIN BROWN.\n\n            CLAPHAM,\n    _New Year\u2019s Day_, 1869.\n\n\n\n\nMisread Passages of Scripture.\n\n\n\n\nI.\n\nTHE KINGDOM OF CHRIST.\n\n    \u201cMy kingdom is not of this world.\u201d\u2014JOHN xviii. 36.\n\n\nPerhaps there is no passage of Scripture more constantly misunderstood\nthan these simple words; and certainly there is no misunderstanding of\nScripture which has exercised a more detrimental influence on the life\nand development of the church. The whole passage contains the very\nmarrow of the doctrine of Christ concerning His kingdom. It is the basis\nof its constitution. To this, its subjects have rightly looked in all\nages for instruction as to its fundamental spirit, principles, and aims.\nWords more solemn, more pregnant, were never spoken in this world, in\nthis universe, than these. They were spoken at the very crisis of\nuniversal destinies. They form the dividing line between the two\neternities. From eternity all things had been working towards that\nhour\u2014the consummation of the incarnation; and to eternity the influence\nof that hour would go forth, remoulding, regenerating all the worlds.\nBeyond any words that have ever been spoken, these words are worthy of\nintense and reverent attention. They are the words with which the Son of\nGod passed on to the cross, that He might pass up to the throne.\n\nThe two kings stood there in presence. The representative of the king of\nthis world, who wielded all its force and guided all its movements, the\nman who had but to nod and the whole civilized world trembled and\nobeyed; and a King, the elements of whose kingship few could discern,\nwho wielded a strange power and produced a deep impression that He had a\nright to rule over men, but who wore no signs of royalty and laid no\nclaim to the possession of this world\u2019s thrones. Nay, a kingdom had been\nforced on Him, and He escaped as from a deadly danger from the homage of\nHis subjects, while He spake to them such searching spiritual words that\nthey conceived a great dread of His kingly commands and claims. He bade\nthem begin to rule themselves when they were dreaming of a splendid rule\nover the gentiles; and He turned inwards on the inner obliquity,\nfoulness, and deformity, those eyes which were watching eagerly for the\nsigns of an approaching advent of a glorious, celestial imperator to the\nworld. Jesus looked on Pilate\u2019s kingship, and fathomed it perfectly. He\nknew from whence the power sprang, and by what springs it was fed, which\nseated Pilate\u2019s master on the world\u2019s imperial throne. Pilate found the\nroyalty of Jesus unfathomable; none of his worldly experiences helped\nhim to understand it. Art Thou a king then, poor, worn, tear-stained\nOutcast, forsaken of every subject, of every friend, in the hour of Thy\nbitter need? And yet the nascent smile of scorn was checked by something\nwhich cast a spell even on that worn-out profligate\u2019s heart. That lonely\nwasted Man there had that about Him which made the representative of the\nworld\u2019s master afraid. It seemed mere idle talk to a man like Pilate: \u201ca\nkingdom not of this world;\u201d \u201cwitnessing to truth;\u201d \u201cdisciples of the\ntruth:\u201d it was all childish to the trained intellect of this experienced\nruler; and yet there seemed to be some power beyond the grasp of his\nintellect, which something within him recognised, and which might create\nand rule a kingdom after a fashion which till then had never even\ncrossed his dreams. But to him the mystery remained insoluble. He wrote\na title to which his instinct gave a reality that his intellect denied,\n\u201cJESUS OF NAZARETH, KING OF THE JEWS.\u201d And here in this passage we have\nthe Lord\u2019s own declaration of the constitution and aims of His kingdom;\nthe kingdom which, from that hour, has been the ruling element in the\nhistory of this world, and, as we learn from the Apocalypse, of all the\nworlds of the great universe of God. And men persistently misread it as\nthey misread Him, and employ His words as they employed His works, to\nfrustrate the purpose for which He entered into the world.\n\nLet us see how the misunderstanding of these words arose.\n\n\u201cMy kingdom is not of this world:\u201d literally \u201cnot from,\u201d originally \u201cout\nof\u201d this world. A clear understanding of the full force of this will\ngive us the clue to the interpretation of our Lord\u2019s words. There is an\nold sense of the preposition \u201cof,\u201d which closely corresponds with the\nfull sense of the word employed in the Greek, expressing \u201cout of,\u201d\n\u201cspringing from.\u201d But \u201cof,\u201d like other words and other things, in the\ncourse of time has got weakened by the wear and tear of life; and the\nsense \u201cbelonging to,\u201d \u201cconnected with,\u201d is its natural suggestion to\nmodern ears; whereby the sense of our Lord\u2019s words has been grievously\nweakened too. Did the Lord mean to say, \u201cMy kingdom has nothing to do\nwith the institutions and arrangements of the worldly life of men: you\nneed not fear any rivalry, delegate of Caesar; My kingdom is in a quite\ndifferent sphere, and will keep there, without touching yours: it only\nhas to do with men as spiritual beings, with a view to their final\ndestiny in the eternal state: keep to your secular province, and we\nshall never cross or clash: the two spheres are quite separate, and\nnothing but mischief can come of their commerce: I leave you to rule;\nleave Me to teach, unfettered by conditions; for I aim at no influence\non earth, My one object is to persuade men to live a life separate from\nthis world, as much detached as possible from its interests and\npursuits, that they may enter into My heavenly kingdom when death\nreleases them, and where the sphere will be all My own\u201d? Was this His\nmeaning? or did He mean to say, \u201cMy kingdom is not out of this world; it\ncomes down into this world from on high: this world is, like man, made\nof the dust of the earth, \u2018of the earth, earthy,\u2019 except some spirit\nbreathe into it from the higher world\u2014then it lives: My kingdom comes\nto the kingdoms of this world, the interests, aims, pursuits, and common\nlife of men, like this breath of Divine inspiration: without it they all\nlanguish and must perish; with it they live: it is a descent of heavenly\ntruth, heavenly love, heavenly life, into the sphere of the earthly, to\nmake it live anew; the earth languishes for My kingdom, for without Me\nit dies: leave Me free to fulfil My mission, not because this world is\nnothing to Me, and My kingdom will not trouble itself with its affairs,\nbut because My truth, My life, My love are needful to the life of this\nworld as vital air to the body; because all business, all domestic life,\nall friendship, all society, all government, all thought, all art, all\nlearning are waiting, are panting, for the living baptism which I bring.\nI am not of the world, My kingdom is not of the world, in the springs of\nits influence; it is essentially of heaven, and from heaven: but it\nseeks the world as the sphere of its influence, the field of its\nconquest, the realm of its rule. With yearning desire, eagerly as man\nyearns for fellowship, a friend for the brother of his spirit, the\nbridegroom for the bride, I seek and claim this world as My own\u201d?\n\nHere are the two ideas of the meaning of these words of our Lord set\nfairly against each other. The number of those who would deliberately\nadopt and justify the former is happily growing less year by year. Were\nwe caring only for formal misunderstandings of important passages of\nScripture in these discourses, it would be hardly worth while to discuss\nseriously a perversion which is vanishing with the changed aspects of\nthe times. But the spirit, the savour, of an error continues long to\nwork after it has been formally exploded; and we discuss this passage\nin this present discourse under the strong conviction that the false\nview which we have described above continues to tincture very deeply our\ntheology, our preaching, and our social ideas and habits, even in those\nwho would utterly repudiate the formal idea of the Lord\u2019s kingdom on\nwhich it rests.\n\nSome of the results of this misconception of the true nature of the\nkingdom have been as follow:\u2014\n\n1. The idea has been widely entertained that the aim of the Lord has\nbeen, not to save the world, but to save a chosen few out of the world,\nleaving calmly the great mass to go to wreck. The favourite notion has\nbeen that the Lord\u2019s disciples have been in all ages, and still will be,\nan isolated band, like Israel in Egypt; hating the world around them,\nhated by it, and waiting only the happy opportunity, the hour of\ndeliverance, to pass out of it triumphant, and leave it to perish by the\nstrokes of the Lord\u2019s avenging hand. This idea, that the Church is a\nlittle band of chosen ones in the midst of a hostile and reprobate\nworld, is a very favourite one with the disciples in all ages; and it is\nnourished by the tone in which the apostles wrote and spoke to the few\npoor men and women who were to begin the work of restoration, and who\nneeded to be upborne against tremendous pressure by the assurance of the\nspecial and personal intervention of the God of heaven on behalf of the\nlittle company whom He loved. They needed a strong support against a\nworld which was bent on destroying them as it had destroyed their Lord;\nand so the apostle wrote, \u201cBut ye are a chosen generation, a royal\npriesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people, that ye should show forth\nthe praises of Him who hath called you out of darkness into His\nmarvellous light. Which in time past were not a people, but are now the\npeople of God; which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained\nmercy.\u201d \u201cFear not, little flock; it is your Father\u2019s good pleasure to\ngive you the kingdom.\u201d That the disciples have been the few in all ages\nis alas only too palpable to those whose sight pierces no farther than\nElijah\u2019s, and who cannot fathom the secret things which are unveiled to\nthe eye of God. But it is a dark heresy to believe that the Lord meant\nthat His own should be the few in all ages, and that the rescue of an\nelection from the impending ruin can satisfy the heart of Him who cried,\nas the hour of His anguish drew nigh, \u201cAnd I, if I be lifted up from the\nearth, will draw all men unto me.\u201d\n\n2. Closely associated with this is the notion that all which belongs to\nthe earthly life of men has a certain taint of evil upon it, is corrupt\nand corrupting in its very nature; so that if a disciple touches it he\nmust touch it like pitch, cautiously, and expect contamination with all\nhis care. That if he must enter into the world\u2019s activities, buy, sell,\nand get gain, marry and give in marriage, rule households and take part\nin the government of states, he must do it under protest and under the\nspur of a sharp necessity, and is bound to long anxiously for the time\nwhen the need of all this will be over, and he will be free to meditate\non Divine things and to praise through eternity. If Christ\u2019s kingdom be\nnot of this world, he argues, then all which is of this world, politics,\nliterature, art, society, trade cannot be of Christ\u2019s kingdom; and His\nsubjects, hampered by these evil cares for a time, must be ever looking\nforward eagerly to the day when they will be freed from them for ever.\nAnd this is the meaning which is constantly veiled under the phrase,\n\u201cthe coming of the Lord Jesus,\u201d and expressed in the prayer, \u201cEven so,\nLord Jesus, come quickly.\u201d\n\n3. Then further there is the notion that it is only in a very partial\nsense that we can talk of Christ\u2019s kingdom here, that it belongs\nessentially to the future and eternal state, and can only be fully\ncomprehended by him who can separate it in thought from all the\nblemishes and accidents of time, and behold it, pure from the defilement\nand degradation of the earthly (that is the human) in this world, in its\nglorious Divine form in eternity.\n\nAnd surely there is a great truth here. The perfect image of it, as\nPlato said of the polity of which he dreamed, abides only in the\nheavens; and we need to refresh both courage and hope, when we see the\nblots and fractures of the kingdom here, by contemplating the pure form\nof it which abides in the heavens with God. But dreams and\ncontemplations will never bring it down from the heavens; it is here, or\nnowhere. It is this earthly image which is to be translated into that\nheavenly likeness; and if we would be near to and like the King, we must\nfollow Him into the very heart of the world\u2019s business and throngs, not\nthat we may seek His chosen there and rescue them from the world, but\nthat we may rescue the world from all that makes it other than Christ\u2019s\nkingdom, by driving out of it \u201ceverything that defileth, or worketh\nabomination, or maketh a lie,\u201d and thus purify its atmosphere, cleanse\nthe ducts and channels of its life, invigorate its energy, and\nconsecrate its activity, till it grows like its ideal in heaven.\n\nAnd what has been the history of the kingdom? Since the first hour of\nits establishment, perpetual intervention in an action upon the worldly\naffairs of men. It is literally true that Dean Milman\u2019s history of Latin\nChristianity is the completest history of the Western European world\nduring the middle ages, extant in our language. And why? Because during\nthe middle ages, and until now, the Church has been the backbone of\nhuman society. All man\u2019s dearest interests and hopes have gathered\naround the kingdom; over its destinies, and under its banners, all man\u2019s\ndeadliest battles have been fought. \u201cYes!\u201d it may be answered; \u201cbut this\nis just the corruption of the kingdom; because it mixed itself with\nworldly affairs, and suffered worldly men to administer it, it became\nthe centre and pivot of all the movements of human society.\u201d But this\nstate of things was at any rate the confession that the men of this\nworld could not get on without the kingdom, that when it was once\nrevealed it inevitably tended to gather around itself all the vital\nactivity of the world. Since Christ appeared, men have felt everywhere\nthat they must place themselves and their concerns in some kind of vital\nrelation to the Church. And this has been the key to the public life of\nChristendom; in fact it has made Christendom in opposition to\nheathendom, as the province of all the most cultivated and progressive\nraces of mankind. The forms of relation which men created were no doubt\nworldly enough; but the sense that they needed the relation, and must\nfind it to live out a true man\u2019s life was not worldly, but true, noble,\nand Divine. The Church from the very hour of the ascension of its Head,\nbegan to act on human society as incomparably the most powerful\ninfluence extant in the world. It literally re-made society from the\nvery foundations. Far from contenting itself with mastering the will of\nindividual subjects, and wooing them away from the pursuits and\ninterests of the world around them, it entered the homes of men, and\ncast out the harpy passions which had befouled them; it gave marriage\nnew sacredness, parents new authority and new responsibility, and\nchildren new grounds of obedience to their sires. It entered the market\nand established just weights and balances, honest word, and loyal trust.\nTheft could be no virtue, and lying no graceful accomplishment, where it\nestablished its reign. It entered states, and changed tyrants into\nkings, serfs into subjects, slaves into freemen, nobles into guardians,\npastors, and captains of industry to the poor. That very Rome which\ndoomed the King to a malefactor\u2019s death, it entered as a conqueror, and\nit broke that proud empire to fragments. The time came when Rome could\nlive no longer in the moral atmosphere which it created; and then it\nsummoned purer, nobler, hardier races to occupy the homes and to till\nthe fields which Rome had depopulated and destroyed. It introduced its\nlaws into every code in Christendom. King Alfred begins his statute\nbook by reciting the laws of the kingdom of God.[A] In truth it has\npenetrated and permeated every vein and fibre of human society, and it\nhas made it all anew. There is literally nothing with which you in this\nnineteenth century can concern yourself,\u2014trade, literature, politics,\nscience, art, government, social and domestic life, human rights, human\nduties, human powers, human fears, aspirations, hopes and joys,\u2014there\nis not one element of our complex social and political life which is not\nwhat it is, because eighteen centuries ago the Lord Jesus witnessed this\ngood confession before Pilate \u201cThou sayest that which I am, a king.\u201d\nFrom the world it has asked nothing, taken nothing, but its reverence\nand love: of the world in that sense it has never been. But in the\nworld, and through the world, the stream of its heavenly virtue and life\nhas wandered, and the wilderness and the solitary place have been made\nglad by it, and the desert has rejoiced and blossomed as the rose. It\nhas sought studiously to mix itself up with all the relations and\ninterests of mankind; it has a word about them all, it has a law for\nthem all; the weight in the pedlar\u2019s bag, the sceptre of the monarch on\nthe throne, are alike under its rule and cognisance, for it claims man\nas man to be its subject. It says that man was made to be the subject of\nthis kingdom, and all man\u2019s life is the true domain of its sway. It\nlooks upon this worldly life of ours\u2014our life as men of this world\u2014as\nthe most solemn, most sacred thing in this universe; God\u2019s school of\nculture of the beings who are to fill His heavenly kingdom through\neternity. It cannot spare one relation of men, one art, one industry,\none field of activity, one interest, one joy, one hope, one love, from\nits domain of empire. The whole man, the whole world, in the wholeness\nof its life, it claims absolutely; and it aims to present the whole man\nand his whole life, body, soul, and spirit, perfect before the presence\nof His glory at last. \u201cI beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies\nof God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable\nunto God, which is your reasonable service.\u201d\n\nAnd now let me ask your attention to some principles which are suggested\nby a true understanding of this statement of our Lord.\n\n1. His kingdom is not _of_ this world. It is from above, and all the\nsprings of its power are above. The attempt to help it from beneath, to\nbring the strength, the riches, the honour of this world to help the\nSpirit who is from above in the work of the kingdom, cripples its\nenergies, frustrates its aims, and exhausts its life. Its one power is\nthe power of truth; \u201cto this end was I born, for this cause came I into\nthe world, that I should bear witness unto the truth,\u201d said its Founder\nand King. It has absolutely no other power. \u201cEvery one that is of the\ntruth heareth my voice;\u201d and all the efforts of men to force, tempt, or\nbribe mankind to support it, but silence that witness, which is all that\nit asks to win the world to itself.\n\nOne can understand the argument of those who support a state\nestablishment of religion and the whole apparatus by which men seek to\nwin for it the supremacy to which it rightfully aspires. They say, \u201cIt\nis of God, it is the heavenly truth, it is worthy of all that men can\ngive to it and of all the power which man can bring to bear on the\naccomplishment of its work: the state does itself honour, and gives\nitself stability by supporting it; monarchs are never so royal as in\nlending to it their influence; all the world\u2019s riches are never so\nprecious as when they are poured into its treasuries, and are employed\nin the promotion of its ends.\u201d\n\nAnd this is no more than the simple truth. The kingdom is worthy to\nreceive the tribute of all the monarchs, the nobles, the wise ones, the\nrich ones of the world: the more it has of the good-will and help of\nevery man, from the king to the beggar, the better for the kingdom, the\nbetter for mankind. All that we say is, Let it win them. Let it win in\nits own way, by putting forth its own power, the nursing care of the\nnoble, the rich, and the wise. Leave it to employ its own spiritual\nforce to do this and all at which it aims. Lend your heart to it, your\nhand, your tongue, your pen, your purse, and everything else which it\ncan command and use to win its way to human hearts. But if you bring\nyour human authority to bear to win from your subjects and dependants an\noutward homage, if you endow it with dead gifts administered by the\nscribes and lawyers of this world, if you lend worldly pomp and power to\nthose who claim to be its ministers, you oppress and stifle it, and\ndestroy its power of progress in the world. It wants free air, the free\nair of willing obedience, loyalty, and love. Rob it of that, it dies. It\nis not of this world. Every gift that is wrung for it from an unwilling\nhand beggars it. Its riches are the gifts of free will. Mere gold, with\nno spirit of loving loyalty in the giver, is worse than dross to it; it\ncankers and eats into its life. The power which has troops of soldiers\nand legal tribunals behind it blights it by its very breath. All that it\nasks is freedom; power to do what Christ did, in the way in which He did\nit; power to bear witness to the truth, and weaken the long silent\nechoes of truth in human hearts. We have cut off its heavenly\nconnection, and rooted it in the powers and policies of this world; and\nnow we wonder that it languishes, and that one half the people in a\nChristian kingdom believe nothing of its truth and care nothing for its\nKing. Oh! for the days of apostolic trust and simplicity, when the\ndisciples, \u201ccontinuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking\nbread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and\nsingleness of heart, praising God and having favour with all the\npeople.\u201d Oh! for the baptism of Pentecostal fire from on high. Oh! for\none of the days of the Son of Man, whom the Father sent into the world,\narmed with no authority but that of truth, clothed with no power but\nthat of love. How eagerly then, eager as the thirsty earth when the\nsound of rain is in the sky, would men drink in the words of Him who had\nmore faith in the power of truth to conquer hearts than in the arms of\ntwelve legions of angels, and whose supreme trust was in the\nall-mastering force of a love stronger than death\u2014a love that laid down\nits life that death might not for ever tyrannise over the world.\n\n2. Make your life, your man\u2019s life in its wholeness the domain of its\nempire in you. Beware of a double allegiance. How earnestly and\nemphatically the Lord denounces it: \u201cYe cannot serve God and Mammon.\u201d\nBeware of yielding to Christ a part of the empire which is all His own.\nBeware of that fatal distinction between the man as a Christian, and the\nman as a citizen, the man as a man of business, which has grown out of\nthe misunderstanding of the principle laid down by our Lord. Christian\nsaint, Christian worshipper, Christian citizen, Christian merchant,\nChristian parent, be Christian wholly. Refuse to touch a thing in any\ndepartment of your activity, which will not square with your Christian\nideas and aims. Let your daily transactions be as freely open to\nChrist\u2019s inspection as to the world\u2019s honourable judgment: let it be the\naim of your life at home, abroad, in the shop, the exchange, the forum,\nto show what the laws of Christ\u2019s kingdom can make of a life which is\nsquare with their precepts. Adorn the doctrine of God your Saviour, not\nby fellowship with His people only, but by winning men to worship Him by\nthe spectacle of your diligence, your industry, your purity, your truth,\nyour charity, gentleness, patience, faith, and hope in God; and when\nthey learn that these are the King\u2019s gifts to you, at once the signs and\nthe fruits of His reign, they will, like the people of old, break forth\ninto thanksgiving, and confess joyfully that God is with you of a\ntruth.\n\n3. Count it your chief work on earth to be His fellow-helper in His\nkingdom; help to win for Him the empire of the world.\n\nHis kingdom is not of this world. But it is over this world, and it\nclaims this world as its own. The Lord has a heart so large that only\nthe world can fill it. He uttered its whole longing as He entered the\ncloud of the last agony:\u2014\u201cAnd I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will\ndraw all men unto me.\u201d Bear witness in the world that the one thing\nneedful to it is Christ. Tell statecraft that it needs the laws of the\nkingdom, to regulate its methods and to indicate its ends. Tell monarchs\nthat they need to observe _the_ Monarch, that their rule may be a\nbenediction to loyal subjects instead of a curse to cringing slaves.\nTell citizens that they need to become citizens of this kingdom, that\nthe commonwealth on earth may be the image and the vestibule of the\ncommonwealth of the skies. Tell classes that they need the instructions\nof this Master, that society may be less a den of selfish contentions,\nand more a field of gracious ministries and ennobling toils. Tell\ncommerce that she needs the inspiration of this duty, that the dull, the\ncommon, the base may be transfigured and wear the forms of beauty,\nnobleness, and truth. Tell life that it needs the quickening of this\nspirit, that it may not drop piecemeal through the corruptions of sin\ninto the darkness and rottenness of the pit. Above all, tell every soul\nthat hears you, that it needs Christ, the living Bread; the bread of\nChrist\u2019s truth, the bread of Christ\u2019s life, the bread of Christ\u2019s love,\nthat it may not settle into the darkness of death for ever, but \u201chave\neverlasting life,\u201d where Christ lives and reigns at God\u2019s right hand\neternally.\n\nFOOTNOTE:\n\n[A] King Alfred\u2019s \u201cnew book of laws\u201d opens with the sentence, \u201cAnd the\nLord spake all these words and said, I am the Lord thy God,\u201d etc. Then\nfollows the decalogue; and then, \u201cWhatsoever ye would that men should do\nunto you, that do ye also unto them.\u201d Besides, there are many passages\nquoted from the word of God, with most wise reflections on them and\napplications of them to the matter in hand; and then he proceeds to the\nlaws of the realm.\n\n\n\n\nII.\n\nTHE DUES OF C\u00c6SAR AND OF CHRIST.\n\n    \u201cRender therefore unto C\u00e6sar the things which are C\u00e6sar\u2019s; and\n    unto God the things that are God\u2019s.\u201d\u2014MATT. xxii. 21.\n\n\nWhat things are C\u00e6sar\u2019s? Clearly the things which bear his image and\nsuperscription; the things on which he has the right and the power to\nimprint his mark.\n\nWhat things are God\u2019s? Clearly those things which bear His immediate\nmark and superscription, which belong to the diviner part in man, which\nare in man by the breath of the Divine inspiration, and which God\nclaims, and therefore has the right to claim directly and exclusively\nfor Himself. The Lord will not stand between C\u00e6sar and that which bears\nhis image; let not C\u00e6sar dare to stand between God and that in man which\nbears His image, and which He claims to rule directly by His word and by\nHis Spirit indwelling in human hearts.\n\nThis text is constantly quoted to justify the refusal to pay to C\u00e6sar\nthe tax, be it church-rate or anything else, which he may demand for the\nsupport of a spiritual system, which we may not believe to be in\naccordance with the Divine will. I confess that the teaching of our Lord\nin these words seems to me to point in precisely the opposite direction.\nThe argument which one often hears is to this effect: C\u00e6sar is intruding\ninto God\u2019s province when he demands anything from us for spiritual uses;\nthis is a department with which he has nothing whatever to do, and we\nare giving him that which is God\u2019s if we yield to his claims. God alone\nhas the right to claim anything at our hand for spiritual uses; and we\nare wronging Him, we are robbing the Lord of what political theologians\ncall His \u201ccrown rights,\u201d if we give unto C\u00e6sar one farthing for the\nmaintenance of any Church system or systems, or any spiritual operations\nof any sort, since these are of the things which belong to God alone.\nThe argument of our Lord in these verses points surely the other way.\nWith Him the test of the demand is not the purpose, but the thing\ndemanded. If what is asked has C\u00e6sar\u2019s image on it, enough; let him have\nit; the responsibility of using it rests with him. If C\u00e6sar asks that\nwhich has not his image upon it, which he cannot compel before his\ntribunals or distrain by his officers, such as your judgment, your\nconscience, and the support of your voice and your hand, obey God rather\nthan man. If you yield to C\u00e6sar, yield because you see that it is right\nin God\u2019s sight, that it is a duty to God to yield to him; if you refuse,\nrefuse because to yield would be wrong in God\u2019s sight, and then be\nprepared to sustain your refusal even unto death.\n\nDo not misunderstand the difficulty of the Jewish rulers, which was a\nvery real one. It was a case of conscience with them. They did not care\nabout the amount of the tribute, that was a small matter; but C\u00e6sar was\na Gentile, idolatrous prince. Idolatry was the state religion of the\nRoman empire. It was a bitter thought to the Jew that an idolater, one\ncapable of setting up his own image in the holy of holies, should rule\nover him and exact his tribute. Was it not a betrayal of duty to God to\nconsent to it? Was it not right to suffer any extremities rather than\nyield to the imperial claims? There was a party among the Jews who felt\nso grievously the degradation and the burden on their consciences, that\nthey were in a chronic state of rebellion against Rome. They were always\nseeking to foment the differences between their own and the Roman\ngovernment; and they were prepared to stake their own lives and the life\nof the nation on their fealty, as they understood fealty, to God alone.\nIt was one of the questions most eagerly debated among them, which they\nasked the Saviour to solve. A case of conscience,\u2014conscience grieved by\nbeing compelled to support a system of government other than that which\nthey believed had been ordained to them of God. Our Lord\u2019s solution is\nmost original and striking; and it offers the clearest guidance to us\nthrough the multitude of kindred perplexities which cannot fail to arise\nby reason of the ever varying relations of the secular and spiritual\npowers in every age of the world. (Matt. xxii. 15\u201322.) The image on the\ntribute money settled the matter. This is _prim\u00e2 facie_ evidence that\nC\u00e6sar has a right to claim it. The power of putting an image on the\nmoney marks it as a thing between you and C\u00e6sar. You accept it and use\nit in daily life, at C\u00e6sar\u2019s hand. That image on the penny, the right of\ncoining money being represented by it, is the symbol of all the order\nand benediction which flow to you from C\u00e6sar\u2019s rule; and C\u00e6sar\u2019s right\nto exact it back again is distinctly a question between you and the\nearthly monarch, into which you have no right to drag, for the purpose\nof protest, the name of God. C\u00e6sar is ordained of God to take visible\ncharge of this department, the order of civil society; and he and you\nmust settle between you the fair adjustment of his claims. A piece of\nmoney bearing C\u00e6sar\u2019s image is no battleground for the rights of God.\nPay whatever C\u00e6sar asks for his purposes, no matter what they may be, so\nlong as by using C\u00e6sar\u2019s mintage you give the stamp of your acquiescence\nto his rule; and if his purposes seem to you to be wrong, fight him with\nnobler things than pennies\u2014with voice and pen, the free utterance of\nopinion, and, if needs must be, in the last extremity, with swords.\n\nIf C\u00e6sar asks your homage to his idol, the bending of your knee, or the\nacclamation of your voice, the answer is clear,\u2014Thy image and\nsuperscription are not here; my knee is for my God, my voice is for my\nGod; and all the powers of the universe cannot bend the one or awaken\nthe other without my will. Here I follow the Divine precedent:\n\u201cNebuchadnezzar spake,\u201d etc. (Dan. iii. 14\u201318.) But if C\u00e6sar asks my\npennies for any purpose which he comprehends within the aim of his\ngovernment, let him have them; they clearly belong to his sphere. I\nscorn to hold back what his force can wring from me the next moment;\nthey are his, the responsibility of taking them is his, and the\nresponsibility of using them is his. If I am not satisfied with his use\nof them, I have nobler means of protest and influence; or, in the last\nextremity, I can go forth from his empire and have done with him and his\npennies for ever.\n\nThis is the principle on which it seems to me right to act in\nchurch-rate matters. Suppose that one were living in a neighbourhood in\nwhich the church of the district had been built under a special act of\nparliament, to be paid for by a rate levied on the householders during a\nterm of years. It would be our duty to pay year after year our share of\nthe tax which parliament imposed. The money asked for has C\u00e6sar\u2019s image\nand superscription on it: by using it we consent to C\u00e6sar\u2019s sway. We\nhave no right to pick and choose which claims of a government we will\nhonour, and which we will refuse. We get the good of the government as a\nwhole, and we pay its claims as a whole, always endeavouring by moral\nmeans to secure that the adjustment shall be righteous and fair. And so\nit may become a clear duty to pay for the building of a church which we\nnever enter, and whose minister regards our ministry as an unauthorized\nand mischievous intrusion on his sacred domain. If the Church, by\nC\u00e6sar\u2019s ministry, will have our tribute money, we say, Take it; and if\nthe demand be very harsh or peremptory, we say, Take it, in very scorn.\nBut God forbid that we should ever consent to belong to a Church which\ncan condescend to take tribute by force of the unwilling, and which\ngives the adversary thereby such strong temptation to blaspheme.\n\nSuch seems to me to be the bearing of this principle on this and kindred\nquestions. It seems to me distinctly to enjoin on us the course which it\nis constantly quoted as denouncing. The money C\u00e6sar needs, for the\ncarrying on of his government in the best way he can, is the first\ncharge on the property which the order of civil society suffers us to\npossess and enjoy. God claims none till C\u00e6sar is satisfied; for C\u00e6sar\u2019s\nclaim is His ordinance. Having satisfied C\u00e6sar, take counsel with him\nabout the rest.\n\nBut these reflections open up many, some of them perplexing, questions,\non which this seems to me a good opportunity to offer some brief remark.\n\n1. Does not Christ in this place seem to recognise some divided\nallegiance\u2014man under two masters, owing duty to C\u00e6sar, owing duty to\nGod? Will he not be puzzled perpetually to determine their limits, and\nto settle what is secular and what is sacred? and is there not something\nrepugnant to the very essence of Christianity in the idea that man at\nany moment, in any relation, can have to do with another being than God?\nIs not God the sole Lord of his being and of his life? What can be\nC\u00e6sar\u2019s, in contradistinction to that which is God\u2019s? I think I have\nlearnt from the Scripture, and I am always preaching the doctrine, that\nGod claims the man in his wholeness; that body, soul, and spirit,\nriches, knowledge, power, and love, all belong to Him; that there is but\none empire, one service, one King; that life is simple, simple as the\ninfinite God. \u201c_Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and\nsoul, and mind, and strength_,\u201d \u201c_and Him only shalt thou serve_.\u201d\n\u201c_This do, and thou shalt live._\u201d What claim can C\u00e6sar have on man then,\nwhich is not also God\u2019s claim? What tribute can one pay to C\u00e6sar, which\nis not also paid to God? None, absolutely none. The Lord recognises no\ndivided allegiance; His words rightly understood are in perfect harmony\nwith the doctrine of His own sole and supreme lordship over every\nthought, every passion, and every possession of man. \u201c_Render unto C\u00e6sar\nthe things which are C\u00e6sar\u2019s._\u201d Why? Who ordains it? Who has the right\nto demand it? God. Within the sphere of C\u00e6sar\u2019s government, obey him,\nnot because C\u00e6sar can force you, but because God will have you; make it\na part of your Divine obedience, to obey wisely and loyally as a subject\nand a citizen; and consider that C\u00e6sar claims your service within the\nsphere which belongs to him, as the ordained minister and representative\nof God. There is no secular and sacred since Christ appeared. It is all\nsacred. Civil obedience is an ordinance of the Church. The Scripture\nbears most explicit witness to these principles wherever it touches on\nthe relations of civil society and its institutions. (1 Pet. ii. 13\u201317;\nRom. xiii. 1\u20137; 1 Tim. ii. 1\u20134.) It is God\u2019s institution. He sustains\nit; He, through the ruler, claims your tribute; the result, the order\nand progress of society, is His work. Innocent III. was right, though in\na sense of which he little dreamed. The moon has its own relation to the\nearth; but they have a common relation to the sun. The moon\u2019s orbit is\nincluded in the earth\u2019s orbit; but the sun sways and balances both of\nthem, and there is not a movement of the moon in obeying the inferior\nearthly attraction which is not also an act of obedience to the superior\nsphere. So God has set us under rulers, in societies, as a kind of\ninterior province of His kingdom; but our loyalty as subjects, our duty\nas citizens, are alike part of the one duty which we owe to God. There\nis no schism in the body of our service, no double authority in our\nLord\u2019s realm. The two worlds, the two services, the two spheres, are one\nin Christ. \u201c_One is your Master, even Christ._\u201d \u201c_Thou shalt worship\nHim, and Him, only shalt thou serve._\u201d\n\n2. It is needful to inquire how far this principle of obedience is to\ncarry us.\n\nIf the money has C\u00e6sar\u2019s image and superscription, let him have it; he\nhas a right to it, and in recognising that right we are fulfilling so\nfar our duty to God. Here is a clear and simple principle: but is it a\nsufficient guidance? does it provide for all the possible exigencies of\nsocial and political life? How about the right of resisting C\u00e6sar, when\nhe rules unrighteously? How about John Hampden\u2019s refusal of the\nship-money, and the grand and glorious struggle which it inaugurated, by\nwhich our liberties were won? This is a very grave and important\nquestion, and one which, having voluntarily selected such a subject as\nthis, we have no right to pass by. There is a Divine precedent here. (1\nKings xii. 12\u201324.) What is it which is ordained of God in government?\nNot any particular king, nor any particular form or institution, but the\ngood of men in the order of civil society. This it is at which God aims,\nand to this end kings and institutions are His ministers. The king or\ninstitution which may best assure this end is the open question in the\nsettlement of which God demands the concert and co-operation of mankind.\nEvery king, every magistrate, every political institution, has a certain\nDivine sanction, inasmuch as it is the keystone of the arch which He has\nbuilt, and under whose sheltering dome we live and work. But a keystone\nwhich, instead of securing the arch, threatens its stability, has no\nDivine sanction longer than for the time during which it can be\nsuccessfully replaced or repaired. The Divine shield is cast, not around\nthe particular king, but around the society and the civilization of\nwhich he is the head. It is only in the unity of the society that the\nLord\u2019s sanction upholds him; let him mar that unity or distract it, and\nGod passes to the side of those who are seeking to set up a new and real\nkeystone in his room. There is nothing like the duty of passive\nobedience to tyrants implied in the text, or enjoined in the word of\nGod. \u201c_Render unto C\u00e6sar the things which are C\u00e6sar\u2019s_,\u201d while C\u00e6sar is\nthe recognised lord. In those crises of history in which C\u00e6sar has to be\nweighed in the balance, in which the question has to be tried, Who is\nking and by what rule shall he reign? godly men have to keep clear\nbefore the mind\u2019s eye what God means by human society, what He aims at,\nand to help Him, yes, help Him to secure it. If no C\u00e6sar be worth\nrecognising, or C\u00e6sar be altogether too bad to be borne, then refuse his\ntribute, resist his myrmidons, draw the sword of the Lord and of Gideon\nto strike for deliverance. The Lord is the C\u00e6sar of such an hour; the\nCaptain of the Lord\u2019s host, His sword drawn in His hand as at Jericho,\nis in these times of revolution busy among men. They best honour C\u00e6sar\nand serve Christ in such hours, who have the clearest eye for the good\nof the commonwealth, and who prepare the way for the reign of a C\u00e6sar\nwho, like David, shall rule according to the will of God. The sacred\nsense of the obligations of a subject or a citizen which those cherish,\nwho have learnt from Christ \u201cby whom kings reign and princes decree\njudgment,\u201d and who know that obedience to the powers that he is a form\nof obedience to God, makes them patient, beyond the measure of mere\npolitical patience, of the weaknesses, follies, and sins of the men who\noccupy the world\u2019s high places; while it makes them stern and firm as\ndeath when God has pronounced the sentence of deposition, and has bared\nthe avenging sword and committed it to their hands. These are the men\nwho, like Cromwell, do their work with a terrible force and\ncompleteness, and who read lessons in God\u2019s name to C\u00e6sars, which remain\ndoctrinal through all time.\n\n3. Surely our Saviour intends us to understand how little money, or\nanything with C\u00e6sar\u2019s image and superscription upon it, can do to make\nor to mar the fortunes of God\u2019s kingdom, which spreads and rules like\nthe dawn, like the moisture in the south wind, like the blush of spring,\nlike the splendour of summer, like everything that is quickened by the\nbreath of God. Tribute! We are always perplexing ourselves about\ntribute\u2014a steady stream of regular contributions, a flood-tide of\ngolden gifts. It is our measure of power. Quite other is Christ\u2019s. His\npower flashes like lightning from one part under heaven, and shineth to\nthe other part which is under heaven. The world flashes into light,\nglows into life in a moment, when the times of refreshing, of\nquickening, come down from God. Men catch it from each other\u2019s eyes,\neach other\u2019s lips. It spreads as flame, and gathers strength as it\nwidens its circuit. Money, social and political influence, the force of\nthis world, all that seems solid and potent to men while they are\nenacting the masque of life which we call living, faint back like\nrushlights in the lightning\u2019s flash, like aged institutions in the hour\nof revolution, when the breath of the Spirit as at Pentecost is falling\non the world. I speak, and I am quite sure the sacred writers spoke, in\nno scorn of money. No _thing_ is base: we keep our hate, our scorn, for\nbase spirits, not for things. But for money Paul must have starved, and\nthe kingdom must have perished in its birth. What the Lord means us to\nunderstand is that money is the inevitable satellite of higher things.\nSpirits in earnest movement sweep it with them in their course, as the\nearth sweeps its atmosphere. Give us hearts of fire, fire that kindles\nand flashes from heart to heart, from peak to peak of the human; and\nwhat work will wait long for gold? Men who in common levels of interest\ndole out their tens and hundreds, and feel some dull glow of\nsatisfaction stirring the stagnation of their hearts, scatter forth\ntheir thousands when God fires their spirits, and their whole being is\nalive and thrills with joy. Money! nothing greatly spiritual was ever\nmade by money, or was ever marred by money in this world.\n\nThere is a touch of scorn in the Saviour\u2019s words, \u201c_Shew me the tribute\nmoney_.\u201d Scorn of the vain worldly mind that was perplexing itself about\ntribute, while the love of God and the belief in judgment were fast\ndying out of human hearts. One sacred conviction in their hearts would\nhave answered the question, and lifted them above the sphere of\ntribute\u2014as Paul was lifted\u2014into the region of that kingdom which would\nsweep C\u00e6sar\u2019s as a satellite in its sphere. Did the Lord foresee sadly\nthe scene from which a few dark days divided them, when they would yield\nto C\u00e6sar\u2014these men, who were groaning and haggling over the\ntribute\u2014absolutely everything that was God\u2019s? (John xix. 7\u201316).\n\nThe leader of the band who turned the world upside down witnessed this\nconfession, \u201c_Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I\nthee: in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk_.\u201d They\nwere poor as beggars, but richer in power to draw forth the treasures\nof this world than kings. What king\u2019s command could have wrought this\nmiracle? \u201c_And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and\nof one soul: neither said any of them that ought of the things which he\npossessed was his own; but they had all things common._\u201d (Acts iv. 32.)\nIn truth, this love of Christ is the universal solvent. Nothing remains\nany man\u2019s own when once the heart is touched by this Divine fire. It\nmelts all selfish separations and appropriations, as sun warmth the\nbonds of winter, and quickens in the universal human heart the glow and\ncirculation of the spring. Nothing starves in summer for want of the\nbread that perishes; supplies lie thick everywhere around. And no Divine\nwork stays for lack of the gold that perishes, when once the sun of the\nDivine love has loosed men\u2019s hearts from the winter of their isolation\nand selfish grasping care. Don\u2019t worry about the tribute. \u201c_Trust in the\nLord, and do good_,\u201d and things will right themselves at once. Tribute\nwill pour into the treasury, and even the exactors shall become\nministers and yield their willing aid. \u201c_Thine officers shall become\npeace, and thine exactors righteousness._\u201d \u201c_Kings shall be thy nursing\nfathers, and queens thy nursing mothers._\u201d \u201c_Violence shall be no more\nheard in thy land, wasting nor destruction within thy borders_,\u201d if the\nKing is in thy palaces; if thy heart, soul, and hand are loyally devoted\nto Christ. I often think, in these days of grand Christian institutions,\nwith their vast fixed incomes and endowments, and all the magnificent\napparatus without which it seems to us the Lord\u2019s kingdom must perish\nout of this land and out of the world, of the little company who trudged\nwearily about the highways of Palestine, seeking their morning meal from\nthe fig-tree by the wayside, and lodging wherever a poor cottager\u2019s\nfaith and love gave them shelter for a night, and who,\u2014beggars as to\nthe things which were C\u00e6sar\u2019s, but filled as never men were filled\nbefore or since with the things which were God\u2019s, faith, hope, joy,\ntruth, wisdom, and Divine charity\u2014went forth in this their might and\nre-made society: the grandest revolution in the history of this\nuniverse, accomplished by its beggars and, as the world thought, its\nfools. And the fact repeats itself in every revolution. Let a man in any\nage go forth with the fire of God in him; and the force he wields, the\nmastery he wins, the new life he quickens in a nation, in a world, pours\nsilent contempt on gold. The gold is gathered, as spirit gathers flesh\nabout it and becomes incarnate; so all that belongs to C\u00e6sar\u2019s sphere is\nat the commandment of that which comes straight from God\u2019s and glows\nwith the inspiration of His life. Gifts of a splendid lavishness in such\nseasons are abundant; and strangely enough the givers feel enriched\nunspeakably by the joy of giving, enlarged immeasurably by\nimpoverishment, and increased by abnegation. The richest in such seasons\nare those who give most, not those who have most. A wonderful sense of\nthe glorious wealth of a heart which has a guest-chamber for Christ, and\nwhose pulses beat joyously as the free tide of the Divine love flows\nthrough and over it on all around, kindles men\u2019s souls to a new\nconception of riches. It fills the beatitudes with a wonderful meaning,\nand shows the sorrows and straits of poverty overflowed by the riches\nand joys of God.\n\n\n\n\nIII.\n\n\u201cUNTO THIS LAST.\u201d\n\n    \u201cI will give unto this last, even as unto thee.\u201d\u2014MATT. xx. 14.\n\n\nThese words appear at first sight to set us very decisively face to face\nwith the sovereignty of God, in its sternest and most naked\nform\u2014affirming its right to distribute its gifts and payments at its\npleasure, and refusing to consider the question of equity when urged by\nthe creature\u2019s sharp complaint. \u201cTake that thine is, and go thy way.\u201d\n\u201cIs it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own?\u201d \u201cI will give\nunto this last, even as unto thee.\u201d There, it is said, and with apparent\ntruth, is Sovereignty\u2014pure, naked Sovereignty. The \u201cI will\u201d of God\nseems to be the sole explanation which is vouchsafed of His\ndispensations and decrees. But this view of the matter has always seemed\nto me deeply unsatisfactory. Equity is a strong instinctive principle,\nwhich God Himself has established in the judgment seat of the human\nconscience; and God never beats down with the bare assertion of an\nirresistible Sovereignty the soul that is perplexed about the equity of\nHis ways. It is equity, pure, celestial equity, which reveals itself to\nthose who will search for it in this parable; equity to the poor souls\nwho had been standing all the day idle in the market-place, because no\nman had called them to the vineyard; equity to the labourers who had\nborne the burden and heat of the day, and had made the dignity and\nculture of the Lord\u2019s husbandmen their own. It is an equity which\ninvites the closest criticism from those who will search it thoroughly,\nand which reveals to the searchers deep vital truths about man and about\nGod.\n\n\u201cI will give unto this last, even as unto thee.\u201d It is a startling\nsentence. This man had been labouring in the vineyard under the burning\nheat, through the blazing noon; he had borne and bent under the whole\nburden of the work: while this one had been brought in at the eleventh\nhour, in the cool evenfall, and by a few minutes of light sweet labour\nhe had won the equivalent prize. There is something startling here, and\nmen have felt it; and they have striven in manifold and curious ways to\nsquare the method of the Master with their fundamental notions of the\nrighteousness of God. There are theologians who feel no need to square\nit. According to a theology which has exercised a wide-spread and malign\ninfluence in the past, Sovereignty answers amply every difficulty, and\ntreats our ideas of equity as a high impertinence, when they claim to\nweigh the ways of God. If it pleases God to make some men to be saved\nand other men to be damned, who shall question His rights? and if He is\nglorified equally by the salvation of the chosen and the damnation of\nthe reprobate, who dares complain, or to what court can we carry the\nappeal? There are theologians who would have us rest calmly on the\nconviction that a sovereign and inscrutable will is ruling, and trouble\nourselves in no wise about the equity of the decrees. But one cannot but\nreflect that this composed contentment with the doctrine of reprobation\nis mainly conspicuous in those who feel themselves safe from its\ntrenchant stroke. With the exception of Lord Byron\u2014to whose malign and\nscornful tone we believe that this was the real key\u2014we hardly discover\nthe disciples of the doctrine among those who believe that they are\nreprobate; and in the case of the theological school whose influence is\nhappily dying away, but which survives in out-of-the-way places to an\nextent little dreamed of still, we may fairly entertain the question,\nwhether, if it were flashed suddenly on their souls that they, the\ntheologians, were doomed by the Divine decree to everlasting anguish,\ntheir rest in the inscrutable Sovereignty would be so calm, and their\ncontentment so assured. For thinkers of this school, of course, such a\nparable as this presents no sort of difficulty. A penny more or less\nwould not be likely to stagger them, when the gift of heaven or the doom\nof hell raise no question as to the equity of the Divine decrees. But\nwith the great multitude of Christian thinkers the parable has been the\nsource of much grievous perplexity, as the manifold explanations amply\nprove. The question is, in which verse of the parable are we to find the\nkey to it? \u201cUnto this last will I give, even as unto thee,\u201d states the\nproblem. Is the solution to be found in the body of the parable, or must\nwe seek it outside in a general study of the ways of God?\n\nThere can be no question, I think, that the broad bearing of the parable\nis on the impending revolution in the visible Divine kingdom, whereby,\nas the Saviour says, the kingdom of God was to be taken from the\nPharisees, and \u201cgiven to a people bringing forth the fruits thereof.\u201d I\nsay advisedly, from the Pharisees; from the party which held the chief\ninfluence and authority in the Church. Their influence, their\nstanding-ground, was utterly shattered by the Saviour\u2019s advent; the\nkingdom passed visibly, absolutely, finally, out of the rule of their\nhand. But there was never any question of its passing wholly from the\nJews; the Jews were never to be disowned. Paul earnestly, with intense\nemphasis, asserts this, and makes it the basis of a long and profound\nargument. \u201cI say then, hath God cast away His people? God forbid. For I\nalso am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.\nGod hath not cast away His people, which He foreknew.\u201d (Rom. xi. 1, 2.)\nThe Jews, as such, were not cast away. We think all too slightly of the\nstrength of the Jewish element in the apostolic Church. And it is the\nJews\u2014the people, not their leaders\u2014who are in question here. They had\nborne the burden and heat of the day; they had done the work\u2014with what\nresult, well or ill, is not the point in debate. There is no idea of\ntheir being dismissed without honour or recompense; the question is\nsimply concerning the bringing in of other husbandmen, the Gentile\nnations, at the last hour, to share in full measure in all that the\nJewish workmen had won by their long and hot day\u2019s toil.\n\nPerhaps the favourite mode of reconciling the Master\u2019s dealings with\nfundamental principles of equity is to be found in the suggestion,\ntowards which some sentences in Olshausen\u2019s Exposition strongly lean,\nthat the first called laboured so lazily, and the last called so\nstrenuously that (regarding the actual amount of work accomplished) the\nMaster\u2019s arrangements were more equitable than might at first appear.\nNotwithstanding the apt illustration of this which appears to be offered\nby the history of St. Paul, who, though the last called, \u201claboured more\nabundantly than they all,\u201d the explanation seems to me to miss the whole\npoint of the teaching of the parable, and to proceed upon very low and\nworldly conceptions of the method of the Divine ways. There is no hint\nof such a solution in the body of the parable itself; which is a\nsufficiently grave objection. If this be the key, its existence is\ncarefully suppressed, and the souls that were most sorely perplexed by\nthe appearance of injustice are left wholly ignorant of the truth. Nay,\ntheir ignorance is confirmed by the language, or rather by the silence,\nof the parable. The answer to their protest on the ground that they had\n\u201cborne the burden and heat of the day\u201d would have been decisive and was\nready at hand. But no hint of a justification on this ground is suffered\nto appear. Their assertion is allowed to pass unanswered, and must be\naccepted for the purposes of the parable as the truth. Whether they had\nwrought well or ill, though it may be the main point in other parables,\nis plainly not the point which is in question here. And in the\ninterpretation of parables we get into endless difficulties, if we, so\nto speak, travel beyond the record, and consider the details in any\nother light than as the garniture of the one central idea which the\nparable is intended to set forth. As far as this parable is concerned,\nwe must accept it as a fact that they had borne the burden and heat of\nthe day; and no explanation of its equity can be entertained which sets\nthat fact at nought.\n\nThat we may the better understand what it does mean, let us consider:\u2014\n\nI. The work of the vineyard to which all were called, and in which the\nfirst called bore the burden and heat of the day.\n\nII. The reason of the idleness of the husbandmen who at the eleventh\nhour were called to the work.\n\nIII. The Lord\u2019s justification of His ways.\n\nI. The work of the vineyard.\n\nI believe that there is nothing very definite in detail here set before\nour minds, and that we shall get into dire confusion if we inquire about\nthe class or classes of members of the Church which may be signified by\nthe husbandmen. There is no question of classes of Christian labourers,\nor kinds of Christian work, in the narrative. It is God\u2019s work, and\nthese are God\u2019s workmen in the field of His visible Church, in the\nbroadest sense which those words may bear. The vineyard is the visible\nfield of God\u2019s tillage. The vast invisible field we are not called to\nconsider; except to assure ourselves that one grand principle rules,\nexplains, and justifies God\u2019s methods with the whole. The visible field,\nup to the day of Pentecost, was the Jewish commonwealth, which was about\nto expand into the Christian commonwealth when our Lord delivered the\ndiscourses which contain our text. In the Jewish commonwealth, not\npriest and prophet only, but every child of Abraham was a called\nhusbandman; just as every Christian disciple, as much as apostle,\nbishop, evangelist, or deacon, is a called labourer in the wider\nvineyard of the Christian Church. The broad feature of the work of the\nvineyard is, that it is man\u2019s true, noble, God-ordained work.\n\nIt is the work for which all his organs and powers were fashioned, and\nin which his whole being was made to rejoice. Why were these men\nstanding in the market-place? What took them there? Why were they not\nlounging idly about the fields, or sleeping at home? Clearly because\nsome divine instinct within them moved them thither, that they might be\nin the way of being hired for a day\u2019s toil. A divine instinct, I say. He\nlittle understands humanity, who imagines that the great bread and\ncheese question is at the bottom of even a tithe of the daily labour of\nmankind. It would be hard to find a man who just works enough to provide\nthe bread and cheese and beer which he needs to sustain his animal\nnature, and then folds his arms and takes his ease until new hunger\ncompels new toil. There are such men about the world, no doubt; but it\nis a hard matter to find them. And when they are found, men attach to\nsuch a bestial idea of life the epithet \u201cunmanly\u201d with a bitter\nemphasis, which reveals how deeply there is inwrought into the very\ntexture of man\u2019s nature the divine instinct of work. Man is made for it,\nas the flower of the field is made for the free air of heaven. Shut out\nfrom it, he grows irritable and sickly, his powers droop, his courage\nfails, his hope dies, his life is a wreck. And very noble motive\ninspires well-nigh the whole of human labour. Love, pure self-denying\nlove, love of wife, love of child, of friends, of mankind, is the moving\nspring of most of man\u2019s most strenuous toil. God\u2019s work, work for God,\nand for man for the love of God, is but the highest form or mode of\nhuman labour. Man\u2019s divine work is not something essentially different\nin principle from all his other work. All his best labour in his daily\ntasks proceeds upon the existence within him of powers and organs which\ncan only find their highest exercise, and which can only justify their\nlowest exercise, in the work of the vineyard which the Lord has given us\neach one to do. Man is simply unmanned while he stands all the day idle\nin the market-place; his goodliest powers and organs are rusting, his\nblood trickles with dull stagnant motion through his lazy veins, his\nwhole system is oppressed and burdened, his muscles ache for exercise,\nhis cheek is pale, his eye is dim. The kingly being is unbraced and\ndiscrowned; no joys or honours attend the _fain\u00e9ant_ king.\n\nWho are the pitiable ones here? On whom shall we spend our regrets and\nsorrows? The hardy sunburnt workmen, who have spent their strength\nmanfully in a brave day\u2019s work; who watch the westering sun as only the\ntired labourer has the right to watch him; and who settle peacefully to\nthe workman\u2019s rest till the gay sunlight wakes them again to new glad\ntoils in a young, fresh, dewy world? Nay, the work of the vineyard is\nman\u2019s honour, joy, glory, and bliss. To be called to work in it is the\ncrown of his manhood; to finish his work with joy is his noblest praise.\nBut why should it not end here? If he is to be counted blessed who works\nin the vineyard, if his work gladdens, enriches, and ennobles him what\nroom is there for the thought of pay? What can the pennies in this case\nmean?\n\nMan is made with a large capacity, and a large thought and hope of\nhappiness. He can take a large blessing into his being, larger than he\ncan meet within his present sphere. The range of his nature takes in the\ninfinite and the eternal. The work is noble, glorious exercise; but God\nonly can fill and satisfy his spirit. Man needs something beyond the\nmere play of his powers, though their free play is an intense\nexhilaration and delight. He needs the fellowship of beings to satisfy\nthe yearning, to feed the appetite, of his nobler nature; he needs the\nlove of God, and communion with all that is of God, that he may rest and\nbe blessed. This is the reward which the earthly day of his toil and\npatience will bring. The true workman is happy in his work, and sings\nwhile he toils. But God has a yet richer benediction for His children\nwhen the work is done, a blessing which will beautify and glorify life\nthrough eternity. This He gives to the workman out of His royal bounty,\nHis own blessedness. It is His own to give; and all true workmen,\nwhatever the measure of their work, because of the spirit of their work,\nshall claim it at His hand.\n\nII. The reason of the idleness of the husbandmen who were not called\ntill the eleventh hour to the work.\n\n\u201cAnd about the eleventh hour he went out, and found others standing\nidle, and said unto them, Why stand ye here all the day idle? They say\nunto him, Because no man hath hired us.\u201d The true key to the parable\nlies here. There are many other answers conceivable. They might have\nsaid, Because we like to lounge and loaf, work is irksome; or, Because\nwe are over-tired with yesterday\u2019s toil; or, Because the pay does not\nsuit us, we are out on strike. Imagine that any one of these answers had\nbeen given; the whole character of the parable would have been changed,\nand the equity of the ways of God would then have been dark, dark\nindeed. But no. The men were willing to work; they were waiting to be\nhired; they made no bargain about their pay. \u201cGo ye into the vineyard;\nand whatsoever is right, that shall ye receive,\u201d the Master said; and\nthey went, content to leave their wage to His justice. The men evidently\ncared more about the work than the pay. In truth the idlers were to be\npitied. The Master pitied them, and He gave to their will the wage which\nlack of opportunity had forbidden them to earn before.\n\nAnd this opens up some serious thoughts about the pagan world, and its\nrelation to the kingdom of God. There is a profound, but not an\nimpenetrable mystery hidden in the words, \u201cthe fulness of the time.\u201d\nThrough long ages the pagan world was left groping in the darkness,\n\u201c_feeling after God if haply it might find Him_,\u201d and moaning as it\ngrasped at phantoms in the gloom, and saw them slip from its empty hand.\nLooking at the anguish and misery of the world at this moment, one is\nconstrained to confess that the Lord of the world is One who can bring\nHimself to look upon, and to bear the responsibility of ruling over, a\nterrible amount of pain. But what shall we say of the long ages of pagan\ndarkness, when men were not _feeling_ after God only, but crying for\nHim, shrieking to Him, were maiming their quivering flesh and torturing\ntheir shuddering hearts, because the void only echoed back their own\nvoices and none could tell them the Divine Name. The time is gone by\nwhen it was possible to look upon the history of heathendom as the\nhistory of one long stern effort to break away from God, to blot out His\nname from the universe, and to tear every trace of His image out of the\nlife of the human world. It is now well understood that the deepest\nthing in heathen life and heathen literature was ever the cry after the\nliving God, and the effort to find Him; the grandest passages in the\nreligious records of heathendom are the words in which the founders of\nthe great pagan systems proclaimed what they believed had been made\nknown to them of His Being and His Will; and the gladdest, in truth the\nonly joyous, passages in pagan history, are the records of the\ngenerations in which men persuaded themselves that God had at length\nvisited His world. Soon the gladness vanished, overborne by wrong and\nlust. But while it lasted it made the solitary gleam of brightness which\ncrosses the blackness of the pagan night. The revival of morals, of\nmanners, and of hopes, which for a few brief generations has followed\nthe teaching of the great masters whom paganism adores, is the one ray\nof heavenly light which shines in the pagan darkness, and bears witness\nthat there is sunlight, though shining on other spheres. The joy which\nfilled the hearts of the heathen peoples, when Sakya-Mouni, Zerdusht,\nConfucius, or Mahomet, proclaimed at any rate a purer faith, a nobler\nidea of life, than the dark, soulless, senseless formul\u00e6 in which a\ntyrannous priesthood had buried the Divine Name, is like some faint and\nfar-off glow of the joy which leaped from heart to heart like flame when\nit was known that God had in very truth visited His people, and that the\nKing of Glory had taken possession of His earthly throne.\n\nThrough this long sad night, lit only by these rare faint gleams, men\nhad been looking, longing, and moaning for a deliverer; and steadily\nsettling the while, and they knew it, into the slough of the devil\u2019s\naccursed dominion, because no Almighty Helper and Saviour appeared. We\nsee their misery, their tears, their mad outbursts of passion, their\nfoul orgies of lust; and our hearts bleed, nay there have been hearts\nthat have burst, as they watched this tragedy of despair. And heaven\nheard it all, saw it all, through long ages; and still no deliverer was\nsent. It is a profound mystery, the millenniums through which the world\nwas left to grope and to moan in the darkness, while the clear sunlight\nof God\u2019s truth was flashing its brightness so joyously on the homes of\nthe chosen race. I say again, the mystery, though profound, is not\ninscrutable; for there is Calvary to expound it. In the long run, in the\ngreat day of eternity, it will be seen, that this forsaking of the\nheathen world was an essential part of a benign and merciful plan, of\nwhich Calvary is the centre; and that it lies in the full harmony of a\nlove which \u201c_endured the cross, and despised the shame_,\u201d that a whole\nworld might be gathered at length to the great Father\u2019s heart. But the\n\u201c_no man hath hired us_\u201d has a profound and pathetic meaning, when we\nsearch the records of pagan religious effort and aspiration, and when we\nsee how everywhere, when the gates were flung open, the Gentiles\nthronged, streamed, crushed, into the kingdom of God. I find in this\nthought the whole mystery of the parable unfolded. The Gentiles had been\nlooking, waiting, longing, in their own dull way, for the work of the\nvineyard. It was the Master\u2019s counsel, as well as their own dull hearts,\nwhich had kept them idle during the noontide heats. And it was the work\nwhich it was in their hearts to do that the Master honoured, when He\nmade them equal to the favoured and happy husbandmen, had they but known\nit, who had \u201c_borne the burden and heat of the day_.\u201d\n\nIII. The Master\u2019s justification of His ways.\n\n\u201cSo when even was come, the lord of the vineyard saith unto his steward,\nCall the labourers, and give them their hire, beginning from the last\nunto the first. And when they came that were hired about the eleventh\nhour, they received every man a penny. But when the first came, they\nsupposed that they should have received more; and they likewise received\nevery man a penny. And when they had received it they murmured against\nthe goodman of the house, saying, These last have wrought but one\nhour, and thou hast made them equal unto us, which have borne the burden\nand heat of the day. But he answered one of them, and said, Friend, I do\nthee no wrong; didst not thou agree with me for a penny? Take that thine\nis, and go thy way: I will give unto this last, even as unto thee. Is it\nnot lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil,\nbecause I am good? So the last shall be first, and the first last: for\nmany be called, but few chosen\u201d (Matt. xx. 8\u201316).\n\nThese words imply\u2014\n\n1. That there is infinite grace, through which a certain equity shines,\nin the things which God has provided for all who have wrought, even\nthough feebly and tardily, at His work. The work is honour and\nhappiness; the want of it is shame and pain. The early labourers are the\nenviable; the late labourers are the pitiable. But God in His boundless\ngrace adds a boundless gift to all: \u201cthe gift of God,\u201d which \u201cis eternal\nlife, through Jesus Christ our Lord.\u201d But through the grace a certain\nequity shines. Man was made for Life, he was born for it. To miss the\nglorious boon which God has the power to bestow on him through Christ,\nwere to miss the very end and issue to which God touched his spirit. A\nwell-nigh infinite capacity of being, loving, and enjoying, is in him,\nwhich God only can satisfy and eternity only can complete. And God in\nHis boundless love and mercy meets him in his idleness and degradation,\nand proposes to him a work which His grace will crown with glorious,\neverlasting joy.\n\n2. None shall miss the blessing through the order of the dispensations.\n\nIf the Jews were called, and the Pagans were left sad and idle in the\nstreets, the evenfall shall adjust the balance, the evening of earth\u2019s\nlife, the morning of the everlasting day. Idle and sad, I say. When you\nare next at South Kensington Museum, place yourself before the cartoon\nof \u201cPaul preaching at Athens.\u201d Mark the foremost in the group of pagan\nhearers; he bears in his sad wistful countenance the whole tale of\nGentile waiting, longing, hoping, disappointment, despondency, and\ndespair. Few preachers can preach such a sermon as utters itself mutely\nfrom that man\u2019s eyes and lips. This parable is Christ\u2019s answer to the\nmute appeal: \u201cNo man hath hired thee, poor outcast! the day spent, the\nsoul lost! Come in, at the last hour, come in. These have wrought in a\nnoble service the long day through. The sweat of manly toil is on their\nbrow, the joy of a work well done is in their hearts. Come in; the sun\nstill lacks some hours of setting. Bend thy soul to the task, put thy\nheart into the labour of the hour, and the same meed shall be thine.\nEven as unto this first, will I give unto thee; come in.\u201d\n\n9. On a wider scale the parable is Christ\u2019s assurance, that through all\noutward inequalities of gift, endowment, opportunity, position,\nprospect, which jar this jangled world, there is a sublime equity ruling\nwhich will right all wrongs, adjust all balances, and square all issues\nwith pure celestial justice at last. \u201c_No man hath hired us._\u201d How much\ndoes this explain of the bitterness and misery with which the world is\nfilled! Cross purposes, cross callings, cross relationships, cross\nnecessities, cross issues of life! Men with power in them for a service\nwhich is never asked of them; tied down to a desk or a counter, it may\nbe, while they feel within them the stirrings of a power to guide the\ncoursers of the sun. Men bound in a home which has no beauty for them,\nno love; while beyond there is a vision of the Eden which might be, if\nbonds could be unbound and bound afresh. Some overflowing with fatherly\nor motherly tenderness, in a barren home. Some shrinking from the\nprattle of infant voices, yet with stuff in them of noble texture, shut\nup to a nursery through the prime of their days. Some longing, pining,\npanting for a work they love, bound to a work they loathe. Some with a\ngenial, generous, royal nature, wrestling with the serpents of care and\npenury their long life through. \u201cThis is a mad world, my masters;\u201d \u201cthe\ntimes are out of joint;\u201d it is all out of joint everywhen and\neverywhere! \u201cNo man hath hired us\u201d to the work which we are fit for; a\nglorious wealth of being, of power, is left to \u201cfust in us unused.\u201d\n\nPatience, brothers, patience! One grand work, the grandest, spreads\nbroad and fair before you; \u201cin your patience possess ye your souls.\u201d The\nhiring is in higher, wiser hands; the patience, the hope, are in yours,\nwith all their glorious eternal fruit. None of the sighing, none of the\ngroaning, none of the desire and yearning of your spirit, is hidden from\nHim who made you, and who in His own good time will call you to your\nGod-ordained work. \u201cUNTO THIS LAST WILL I GIVE, EVEN AS UNTO THEE\u201d\nreveals the sublime equity of His dealings. Await with strong patience,\nwith steadfast hope, the things and the times of His sovereign\nappointment; till you find with profound and wondering joy, that your\npatience has won a prize whose splendour outshines the constellations,\nand whose bliss shall outlast eternity.\n\n\n\n\nIV.\n\nLAW AND LIFE.\n\n    \u201cIn the place where the tree falleth, there it shall\n    be.\u201d\u2014ECCLES. xi. 3.\n\n\nThere are few passages in the word of God which are more constantly\nmisapplied than this. It is systematically wrested to the establishment\nof doctrines with which it has nothing whatever to do. The popular\ninterpretation of the text treats it as equivalent to the assertion,\nthat the condition of the human soul through its long eternity is\nsettled absolutely and irrevocably by death. We believe that nine out of\nten, of those who hold this doctrine would quote this passage if they\nwere suddenly asked to sustain their belief out of the word of God. With\nthe truth of the doctrine in question we are not dealing in the present\ndiscourse; there are passages in the word of God which bear on it with\nmost unquestionable cogency. But this is not one of them. Our present\npurpose is to show what it _does_ mean, and that its reference is to a\nsubject which is well-nigh as far removed from that on which it is\nsupposed to bear as the poles.\n\nWe approach a dread, an awful subject, when we contemplate the condition\nof those who pass into the unseen world impenitent and faithless; who\ndespise finally, as far as we can trace, the riches of the mercy and the\nlove of God. It is a subject which is occupying the most earnest and\nsolemn thoughts of some of the wisest of our Christian thinkers, and on\nwhich a large freedom of judgment will have to be conceded within the\nvisible pale of the Christian Church. It is easy to state the doctrine\nof universalism, and to offer it as a solution of the dark difficulties\nwith which the subject is surrounded. But it is not easy to get the\ndoctrine of universalism out of the Bible; nay, it is not possible,\nwithout grievous violence to some of its plainest and most awful\nstatements: nor, on the other hand, is it easy to harmonize it with any\nintelligent conceptions of the moral freedom and responsibility of every\nchild of the human race. Others seek refuge, for it is as a refuge that\nthey appear to cling to it, in the theory of annihilation\u2014that is, the\nannihilation on a vast scale of that which God made to be His\nmasterpiece, which He constituted in His own image, and into which He\ninfused by inspiration the breath of His own life. More grievous\nviolence must be done to the plain language of Scripture by the\nadvocates of this theory than by those of the former; and it seems to us\nstill harder to find for it a place in any intelligent and harmonious\nconception of the scheme on which God made the worlds.\n\nWere it possible for us to hold it, it would seem to unfold a terrible\nvision of the issue of the great experiment of creation. The free beings\nwhom God made to be the glory of His universe, drooping down in throngs,\nafter a life struggle full of anguish and despair, into the darkness of\nthe everlasting night! One would be tempted to ask passionately in that\ncase, Why was not the dire experiment of liberty ended in the hour of\nthe first transgression? why was not the free universe, parent of such\nwrongs and miseries, strangled in its birth?\n\nNor may we dare to hide from ourselves and others, in these days, the\ndread considerations involved in the doctrine which the Church has drawn\nfrom explicit statements in the word of God. Eternal punishment; eternal\nsuffering in the universe; moans rising up ever in the ear of heaven;\nthe cries of souls in anguish piercing the serenity of the heavenly\nrest. Eternal evil too. Evil never more to die out of the worlds on\nwhich the dew of the primal benediction lay, and which flashed back the\nsmile of Him who looked upon them and saw that \u201c_they were very good_.\u201d\nThe curse rioting, sin reigning unto death, in some region of the\nuniverse sustained and ruled by the Divine hand; never to be expelled\nfrom the creation, never to be drawn under the merciful reign of God. We\nare too prone to hide the awful reality which is behind this language,\nby vague notions of the judgment as the final banishing of evil from the\nsight of God and of the blessed. Nothing that is can be banished from\nthe sight of God; nothing that exists\u2014we will not say lives, life is a\nsacred word\u2014can exist from moment to moment without the interposition\nof the Divine hand. Ever present before the great Father must be the\nanguish and the moans of the souls in torment; ever to His eye there\nmust be this dark counterfoil to the joy and glory of the redeemed. And\nyet the question forces itself upon us: What else can the plain\nstatements of the Scriptures mean; nay, what else can in the essential\nnature of things befall a free spirit that chooses to exercise its\nfreedom in sin? We may well feel with a wise one of old, \u201cSuch\nknowledge is too wonderful for us: it is as high as heaven, what\ncan we do? it is as deep as hell, what can we know?\u201d\n\nSore difficulties beset us in working out a clear and harmonious theory\nof the judgment and its issues. But blessed be God that we can rest in\nthe belief that all will be, in ways that we see not, so wisely and\nrighteously ordered by the Judge of all the earth, as to satisfy the\nyearning heart, not of the great Father only, but of the Redeemer of\nhumanity, and to fill the universe with praise. Here as elsewhere, when\nwe are bewildered and perplexed by thoughts too high for us and which\nreach too far, we find a sure refuge and rest in faith. We believe God\nin Christ, and we can leave our future and the future of humanity in His\nhand. Meanwhile, our work, our duty is clear: \u201c_Now then we are\nambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you\nin Christ\u2019s stead, be ye reconciled to God._\u201d \u201c_This is the work of God,\nthat ye believe on him whom he hath sent._\u201d \u201c_Other foundation can no\nman lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ._\u201d \u201c_Believe on the\nLord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved._\u201d\n\nBut this is beside the scope of the present discourse. I have to\nconsider what these words, so strangely misapplied, do mean, and to draw\nfrom them those most pregnant lessons concerning the conduct of life\nwhich they are intended to afford. \u201c_Cast thy bread upon the waters: for\nthou shalt find it after many days. Give a portion to seven, and also to\neight; for thou knowest not what evil shall be upon the earth. If the\nclouds be full of ram, they empty themselves upon the earth: and if the\ntree fall toward the south, or toward the north, in the place where the\ntree falleth, there it shall be. He that observeth the wind shall not\nsow; and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap. As thou knowest\nnot what is the way of the spirit, nor how the bones do grow in the womb\nof her that is with child: even so thou knowest not the works of God who\nmaketh all. In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not\nthine hand: for thou knowest not whether shall prosper, either this or\nthat, or whether they both shall be alike good._\u201d\n\nI. The key to the passage, the broad idea which underlies the whole, is\nin the first verse. In the sixth verse the writer repeats the thought\nunder a varied form, and it is evident that it rules the whole. Let us\nask ourselves what it means. It is a fair question whether we have here\na reference to a popular proverb descriptive of the most useless and\napparently hopeless work, \u201ccasting bread upon the waters;\u201d or whether\nthere is a reference to Egyptian husbandry, which might seem just as\nfutile a method, did not experience prove that a harvest of splendid\nabundance is the well-nigh certain result. I do not think that it is\nneedful to settle the rival claims of the two interpretations,[B]\ninasmuch as the essential point of the author\u2019s meaning is involved in\nboth. In either case you have a husbandry of faith; and in either case\nyou have a grand image of all noble spiritual work. All husbandry is of\nfaith to an extent which we little realize, but most especially this\nhusbandry. The seed-corn scattered from the hand vanishes from sight,\nthe very bed in which it is hidden lies buried, and an uncongenial,\nimpenetrable element spreads its barrier between the sower and the seed,\nwhich he must leave in the hands of God. The farmer who has ploughed his\nfield and settled his seed in the furrows feels less shut out from it;\nhe sees at least where it lies, he can test its condition, he can trace\nthe first green bloom on the brown surface of his fields, which is the\nprophecy and the pledge of harvest. But seed cast into the waters! where\nis it? who can trace it? what can withhold the waters from rotting it,\nand burying the promise of the seed and the hope of the husbandman in\ntheir depths? And the seed dropped into the furrows of the human\nseed-field, the heart that has been broken up by the deep ploughshare of\nGod\u2019s discipline, and over which a fertilizing flood of quickening\ninfluences has passed,\u2014where lies it? What glance can follow it? What\nhand can touch it? What eye can foresee, what brain can forecast, its\ndestiny? There is a dread likeness here, to the eye of the\nunderstanding, between this perilous husbandry and spiritual labour;\nman\u2019s knowledge is so limited, man\u2019s hand is so powerless, the seed\npasses so far out of his ken, and lies buried in such deep depths\nwithin.\n\nThere is a mystery in all husbandry which it is manifestly the purpose\nof God to keep clearly before the eye of the soul. He will not suffer us\nto forget it. \u201c_And he said, So is the kingdom of God, as if a man\nshould cast seed into the ground; and should sleep, and rise night and\nday, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how. For the\nearth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear,\nafter that the full corn in the ear. But when the fruit is brought\nforth, immediately he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is\ncome_\u201d (Mark iv. 26\u201329). This is the daily miracle of nature, the\n\u201csign\u201d which is done daily before our eyes. There are those, and they\nconstitute a large and powerful school of thinkers in our day, who\nrefuse coldly to listen to any evidence as to the miracles of Scripture,\nand who see this sign of an unseen energy at work around them and within\nthem each moment, but feel powerless even to inquire from what fountain\nit springs. It is deeply unjust to brand the Positivist school of\nphilosophy as explicitly either materialistic or atheistic. They are by\nno means blind to the fact that there is a hidden mystery in nature;\nthey see quite as clearly as we do its marvellous depths. There is\nsomething quite as wonderful in their sight in the daily growth of the\ncorn and the assimilation of our daily bread, as in the feeding of five\nthousand in the lonely wilderness by the word which came forth from the\nmouth of the Saviour. But they say, this region is simply impenetrable\nby the human intellect; in all its efforts at discovery it simply meets\nwith shadows projected under various conditions and at various angles by\nitself. Our fair charge against them is, not that they are blind to the\nfact of a mystery in nature, but that they dishonour the royal faculty\nof the reason with which God has gifted them, by distrusting its ability\nto deal with a vast class of phenomena\u2014the manifestations of the\nworking of unseen powers with which God has surrounded them\u2014which are\nas definite and substantial as the physical facts out of which they\neduce their laws. The world of spiritual experience and activity with\nwhich mainly the Bible deals, claims from us, at any rate, observation,\nthought, and deduction, as reverent as that which we joyfully devote to\nthe phenomena of nature; and we accept as eagerly the thoughts and\nsuggestions of seers who have insight into this world of mystery, as we\naccept the teachings of science concerning things which are beyond our\nsight. And if words come to us from this higher sphere, which harmonize\ndiscordant elements and make the chaos of our spiritual consciousness\nand experience a cosmos ruled by intelligence and love, we joyfully\naccept the truth which sustains and explains the phenomena, and feel\nthat in proclaiming it we are \u201cholding forth a word of life\u201d to our\nfellow-men. And the Scripture miracle is to us a flash of sunlight,\nwhich illumines the darkness of the unknown: we see unveiled the Hand\nwhich is working each moment these signs and wonders within and around\nus; and, studying the nature, the mind, the heart, by which that Hand is\nguided, we find rest in the assurance that the power whose awful\nmanifestation in nature might well appal and overwhelm us, is under the\nabsolute rule of One whose declaration of Himself is that He is Love. We\nreceive an emancipation from both the terrors and the idols of the\nimagination, when we learn that the daily bread of our lives comes to us\nfrom the hand of the Father, and is crowned with His benediction. The\npoor believe it quite simply: they have a beautiful sense of dependence\non the Hand which feeds the birds and clothes the lilies. As a child\nhangs on the mother\u2019s breast, they hang daily as trustfully on the\nbounty of the Lord. And they are more free from vain fancies herein than\nthe philosophers. It is the wise and the scribe who are in bondage to\nidols: simple hearts, which have received the revelation of the\nrelations of the two worlds which the Bible offers, walk free in the\nsunlight, and dwell quiet from the fear of evil.\n\n\u201c_Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many\ndays._\u201d\n\nThe main point here then is, that in all husbandry there are two\nelements\u2014the intelligence and energy of the man, and the co-operation\nof a secret force, the springs of which and the methods of which escape\nhim, but on which absolutely depend all his fruits. Neither without the\nother can produce the harvest. Paul plants, Apollos waters; but God\ngiveth the increase: but neither without Paul\u2019s planting does the\nharvest spring. \u201c_Behold, a sower went forth to sow._\u201d The human sower\nis, as far as we see, the indispensable fellow-worker with the Most\nHigh God. But God, and not the human sower, has the absolute control of\nthe result.\n\nLet us look at this more closely. To impress this upon us is the main\nobject of the writer in the text.\n\nII. The writer of this book asks us to consider how much that has the\nmost important bearing on the results of our activity is hopelessly\nbeyond the control of our hand.\n\nNo doubt this is a truism: but it is the meaning and force of these\ntruisms which most easily escape us; custom is the blind of truth. No\nmatter what it may be to which we put our hands, we are dealing with\nelements which only partially subject themselves to our control, or\nrather reveal to us the secret by which they may be bent to our use.\nAlways there is a large variable element in the problem of our\nactivities; and on this variable element, which we have no means of\ncalculating, depends all that is most precious and vital in our results.\nHusbandry here is the great witness for, and key to, higher things.\nCertain bases are fixed and unalterable; else our work would be a pure\nlottery. Much on which its fruits depend is variable; else our work\nwould be purely mechanical. God gives us a large measure of assurance,\nthat we may work bravely and put our hearts into our labour, as those\nwho have a right to hope that they will carry the sheaves of their\nharvest home; but He crosses our toil with a zone of uncertainties, that\nwe may be faithful workmen, trusting and praying as well as working, and\nmay be kept in holy and blessed dependence on Him who can lift us above\nall servile care for immediate results. Consider\u2014\n\n1. The awful force and inevitable certainty of the processes of Nature,\nthe unfailing \u201corder of Nature\u201d which furnishes forth the field of our\ntoils. That order God guarantees. The assurance is thus expressed:\n\u201c_While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat,\nand summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease_\u201d (Gen. viii.\n22). That word of promise which has nursed the trembling hope of man\ninto strong certainty\u2014for he is as sure that the sun will rise on the\nmorrow as he is of his own existence\u2014lies at the foundation of all his\nsteady activity as a workman in this lower world. The joyful outgoings\nof the morning and evening, and the succession of the seasons, are given\nto him as the constant elements in his husbandry. These are assured to\nhim by the voice that called them into being and the hand which sustains\ntheir motions. God tells him that he may count absolutely on this order.\nAnd what guarantee, when we come to think of it, have we of that order,\nbut such as a firm belief in an intelligent Ruler of the universe, who\nsympathises with the hopes and blesses the toils of His children,\naffords? Then further,\u2014\n\n2. There is the absolutely certain sequence of physical causes and\neffects, or antecedents and consequents, which we call laws of nature,\nwhich vary not one hair\u2019s breadth from their ordained order in obedience\nto the mandates of our will, but which, by observing and mastering the\nprinciple of that order, we can use for the accomplishment of our ends.\nThese are our tools to work with. A thousand subtle laws are concerned\nin every process of the husbandman\u2019s toils. On a large scale and in the\nlong run the question of his success depends absolutely on his\ncomprehension and observance of those laws. The progress of man\u2019s\nknowledge of nature is really a progress in the mastery of the variable\nelement in the problem of his labour. A thousand accidents, which baffle\nthe ignorant and careless husbandman, obey the control of the\nintelligent and strenuous. The order is rigid. There is an awful\nsternness in its certainty; but it grows benign to him who has mastered\nits secret. It obeys him as a servant, it helps him as a friend; and the\ncertainty with which he can calculate its action is one essential\nelement of its friendliness. If he could not weigh the materials and\nmeasure the forces which are constantly around him, if he could not\ncount on their known relations and actions with the same calm certainty\nwith which he expects the sunrise to light him to his daily toils, his\nlife would be one of miserable dependence; he would live the serf of\nnature, and not her king. It is the unalterable fixity of relations and\nforces which God has given him the power to discover and to employ,\nwhich constitutes the royalty of his rule over nature; if that be\ndestroyed or shaken, his crown rolls in the dust. The constancy of the\nrelations and forces of the universe, their impassibility to the force\nwhich man\u2019s will can bring to bear upon them, of which his husbandry\ngives him full experience, is an essential element, perhaps we might say\n_the_ essential element, in that higher culture which they offer to his\nspirit; it is this which makes the life of even the workman something\nhigher than a lottery, and the toils of earth an education for the works\nand the joys of heaven.\n\n3. The writer of this book, while he sees this grand, calm, and constant\norder very clearly, and appreciates its ministry to man, has a dark, sad\nvision of the uncertainties which cross it\u2014the strength and magnitude\nof the variable element in nature and in life, which perplexes and\nbaffles the strenuous workman, keeps him constantly on the tenter-hooks\nof anxiety, and not seldom rends his heart with anguish, and lays his\nfairest and proudest achievements in ruins in the dust. A certain order\nis there, all men can see it. Yes, men say,\u2014and especially orientals,\nin whose climate the destructive agencies often run riot; but there is a\ndire disorder, and the disorder triumphs. Who knows the pathway of the\nstorms, the earthquakes, the lava floods, the drought, and the deluge?\nwho knows and rules their times? The fairest homesteads are made\ndesolate in a moment; verdant beauty as of Eden vanishes, and blasting\nand burning as of Sodom reigns in its room. There are malign powers in\nthe universe which seem to watch all beauty and increase, that they may\nmake it their prey. Do not men in all ages tremble as they rejoice in\nprosperity? Do not the proverbs of all nations warn us that trouble in\nsuch moments is near? There is a hand unseen which deals destruction to\nour harvests and homesteads, in the moment when they smile on us most\ngaily; and we are powerless to resist it; we can but sit like Job on the\ndunghill of our ruined fortunes and bemoan ourselves, and it may be\ncurse the day which sent us forth to till such a treacherous seed-field\nas this. The dearest things, the things which we love most tenderly, the\npossession of which is our life, may be struck down in a moment, the\ndelight of our eyes laid low at a stroke; we may plead and pray, we may\nwrestle with God in a frenzy of supplication: the hand which grasps our\ntreasure is pitiless; pass a few days, we shall be standing tearless and\ndefiant by the grave of our beloved. Pagans exclaim against their gods\nas treacherous, and refuse them service. Catholics revenge themselves by\ncashiering their saint. Nay, the same brutal instinct may be found in\nProtestant England: I have heard of a farmer, whose harvest was all\nruined, sticking a rotten sheaf in the hedge and leaving it there, to\nmake, as he said, God Almighty ashamed. We shudder at the blasphemy; but\nit is only a coarse expression of the anguish of the helpless in the\nhand of a power which seems inexorable and merciless, which crosses\ntheir most settled purposes, destroys ruthlessly their most precious\nharvests, and murders all their brightest joys. \u201c_If the clouds be full\nof rain, they empty themselves upon the earth: and if the tree fall\ntoward the south, or toward the north, in the place where the tree\nfalleth, there it shall be. He that observeth the wind shall not sow;\nand he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap. As thou knowest not\nwhat is the way of the spirit, nor how the bones do grow in the womb of\nher that is with child: even so thou knowest not the works of God who\nmaketh all. In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not\nthine hand: for thou knowest not whether shall prosper, either this or\nthat, or whether they both shall be alike good_\u201d (ver. 3\u20136). There is a\npower at work behind the veil which may at any moment cross our purpose\nby some unexpected stroke, which gives to us no account of its methods,\nand which allows no court of appeal from its decrees. The tree falls,\nand who can foresee when it may fall? And when it falls, it cares not\nwhat it crushes, and the wrecks of it strew our fairest fields, and bury\nour golden harvests in the dust.\n\nIII. What then? There being this law of calamity at work, defying all\ncalculation and all defence, what is the true policy of life?\n\nThere are mainly two policies of life; the stoic and the Christian. The\nStoic says,\u2014Everything is beyond my control, but myself. There is a\nkingdom whose sceptre can never be wrested from my hand. _Things_ are\ncertain enemies of my peace. I will make myself independent of _things_.\nI will reduce my relations with things outside me to a minimum. I am\nsurer of a crust than of a banquet; so I will train myself to care only\nfor a crust; a crust of food, a crust of wealth, a crust of friendship\nwill be enough for me. I will fold the cloak of my manhood around me,\nand shake myself free of all dependence on fickle fortune and mortal\nfriends.\n\nThe Christian says,\u2014Everything is beyond my control, but myself. So\nfar, he and the Stoic are at one. But he reflects that what is beyond\nHIS control is not beyond all control. This law of calamity obeys the\nrule of One who has given the most solemn and awful pledge that He loves\nme as a friend and treats me as a child. He would not have me adopt the\ndemeanour and policy of an outcast in a storm, but of a child at home. I\nwill throw my nature open to the sunlight. I will make myself as rich as\npossible in all good and beautiful possessions, and in troops of\nfriends. It is the will of Him who rules my life that I should be so; He\nmade me with all these affections and sympathies; He made me to feel\nlife a blessing. I will work and be glad, and live and love according to\nHis will; and trust, not my own hardness, but my Father\u2019s mercy, to\nspare me over-much pain, and to make life in some due measure a joy.\nHere are the two policies. How does the text decide? \u201c_Cast thy bread\nupon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days._\u201d \u201c_If the\nclouds be full of rain, they empty themselves upon the earth: and if the\ntree fall toward the south, or toward the north, in the place where the\ntree falleth, there it shall be._\u201d \u201c_In the morning sow thy seed, and in\nthe evening withhold not thine hand: for thou knowest not whether shall\nprosper, either this or that, or whether they both shall be alike\ngood._\u201d The argument is, God who made you to toil, to till the ground,\nand to till the more difficult and perilous seed-field of domestic,\nsocial, and political life, made the world thus. Both your vocation as a\nworkman, and the field of your labour, with the conditions of that\nlabour, are ordained by Him. There must then be an essential harmony.\nOne wise and intelligent Being as the author of the whole system; and\nthis law of calamity is not at war with your vocation, but is also its\nminister, and in deep and far-reaching ways is working with you to your\nends. It is not, according to the dark pagan theory, the work of a\nmalign spirit, strong enough to break in and make the homesteads and the\nlives which God has made His charge, a wreck. \u201c_I form the light and\ncreate darkness; I make peace and create evil; I, the Lord, do all these\nthings._\u201d It is all the work of one hand, and that a wise and loving\none. Work on, work bravely, work gaily; storms may sweep your fields and\nshadows may darken your homes; but no calamity, inward or outward, is\nunto death. The storm and blight of this year will swell the bulk of\nnext year\u2019s harvests; and the deeper cares and sorrows of our spiritual\nhusbandry but load us with an increase which the years lay up in the\ngarners of eternity. Practically, the husbandman finds it to be so.\nMaking the fullest allowance for all the crosses, the storms, the\nblights, the violence of Nature and of man, the balance is still amply\non the side of the faithful workman. Year by year man\u2019s tillage\nadvances; the wilderness and the solitary place is made glad by his\ntoil, and the desert rejoices and blossoms as the rose. This means that\na wise and loving Hand holds all the disturbing forces under control,\nand fixes their bounds where they instruct and stimulate, but never on\na grand scale scare and paralyse mankind. The losses and the crosses of\nthe croupier of the gaming table are borne with profound patience, for\nthere is a certain chance in his favour which must inevitably in the\nlong run fill his coffers with gain. How calmly, now joyously, should we\nwork on through our storms and sorrows, who have, not a margin of\nsecurity guaranteed by the theory of probabilities, but the certainty of\nan abundant and glorious harvest, if we are faithful and patient,\nguaranteed by the living God.\n\nAnd do not pervert the teaching of the Scripture by narrowing its scope.\nIt does not say,\u2014Work, for the work is good for you; results are\nnothing. It says rather,\u2014Work, for God is working with you, and results\nare His care. The Lord does not say,\u2014Take no thought for the morrow,\nfor these cares of food and clothes and health are sordid; despise them,\nand think exclusively of higher things. Quite other, and infinitely more\nwise and tender, is His teaching,\u2014Do not be distracted by cares, \u201c_for\nyour heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things_,\u201d\nand how He furnishes those who trust Him let the birds and the lilies\ndeclare. \u201c_Cast thy bread upon the waters_,\u201d for there is One watching\nit who will bring it back after many days. \u201c_They that sow in tears\nshall reap in joy._\u201d \u201c_He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious\nseed, shall doubtless_\u201d\u2014doubtless because the Lord of the harvest\nassures it\u2014\u201c_come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with\nhim_.\u201d\n\nThree practical principles, which indicate the Christian policy of life,\nI gather from the text:\u2014\n\n1. Do not be afraid of giving with bountiful hand lest your charity\nshould be wasted. Scatter your gifts freely: \u201c_freely ye have received,\nfreely give_.\u201d \u201c_He that hath a bountiful eye shall be blessed_,\u201d\nblessed with the blessedness of Christ, and like Christ he shall gather\nin rich harvests. Sow your gifts as the husbandman scatters the seed in\nhis furrows, leaving it with God to watch it, to bless its springing, to\nripen its fruit. Much of our charity, our effort to bless mankind, must\nseem to be futile. The waters close on it, it vanishes from sight and\ntouch, it is rotting, we think, in the depths. No; I think that the\ndiscovery of the unknown fruit of the patient efforts and the loving\nsacrifices for men which on earth seemed to us to be wasted, will be one\nof the purest and intensest joys of eternity.\n\n2. Do not be afraid of working lest your toil should be fruitless. There\nis no fruitless labour. Every hammer-stroke on the forge of duty welds\nsomething which will outlast eternity. Work with a will then, with a\ncourage, an energy, a hope, to which Heaven lends its inspiration; and\nbelieve that nothing is so sure in the universe as your harvest. This\nseed of your toil may be stolen, that may be crushed, that may be\nblighted when it is set for fruit; but the grand sum of your labour is\nbeyond the reach of the Harpies. God guards it, God quickens it, and God\nand angels will rejoice with you when one day you bring your golden\nharvest home.\n\n3. Do not be afraid of loving because every love is a sure germ of pain.\nThrow wide the doors of your heart to all comers in the name of the\nLord. The sorrows will spring, but the joys will overflow them. Count\nyourself rich, as you are rich in love. Keen sorrow it must bring, but\nwith it superabounding joy. Ask God to hallow your loves, and to\nconsecrate your crosses, and the pain is purged of all its bitterness;\nit is but the first throb of a great unspeakable joy, which will play\nlike sunlight around your life in the homes where the weary are for ever\nat rest.\n\nFOOTNOTE:\n\n[B] Those who wish to settle the critical question will find ample help\nin Dr. Ginsburg\u2019s learned and exhaustive \u201cCommentary on Ecclesiastes.\u201d\n(Longmans, 1861.)\n\n\n\n\nV.\n\nTHE LOST BIRTHRIGHT.\n\n    \u201cEsau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. For ye\n    know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the\n    blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance,\n    though he sought it carefully with tears.\u201d\u2014HEB. xii. 16, 17.\n\n\nThese words have always seemed to be among the very saddest in the book\nof God. No place of repentance, though sought carefully with tears! It\nis a very terrible picture, and seems to describe the experience of what\nmust have been a very wretched and blighted life. It is possible that if\nwe study the matter closely some of the tones of sadness may be\nlightened; but still Esau and his sad history will remain one of the\ndark perplexities of Scripture, just as the acts and the fate of men\nlike Esau are among the most inscrutable mysteries of life. There are\nmen like Esau cropping up everywhere; men who seem born to lose their\nbirthright, to be befooled by the keen and subtle Jacobs, to be seeking\never places of repentance, and to find Fate inexorable to their tears.\nMen _born_ under the dark doom of the rejected, we are tempted to\nsay\u2014so inevitable their destiny appears from the first. In this case,\n\u201c_the elder shall serve the younger_,\u201d was written of the twin brethren\nin the womb, and Jacob was the successful supplanter from his birth.\nThere are many sad mysteries in life, and the history of such natures\nand their destiny are among the saddest. We cannot hope to fathom it on\nearth; but blessed be God for the assurance which we are not only\npermitted but bound to cherish, that all which is inscrutable here and\ndark with shadows will unfold a divine order and beauty in the long\nbright day of eternity.\n\nEsau and Jacob, both in their personal character and their relations\nwith each other, are representative men, and foreshow in brief the\nessential character of large phases and long periods of human\ndevelopment. They place before us, as we read the record of their\npersonal history, the great twin brethren, the Gentile and the Jewish,\nperhaps even more widely the Christian and the heathen, sections of\nmankind. The earlier records of the book of God are full of such typical\ncharacters and lives. In truth, in the earliest time life was typical;\nmen lived in large and free intercourse with Nature and with their\nfellow-men. The conventional swathing-bands with which modern society\nhas bound itself were unknown. Men lived boldly from within, and what\nthey said and did had broad human significance, and forecast naturally\nwhat men would say and do under the same conditions to the end of time.\nHence, we imagine, the exceeding fulness of the book of Genesis in its\npainting of character and life. Nowhere have we anything like such large\nand graphic portraiture as here. The reason is surely that in those ages\nlife was richly doctrinal, and that the God who caused all Holy\nScripture to be written for our learning saw that the history of such\nlives as those of Abraham, Isaac, Esau, Jacob, and Joseph, would be the\nmost precious legacy which could be handed down from the age of the\npatriarchs to all time.\n\nThe contrast of these two men is peculiarly rich and instructive. Esau\nis the lusty, genial, jovial pagan; impulsive, impetuous, frank, and\ngenerous, but sensual and self-willed. A man keenly alive to the claims\nand experiences of the moment; slow to believe in unseen realities and\nthe harvest which could only be reaped beyond long years of patience and\npain. Jacob, on the other hand, led from the first a meditative and\ninterior life. What may be meant by the description, \u201ca plain man,\ndwelling in tents,\u201d is not very apparent. It certainly does not simply\ndescribe a fact in his history, but rather a feature of his character.\nHe loved the home life; while the burly Esau was abroad in the field, he\nloved to sit at home, meditating on many things, and amongst them the\nhighest\u2014a plain man, sound, pure, pious, as some commentators have it.\nThe meaning of the word is certainly moral; \u201c_integer vit\u00e6_,\u201d may\nperhaps express it. The pilgrim Abraham was reproduced in Jacob in some\nof the main features of his character. He could understand, at any rate,\nwhat Esau apparently could never understand\u2014the sacredness of a Divine\nvocation, the value of a birthright which carried with it a Divine\nbenediction, and which was freighted with the Divine promise to the\nworld. The grand distinction between the two men from the first was,\nthat Jacob had faith, while Esau had none. Jacob had the heart of a\npilgrim, Esau the heart of a \u201cprince of this world.\u201d Jacob saw something\nbehind the veil, which filled his soul with awe and made his life a\nconstant aspiration; Esau saw that on this side the veil which filled\nhim with the only pleasure which he cared to grasp at, and which taught\nhim to look upon his brother\u2019s pilgrim lot and halting step as the sign\nof a broken and wasted life. Esau had his grand success in the princedom\nwhich he founded. You may read the list of the \u201cdukes of Edom, who\nsprang from him,\u201d in the chapters which record his history. The sad and\nweary Jacob, standing before Pharaoh when his race was well nigh run,\nwitnessed this confession, \u201c_Few and evil have the days of the years of\nmy life been, and have not attained unto the days of the years of the\nlife of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage_.\u201d His success lay\nbeyond generations and ages, beyond the rising of the \u201cStar that should\ncome out of\u201d his house, beyond the resurrection day. Jacob\u2019s life won no\nsuccess but such as he shares with humanity in time and in eternity. His\nsuccess is our success; in his blessing we are blessed. He stands forth\nin the early twilight of history as the typical child of the kingdom,\nthe Prince of God, having power with two worlds. He is the\nrepresentative of the elect men and races. This election is a broad,\nplain, principle of God\u2019s government. In all ages God is wont to call\nmen, races, nations, out of the commonwealth of humanity, and to bring\nthem near unto Himself. Their election is to service\u2014high service, hard\nbattle, stern endurance. First in honour, they must be first in perils,\npains, temptations, and toils. Privilege is a word of abundant meaning\nin the book of God\u2019s dispensations; but it means privilege to be\nfirst\u2014to lead the van, to clear the way, to open new paths for progress\nthrough the jungle of ignorance and night. Privilege to belong to a\nprivileged class, to special advantage and certain success; privilege to\nrun the race of life, light and trim against weighted competitors, is\npart of the devil\u2019s gospel, not of God\u2019s. Of this royal class, who are\nGod\u2019s elect ministers to mankind in all their generations, Jacob is a\ntypical representative. We learn from his character and history what God\nmeans by callings, birthrights, and blessings, and how much those whom\nHe places in the front rank have to toil and suffer for the world. There\nis something in Jacob\u2019s character and in the development of his life\nwhich is significant for all time, which forecasts the course of Jewish\nand Christian ages, and prophesies in broad outline the method of God\u2019s\nuniversal culture of our race.\n\nAt the same time the patriarch of Israel presents to us a wonderfully\ncomplete image of the race which sprang from him. We speak of Jacob\nrather than Abraham, as the founder of the people to which he gave his\nname; Abraham, the father of the faithful, is the founder of a yet\nricher and mightier line. But Jacob is the typical Jew. His life, like\nthe life of his people, is simply incomprehensible to those who cannot\nrealize a Divine vocation, who cannot cling to a Divine promise, who\ncannot struggle and suffer in faith for the sake of far-off divine\nresults, whereby humanity at large would be blessed. Jacob\u2019s life was\nmade what it was by the commerce which he held with the unseen God of\nhis fathers. They have but a dim eye for the meaning of history who\ncannot see that, under all this man\u2019s questionable deeds and chequered\nexperience, this faith in God was the deepest and strongest element in\nhis nature. It ruled the critical moments of his life, it sustained him\nthrough all the stormiest scenes of his pilgrimage, and it shone out\nclearest and strongest in death. Scarcely had he gone forth an exile\nfrom the house of his fathers, when this fruitful commerce with God and\nthe spiritual world was established. The beautiful narrative in Genesis\ncasts a flood of light on his life. \u201c_And Jacob went out from Beersheba,\nand went toward Haran. And he lighted upon a certain place, and tarried\nthere all night, because the sun was set; and he took of the stones of\nthat place and put them for his pillows, and lay down in that place to\nsleep. And he dreamed, and behold, a ladder set up on the earth, and the\ntop of it reached to heaven: and, behold, the angels of God ascending\nand descending on it. And, behold, the Lord stood above it, and said, I\nam the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land\nwhereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed; and thy\nseed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to\nthe west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in\nthee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.\nAnd, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither\nthou goest, and will bring thee again into this land: for I will not\nleave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of. And\nJacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said, Surely the Lord is in this\nplace, and I knew it not. And he was afraid, and said, How dreadful is\nthis place! this is none other but the house of God, and this is the\ngate of heaven._\u201d (Gen. xxviii. 10\u201317.)\n\nPrecisely the same influence was formative of the character and\ndestinies of his race. This high and grand quality, this openness to the\ninfluence of the \u201cpowers of the world to come,\u201d which is surely the\ngrandest of all qualities, renders the highest Divine culture possible,\nwith eternally blessed and glorious results. But it was marred and\ndebased both in Jacob and in his people by the alloy of selfish, base,\nand carnal elements, of the earth earthy, which it was the great aim of\nall the Divine discipline under which he and his people suffered so\nsharply, to purge away and to destroy. And herein he represents a wider\nfamily than Israel. This Divine tincture, in a measure, is in all of us,\nmixed with the baser earthy matter. God\u2019s chosen ones, the subjects of\nHis highest culture in all ages, have mostly the earthy element in full\nforce, struggling with the Divine. No model men were the chosen people\nof ancient times, nor the saints of apostolic days. The one question is,\nHast thou faith? \u201c_Lord, I believe, help Thou mine unbelief_,\u201d is\nsubstantially the confession of Jacob, of Israel, and of all who in any\nage form part of the Church of the living God. When Jacob, when the\nJews, suffered themselves to forget the Divinity which was with them,\nwhich was in them, their superior power revealed itself as simply\nmasterly craft. Jacob, viewed in one light, is just the most\naccomplished and successful schemer of his times; in another light, he\nis the grandest spiritual prince. His people repeat the anomaly. The\nrace of the grandest spiritual power, of the most intense religious\nbelief, have earned the character of the most accomplished hucksters and\ntricksters of the world. The power capable of the one, under the true\ninspiration, without it sank easily to the level of the other. There is\na modern instance remarkably in point. In many respects the Scotch have\nsucceeded to the character and position which the Jews occupied in\nancient society. In both people there is the same grand spiritual power,\nthe same prophetic spirit\u2014Edward Irving was more after the fashion of\nan old Jewish prophet than any man, except perhaps Savonarola, whom we\nhave had among us in these modern days\u2014the same intense religious zeal,\nthe same heroism in fighting and suffering for their faith, mixed up\nwith the same worldly ambition, the same cautious and canny temper, the\nsame facility of dispersion, and the same power of getting on and\nwinning wealth and influence wherever God might cast their lot. Is\nthere not a manifestation of the same law in the history of the\nuniversal Church? As with Jacob, as in Judaism, so in Christendom, the\nleading spiritual magnates, the prominent Churchmen of all ages,\nforsaking their true strength, divesting themselves of their true power\nas Christ\u2019s priests and kings, have sunk to the level of the most\nselfish schemers, and have won the reputation of the cleverest and\nwiliest statesmen of the world. Churchcraft in all ages has been held to\nbe a shade more worldly, more subtle, more ruthless, than statecraft.\nThe old proverb, \u201cthe corruption of the best is the worst\u201d partly\naccounts for it; but something is due also to the principle whose\nworkings we trace through Jacob\u2019s history, that the power which,\ninspired of God, is capable of Godlike activity, when the world or the\ndevil get hold of it, is capable of all manner of worldly and devilish\nwork with fell energy and success.\n\nBut Jacob\u2019s life was purified and elevated as it passed through its\ntremendous discipline. The aged pilgrim, having won the title of Prince\nof God, stood before Pharaoh clothed with a dignity and power which made\nthe world\u2019s mightiest monarch bend eagerly under the blessing of his\nhand. \u201c_The Angel which redeemed me from all evil_,\u201d he spake of, when\nhis eyes were growing dim in death. The history of his life is the\nhistory of that redemption, and this is its rich meaning for us. He\nsinned basely and shamefully, he suffered as few have suffered, and\nwrestled as few have strength to wrestle for the blessing which purified\nand redeemed his life. A sad, stricken, broken man, halting painfully on\nhis thigh, he went on his way, but ennobled, purified, and saved. His\nlife is a revelation of the way of God in the discipline of our spirits;\nhow power gets educated and purified, and made meet at last for the work\nand the joy of eternity. So Judaism, as it struggled on and suffered,\nlost some of its baser elements, and came forth, developed, into a\nhigher region of experience and power, in the life of the Christian\nChurch.\n\nThe study of the character of these two men is full of the richest\ninterest and instruction; but our present purpose is with the elder, and\nthis profoundly sad passage of his history. There is much, in the matter\nof both the birthright and the repentance of which our text speaks,\nwhich is frequently very grievously and even disastrously misunderstood,\nwhich is supposed to present ideas of the dealings of God with man which\ncontradict the fundamental principles of the gospel, and casts no\ntrifling stumbling-blocks before the steps of faith. That we may\nunderstand it truly let us consider\u2014\n\nI. That the rejection of the elder, and the election of the younger to\nhonour and power\u2014to all that the election of God could bring\u2014by no\nmeans stands by itself in the history of the Divine dispensations; and\nit illustrates an important principle on which we will dwell for a\nmoment before we pass on.\n\nWe are tempted to think that, on the whole, Esau was a hardly used man,\nand that we have here an instance of the exercise of the Divine\nsovereignty which is harsh, arbitrary, and unjust. In the natural course\nof things, Esau would have had the birthright and all that it was worth.\nIt is made to appear that by a purely arbitrary act Esau was robbed of\nit, while Jacob was endowed with it, having no sort of superior claim.\nPaul, in Romans ix. 10\u201313, is careful to insist that whatever the\nprinciple may be which is at work here, at any rate it is not merit, for\nthe decree was pronounced long before any questions of merit could have\nforce. The sovereignty of God is here the keystone of his argument: it\nis worth our while to discern, as far as we may, the reason on which\nthis act of sovereignty rests. Of course the sympathy which we extend to\nEsau is based upon some idea of the rights of the elder born which seems\nto be instinctive in the human heart. This opens a wide question into\nwhich we have no need in this place to enter. The principle is\nrecognised plainly enough in the word of God. In Deuteronomy xxi. 15\u201317,\nthere is explicit legislation on the subject. \u201c_If a man have two\nwives, one beloved, and another hated, and they have born him children,\nboth the beloved and the hated; and if the firstborn son be her\u2019s that\nwas hated: then it shall be, when he maketh his sons to inherit that\nwhich he hath, that he may not make the son of the beloved firstborn\nbefore the son of the hated, which is indeed the firstborn: but he shall\nacknowledge the son of the hated for the firstborn, by giving him a\ndouble portion of all that he hath: for he is the beginning of his\nstrength; the right of the firstborn is his._\u201d Joseph was evidently\ngrieved when Jacob blessed the younger with the blessing of the\nfirstborn, as though some sacred order had been violated: and the very\nword \u201cfirstborn\u201d is employed as a term of dignity and pre-eminence both\nin the Old and the New Testament scriptures. I believe it to be for the\ngood of society that this order should exist; that the eldest son should\nbe looked upon as the representative of the family, while the younger\nsons should regard it as their lot\u2014and not the worse lot in the sight\nof God and the angels\u2014to carve out a new fortune for themselves. I\nbelieve this to be a Divine institution, and that God contemplated it\nwhen he established the family life as the basis of human society. But\njust because it is an order ordained of God, man shall not make an idol\nof it. A certain free play in the working of an order or an institution\nis essential to the well-being and progress of society. If God had so\nordered all the dispensations, that the elder son was constituted\ninvariably the organ of His communication with the household, the tribe,\nthe race, it would have instituted a caste instead of a principle of\norder, and the great majority of our race would, in that case, be\noutcast from their birth. That this rule of the elder might not become a\ntyrannous thing, that the younger sons of the house might feel that they\ntoo had a man\u2019s part to play on the theatre of life, a part which might\neasily become grander and more glorious than that of the firstborn, God,\nat great critical moments, seems to have broken through the order, and\nmade the younger the heir of the promises and the organ of His\nrevelation to mankind. Jacob is a notable, a typical instance. The case\nof David is hardly less remarkable, 1 Sam. xvi. 6\u201313. And Paul in the\nspiritual family illustrates the same principle; the youngest born of\nthe apostles, one in his own estimation hardly meet to be called an\napostle, laboured more abundantly than they all, and was crowned with\nthe most glorious success. But these arbitrary selections, as they\nappear at first sight, in reality, when we look more closely, are found\nto deliver the institution of primogeniture from arbitrariness; and they\nshow to us that the Will which rules the world maintains its freedom\nunder the guidance of its wisdom, and remits to no institution, however\nuseful or honourable, the supreme power in the conduct of human affairs.\nIt seems as though, knowing man\u2019s inherent propensity to formalism, the\nLord had visibly broken through, from time to time, the very forms which\nHe had Himself established, that He might show decisively that forms can\nhave noble use alone in the hands of the free. Two singular instances of\nthis, closely parallel to each other, are to be found in the numbers of\nthe tribes of Israel and of the apostles of Christ. We talk familiarly\nof twelve tribes and of twelve apostles. But were there truly twelve or\nthirteen in each case? The question is by no means easy to answer. The\ntribe of Joseph was split into two. Theoretically, it is easy to regard\nthe tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh as forming together the one tribe of\nJoseph. But, practically, we must remember that the tribe of Ephraim was\nthe most powerful and masterful of the tribes until the rise of the\nhouse of David. If any tribe might be looked upon as complete, certainly\nit would be the tribe of Ephraim. So that, looking at it in the light of\nactual history, we should be compelled to reckon thirteen, but for the\nfact that the separation of the tribe of Levi for the priesthood reduced\nto twelve the number of tribes claiming tribal settlement in Canaan, and\nactive in the spheres of industry, politics, and war. Similarly, it is\nan open question how far the place of Judas among the Twelve was\nlawfully filled up by the election of Matthias. It is far from clear\nthat Peter and the infant Church were not acting hastily in this\nelection and ordination of a successor to the apostate. We hear the name\nof Matthias only, and then he disappears from history. While we soon\nmeet with an apostle of the Lord\u2019s election, who, if Matthias was duly\ncalled, raises the number of the apostles to thirteen. Is not this\nuncertainty, this fringe of doubt, left hanging around the numbers in\nthese important and critical instances with a set purpose, that men\nmight not make an idol of the number? That men might not think in the\none case that the firstborn were the world\u2019s sole masters, nor dream in\nthe other that a college of twelve was essential to the conduct of all\nthe great spiritual movements of mankind.\n\nII. The question of the birthright seems to us to be one on which there\nis, popularly at any rate, a good deal of misunderstanding. We will look\nat it a little more closely, before we proceed to consider the\nunavailing repentance which will form the topic of a second discourse.\n\nThere is something which reaches beyond the merely\nhistorico-representative character, in the history of these twain. Most\nof the earnest and generous students of the Old Testament would, we\nimagine, if they were to make frank confession, sympathise with Esau as\na wronged and ill-used man. A sentiment of pity for the big, burly\nhunter, so helpless in the hands of the subtle and masterly Jacob, takes\npossession of us as we read the history. It seems a hard penalty to pay\nfor a moment\u2019s weakness under the pressure of the pangs of hunger; while\nthe crafty treacherous falsehood by which the blessing as well as the\nbirthright was won from him enlists us wholly as to that transaction on\nhis side. This sentiment of compassion is much strengthened by the vague\nimpression that, through the craft of Jacob, Esau suffered a terrible\nand irreparable loss. And younger sons, as they see the paternal acres,\nthe family mansion, and the dignity of the family name, passing to the\nelder, are prone to make the same moan, and to reckon themselves the\npredestined victims of the social order of the world. Learn from this\nhistory how the matter really stands. Esau had all the birthright which\nhe honestly cared for; while Jacob had simply that birthright which,\nblessed be Christ, is within reach of every child of every household\nupon earth. Do not waste your pity upon Esau, on the ground of what he\nlost. Pity him rather on the score of what he did not care to win. It\nwould be a great mistake to suppose that Jacob\u2019s treachery left the\nelder brother a broken and ruined man; on the contrary, the ruin in the\nworldly sense fell on the man who won the birthright; and though the\nblessing was added, he went a broken and halting man to the end of his\ndays. That exceeding great and bitter cry, which was wrung from the\ndisinherited when he saw the paternal blessing following the birthright,\ndid not continue to wail through his life. He was a warmhearted, loving,\nand generous man, though of fiery passion. The loss of the good old\nIsaac\u2019s benediction struck him to the heart; but we are wrong in\nsupposing that it remained a burden on his life. Nothing of the kind; it\nhad been better for him if it had been so. But the fury seems soon to\nhave passed away, probably too his regrets. He became a chieftain of\nwealth and renown, rich, strong, illustrious. We meet with him again,\nand there is no trace of a shadow over his life. \u201c_And Jacob lifted up\nhis eyes, and looked, and, behold, Esau came, and with him four hundred\nmen. And he divided the children unto Leah, and unto Rachel, and unto\nthe two handmaids. And he put the handmaids and their children foremost,\nand Leah and her children after, and Rachel and Joseph hindermost. And\nhe passed over before them, and bowed himself to the ground seven times,\nuntil he came near to his brother. And Esau ran to meet him, and\nembraced him, and fell on his neck, and kissed him: and they wept. And\nhe lifted up his eyes, and saw the women and the children; and said, Who\nare those with thee? And he said, The children which God hath\ngraciously given thy servant. Then the handmaidens came near, they and\ntheir children, and they bowed themselves. And Leah also with her\nchildren came near, and bowed themselves: and after came Joseph near and\nRachel, and they bowed themselves. And he said, What meanest thou by all\nthis drove which I met? And he said, These are to find grace in the\nsight of my lord. And Esau said, I have enough, my brother; keep that\nthou hast unto thyself._\u201d (Gen. xxxiii. 1\u20139.) \u201c_And Esau took his wives,\nand his sons, and his daughters, and all the persons of his house, and\nhis cattle, and all his beasts, and all his substance, which he had got\nin the land of Canaan; and went into the country from the face of his\nbrother Jacob. For their riches were more than that they might dwell\ntogether; and the land wherein they were strangers could not bear them,\nbecause of their cattle. Thus dwelt Esau in mount Seir. Esau is Edom._\u201d\n(Gen. xxxvi. 6\u20138.) Read the catalogue of his princely descendants, and\nremember that Edom played a splendid part in the political, and\nespecially the commercial, history of the oriental world. Esau lost\nthat, and that alone, which his soul had no love for, and no power to\nuse to honour. But he won that in which his soul delighted; he passed a\nlifetime of splendid and careless prosperity, and in a good old age went\ndown to his grave in peace.\n\nAnd what did Jacob win by his birthright\u2014his rights of the firstborn?\nSimply the power to become God\u2019s pilgrim, the power to win a lofty\nheight of honour and renown by life-long patience, by heroic struggle,\nby wearing, wasting toils. What good shall this birthright do to me,\nsaid the hungry hunter, mad for the mess of pottage which the thrifty\nJacob sold. But what good did the birthright do to the supplanter who\nbought it, and filched the blessing with it? None, absolutely none, in\nthe sense in which they talk of \u201cgood\u201d who are reckoning gains. It drove\nhim forth from the very hour when he stole his father\u2019s blessing, an\nexile to a distant land. It made him for long years, his best years, a\nhireling in his kinsman\u2019s house. It exposed him to precisely the kind\nof trick which he himself had practised, in a matter of yet deeper\nmoment to his affection; for it imperilled the winning of the woman whom\nhe tenderly loved. After he had served for long years as a hireling for\na hireling\u2019s wage, it brought him back at length to the threshold of the\npromised Canaan. Rich in the wealth of the East, he drew near the\nborders. His soul was filled with perturbation when he heard that Esau\nwas coming to meet him. The wrong which his brother had suffered rose up\nfreshly before him in all its disgraceful features, and he could hardly\nbelieve in the hunter\u2019s generous forgiveness as he cowered a suppliant\nat his feet. Entered at length on the land of his inheritance, discord\nbreaks out in his home and embitters his life. He is struck to the heart\nthrough his dearest affections. \u201cThere I buried Rachel\u201d is the epitaph\nof a great agony; and when Joseph was not, he felt that he should go\ndown mourning to the grave. At length the land of his inheritance\nrefused to sustain him; and the weary old pilgrim, with one foot in the\ngrave, goes forth once more an exile\u2014the second and final exile\u2014into a\nland where the sons for whom he won and held the birthright were\ndestined for centuries to writhe and moan as slaves. What good did the\nbirthright do to him?\n\nIf you look at the things which are seen, which are mostly in view when\nbirthrights are in question, Esau, the hardly used man, the victim, had\nmost unquestionably the preferable lot. The time came when he stood as a\nprince before Jacob, and Jacob bowed himself at his feet. There was no\nmalignant spirit at work here, as we are sometimes tempted to conceive\nof it, making Esau\u2019s life wretched and broken, while Jacob\u2019s was heaped\nhigh with all which could gladden a grasping and sensual heart; on the\ncontrary, the chosen son won only that which Esau would not have cared\nto lift if it had been laid at his very feet. Esau lost only that which\nwould have been life-long a torment to his easy, jovial, sensual\nnature, which he would have prayed to get rid of, which he would in some\nway have got rid of, if it had clung to him, no matter at what cost.\nThere were some, remember, who, finding their herds of swine in peril,\nprayed even the merciful Saviour \u201cto depart out of their coasts.\u201d Jacob\nseized a bitter inheritance as far as this world was concerned, by his\nclever impersonation; while Rebekah, who prompted and managed it, paid a\nyet heavier price for it; in this world she never saw her darling more.\n\nWhat he won was power with God and with man as a spiritual prince; power\nto pray, and to conquer by prayer; power to trust and to hope in God\u2019s\nmercy through stern struggles and bitter miseries; and power to reach a\nhand through death and lay up the hope of his soul with God on high. The\nheart which could crave for a spiritual thing, which pined to be a child\nof promise, which clung to the traditions of his fathers and the hope of\nhis house, all which Esau scorned, God trained by suffering to aim\ncontinually at higher and yet higher things. He won, in a word, a high\nplace in God\u2019s high school of discipline, and a name of renown as a\nspiritual hero in time and in eternity. This was practically his gain;\nand it is precisely this which God places fairly within your reach. You\ntoo may be the sons of promise; \u201cpower to become the sons of God\u201d is the\nbirthright which in Christ is yours. Jacob, no doubt, and most justly,\nseems to you the grander man as compared with Esau, and his life the\nnobler and more glorious life. Then live it. All that he won you may\nwin. Make yourself a prince of God by wrestling prayer. The birthright\nof broad acres and family honours may pass to your elder. The birthright\nof hard work, stern struggle, strong effort, high aspiration,\ndisciplined power, victorious faith, eternal renown and joy, is yours.\nChrist has won it, and freely bestows it\u2014no younger son\u2019s portion, but\nthe birthright of the eldest, the only-begotten son, glorious through\ntime and eternity. It may be that many a younger son may read these\nwords; many a one who may be tempted to bemoan himself that the younger\nson\u2019s portion, the lot of toil and struggle, has fallen to him in life.\nWell! if it be so, bless God for it. If the lot of the younger be toil\nand struggle, if it falls to them mainly to open new paths, not without\nperil and pain, to win by earnest and patient effort strength and\nwisdom, and to take the leader\u2019s place in the battle-field of life,\ndon\u2019t moan over it if it has fallen to you, but again I say bless God\nfor it. The nobler, the richer, the lordlier inheritance, is yours.\nPity, do not despise, but pity the elders who sit clothed in purple and\nfine linen, faring sumptuously every day. It would be a strange history\nif it were fairly written out, the history of younger sons, with a just\nestimate of what they have done in comparison with the elder for the\nservice and progress of mankind. The eldest born, the heirs, with the\ninheritance which the past has lazily left to them; the younger sons,\nwith the domain of wisdom, strength, and influence, which their own\nright hand, God helping them, has won. If Jacob seems to you the petted\nchild of fortune, the chosen favourite of heaven, and Esau the wretched\nreprobate outcast, spurned alike of man and of God, then take Jacob\u2019s\ninheritance; take it, it is fairly yours. Spurn Esau\u2019s, which the devil\nis putting into your hand. Be your choice the pilgrim\u2019s toils and\nstruggles, the name of renown, the everlasting portion; and with the\nwords of the pilgrim\u2019s hymn upon your lips pass on your way.\n\n    \u201cContented now upon my thigh\n       I halt, till life\u2019s short journey end;\n     All helplessness, all weakness, I\n       On Thee alone for strength depend;\n     Nor have I power from Thee to move;\n     Thy nature and Thy name is Love.\n\n     Lame as I am, I take the prey;\n       Hell, earth, and sin, with ease o\u2019ercome;\n     I leap for joy, pursue my way,\n       And, as a bounding hart, fly home;\n     Through all eternity to prove\n     Thy nature and Thy name is Love.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nVI.\n\nNO PLACE OF REPENTANCE.\n\n    \u201cHe found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully\n    with tears.\u201d\u2014HEB. xii. 17.\n\n\nWe have shown in the last discourse that a close examination of the\nquestion of the birthright lightens some of the deeper shadows which lie\nupon it. Comparing the outward and visible aspect of the two men\u2014the\nman who sold the birthright and lost the blessing, and the man who won\nthem both\u2014it would appear that the balance of worldly prosperity was\naltogether on Esau\u2019s side. Esau lost just that which his soul despised,\nand he won what his soul lusted after, wealth, power, and the position\nof a prince. He lived prosperously and splendidly, and died peacefully\nwe may believe, with few regrets. There is certainly nothing in the few\nwords which are devoted to his subsequent history to suggest that he\nlived a disappointed ruined man. On the contrary, he seems to have\ndisplayed on his meeting with Jacob that magnanimity and generosity\nwhich shallow natures are wont to manifest in a prosperous lot. It is\njust the glow of the sunlight reflected from their lives: the rippling\nshallows make a braver show in the sunlight than the still deep pools;\nand Esaus are gayer objects to look at, when all goes well with them,\nthan the careworn halting pilgrim, who bears on his brow, and no\nsunlight can efface it, the marks of many toils and tears. But be that\nas it may, there can be no question that the Bible does not picture the\nlife of Esau as a broken and ruined life, as far as this world is\nconcerned. The man grew rich and powerful, so rich that he could afford\nto make light of Jacob\u2019s presents, so powerful that Jacob\u2019s company was\nhelpless in his hand. It is written that once the children of Israel\ncried for flesh, and \u201c_God gave them flesh, but sent leanness into their\nsouls_.\u201d Something like this was the history of Esau, and of how many a\nworldly-hearted man whom fortune loads with gifts, while the springs of\nhis higher life sink low and die. And his race prospered. As Jacob was\nto Esau, quite the weaker and more dependent of the two, so when\ncenturies passed was Israel to Edom. The descendants of Esau had\nattained to such strength and political influence that they were able to\nbar the gates of their land against the elect host, pilgrims through the\nwilderness like their sire, angel-led, and saved by hope. On the whole\nthen, for himself and his descendants, his life must be pronounced a\nworldly success.\n\nJacob, on the other hand, had to reap life-long the bitter fruits of his\ncraft and fraud. His life was a weary, wasting struggle with selfish\ncraft and evil passion in all who surrounded him. He spent the best\nyears of his life in exile, and stood before Pharaoh, in his own\njudgment prematurely aged and decayed. He won a name and a place which\ncalled him to submit to a searching discipline, to live the life of a\npilgrim, to dwell as a stranger in his promised land, and to die in\nexile at last. The world was fuller to him of sorrows and toils than of\nbenedictions, and the crown which the Prince of God at last was able to\nbind around his brow was set with many a thorn. But he won the power to\nfollow the Angel, the Angel which redeemed him from all evil; his life,\nhalting as was his step, was a noble spiritual progress from strength to\nstrength, from victory to victory, till he passed up to receive the\nprize of his conflict in a world and from a hand which Esau \u201cdespised.\u201d\n\nLooked at in the light of this world\u2019s interests then, some of the\ndarkest difficulties vanish as we read the record of this birthright\nlost and won. But then there is Esau himself, the man who despised his\nbirthright, who counted himself unworthy of the honour to which God had\nordained him, incapable of the glorious toil and patience to which God\nhad called him, and careless of the prize which God had placed within\nreach of his hand. The life of this man, from the higher point of view,\nwas as sad, wretched, and faithless, as was the pilgrim Jacob\u2019s from the\nlower. He won his wealth and his princedom by his energy of hand and\nwill in all things that pertained to this life; but he let all the\ninterests and hopes of the higher life fade out of the horizon, and the\ncrown of his spiritual manhood slip from the grasp of his careless hand.\nHe touched it, but he could not hold it. What good shall this birthright\ndo to me, he moaned when the mess of pottage steamed before his hungry\nsenses; and the crown rolled in the dust. There is the man Esau, under\nall his possession and princedom, in the sight of God a very wretched\nand poverty-stricken outcast of the kingdom whose citizens believe in\ntruth, duty, spiritual effort, conflict, prayer, self-sacrifice, heaven,\nand God. About the case of Esau personally there are many heavy\ndifficulties. His course seems to have been in a measure marked out from\nhis birth: \u201c_The elder shall serve the younger_\u201d was said of the twin\nbrethren while they were yet in the womb: and some such relation of the\ntwo seems to be involved in the destiny which a higher Will had from the\nfirst decreed. And this opens the vision of an abyss of mystery, into\nthe depths of which no finite intellect can search\u2014the relation of\nconnate constitution and temperament to character, and the measure in\nwhich this bears on the supreme fact of man\u2019s being, responsibility.\nResponsibility, implying freedom in the largest sense, we hold to be the\ncorner stone of our dignity as men. If man be not free, with the\neverlasting crown of freedom within his reach as the prize of all his\ntoils and struggles, why! there is not a cur that prowls about the\nstreets whose lot is not more enviable. In that case man would be a\ncombatant by a profound instinct of his nature, struggling sternly\nlife-long against innumerable evils, with nothing after all to struggle\nfor; pressed, crushed, by the weight of intolerable ills, with no hope\nto sanctify and no harvest to repay his pain. Who would not \u201crather be a\ndog and bay the moon,\u201d than such a creature? For freedom, and the\nresponsibility which it brings, as the fundamental spiritual fact of our\nnature, we contend earnestly, yea vehemently, as for the only\njustification of God\u2019s constitution of the human world, the only key to\nthe woes which He lets loose to afflict it and the discords with which\nHe allows it to be torn. And for the reality of this moral freedom we\nshall have to do stern battle with the school who are urging now, with\ngreat subtilty and force, that all the moral phenomena of man\u2019s nature\nare just the finest efflorescence of the nerve matter of which his\nintelligence is manufactured, the cream of the milk of his natural law.\n\nBut it cannot be questioned for a moment that men appear to be under\nvarious conditions of advantage, as we might call it, with regard to the\nexercise of their freedom and its fruits. The differences arise partly,\nbut not we believe chiefly, from circumstance. The child of a household\nof thieves or vagrants, for instance, seems to have but a poor chance in\nlife compared with the children who grow up, pure, cultivated, comely,\nand pious, in your serene, happy, and orderly homes. But the more\nserious source of this inequality is to be found in character and\ntemperament, inbred lusts, passions, tempers, and proclivities which may\nmake the life of a man one long agony of struggle and failure, while\nanother man more fairly endowed may find from the first the way of\nwisdom a way of pleasantness and all her paths paths of peace. A man\nborn with a brutal nature and feeble spiritual energy, or with a native\npropensity, as far as we can see, to certain forms of sin\u2014the\ntemptation to which exercises the kind of fascination over his will\nwhich the serpent\u2019s eye is said to exert over the victim bird, but which\nanother man would burst through as easily as Samson flung off the withes\nof the Philistine harlot\u2014is, one is tempted to think, at a terrible\ndisadvantage in life\u2019s battle, compared with the man who has a halo of\nsaintly glory around his brow from his birth. It is a dark, sad mystery,\nmuch of which, after all our brooding over it, we must leave in trust\nwith God.\n\nI believe firmly that inequalities arising out of circumstances are\nafter all far less real than they appear. The facilities and\nopportunities for a fair unfolding of life are not so uneven, in\nthe various classes and callings, as they seem. There must be some\ndeep meaning in the Saviour\u2019s words, \u201c_Blessed are ye poor_,\u201d and\nin the terrible sentence, \u201c_How hardly shall they that have riches\nenter into the kingdom of God_.\u201d There is an amount of practical\nChristianity\u2014daily, hourly trust in God and ministry to each\nother\u2014developed by the circumstances of the lot of the poor, which\nwe may fairly set against the intelligent beliefs, the doctrinal\ncorrectness, and the measured charities of the richer class, as in\nthe sight of God of equal or of higher price. There is nothing in a\nworkman\u2019s lot or toil, to remove him farther from the gate of the\nkingdom than rich men, nobles, priests, or kings; nay, the balance\nis altogether in his favour. But, alas! there is a class far below\nthe workman, a vast class, vastest in the great cities where\nChristian civilization is at the height of its splendour and power,\nwhose lot it is terribly difficult to comprehend in a theodicy, and\nof whom it is hard to believe that they are not from the first at a\nfearful disadvantage as respects nearness to the gate of the\nkingdom of heaven. But the gravest side of the difficulty is not\ncircumstantial; it concerns nature and temperament. Though perhaps,\nif we could search a little more deeply, we should see that each\ntype of character has its own peculiar class of difficulties and\ntemptations; and that the most beautiful and saintlike have their\ndread perils of shipwreck, which make their course as arduous as\nthat of the souls which bear about with them a great load of\nfleshliness and groan under the bondage of tyrannous passions\nand lusts. Still it is a truth which is not without its awful\nsignificance, that temperaments, passions, and powers, are very\nvariously distributed to men, while the burden of existence is laid\nequally upon all, and \u201cevery soul must bear its own burden\u201d in time\nand in eternity.\n\nThese things lend infinite meaning to the word \u201cFather\u201d when uttered by\nDivine lips. Like as a father pitieth his children, the Father pitieth\nand beareth with us: \u201che knoweth our frame, he remembereth that we are\ndust.\u201d It is a father\u2019s compassion, tenderness, and equity which we\nneed, to be the basis of our confidence and hope. A father considers\nwith fatherly care, interest, and love our individual endowments,\ndifficulties, and temptations, in ruling and in judging us; and He will\nordain our eternal state with a merciful wisdom, which has to satisfy\nnot a rigid justice only but the hopes and yearnings of a paternal\nheart. If it were not for the belief that the bar of judgment before\nwhich we shall stand is a wise and righteous fatherly heart, the best\nendowed might well faint under the burden of existence, while the worst\nwould moan under its agony and curse the day on which they saw the sun.\nThere are some very terrible sentences in the word of God, which utter\nthe moan, not of the worst men, but of the best and noblest with whose\nhistory it deals. \u201c_After this opened Job his mouth, and cursed his day.\nAnd Job spake, and said, Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the\nnight in which it was said, There is a man child conceived. Let that day\nbe darkness; let not God regard it from above, neither let the light\nshine upon it. Let darkness and the shadow of death stain it; let a\ncloud dwell upon it; let the blackness of the day terrify it. As for\nthat night, let darkness seize upon it; let it not be joined unto the\ndays of the year; let it not come into the number of the months. Lo, let\nthat night be solitary, let no joyful voice come therein._\u201d (Job iii.\n1\u20137.) \u201c_Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery, and life unto\nthe bitter in soul; Which long for death, but it cometh not: and dig for\nit more than for hid treasures; Which rejoice exceedingly, and are glad\nwhen they can find the grave? Why is light given to a man whose way is\nhid, and whom God hath hedged in? For my sighing cometh before I eat,\nand my roarings are poured out like the waters. For the thing which I\ngreatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come\nunto me. I was not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet;\nyet trouble came._\u201d (Job iii. 20\u201326.) \u201c_Cursed be the day wherein I was\nborn: let not the day wherein my mother bare me be blessed. Cursed be\nthe man who brought tidings to my father, saying, A man child is born\nunto thee; making him very glad. And let that man be as the cities which\nthe Lord overthrew, and repented not: and let him hear the cry in the\nmorning, and the shouting at noontide. Because he slew me not from the\nwomb; or that my mother might have been my grave, and her womb to be\nalways great with me. Wherefore came I forth out of the womb to see\nlabour and sorrow, that my days should be consumed with shame?_\u201d (Jer.\nxx. 14\u201318.) These were not bad men, crushed under the burden of their\nown iniquity, but just, upright, and God-fearing men, who felt that\nexistence was too terrible for them under conditions which hid from them\nthe Father\u2019s ruling hand. And if they shrank from the burden of\nconscious responsible being, how shall weaker men escape its terror, but\nby taking refuge under the shield of a Father\u2019s equity and love! But\nthese thoughts lend a most blessed meaning to the words of the Saviour:\n\u201c_Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto\nyou, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do:\nfor what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise. For\nthe Father loveth the Son, and showeth him all things that himself\ndoeth: and he will show him greater works than these, that ye may\nmarvel. For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them; even\nso the Son quickeneth whom he will. For the Father judgeth no man, but\nhath committed all judgment unto the Son: That all men should honour the\nSon, even as they honour the Father. He that honoureth not the Son,\nhonoureth not the Father which hath sent him. Verily, verily, I say\nunto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me,\nhath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is\npassed from death unto life. Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is\ncoming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of\nGod: and they that hear shall live. For as the Father hath life in\nhimself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself; and hath\ngiven him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of\nman._\u201d (John v. 19\u201327.) \u201cTHE FATHER HATH COMMITTED ALL JUDGMENT UNTO THE\nSON.\u201d \u201cBECAUSE HE IS THE SON OF MAN.\u201d Because He can take a man\u2019s\nmeasure as well as a Divine measure of a man\u2019s weaknesses, perils, and\ntemptations; can measure, as a man, man\u2019s need of mercy, and utter the\nDivine Father\u2019s judgment from pitiful human lips. Few words, as we pore\nover these dark mysteries of existence, are so full of consolation and\nhope as these words of the Saviour upon judgment. We can bear the\ndarkness, we can bear the anguish, if we are called to pass through it,\nbecause we know that the ordering of our destinies is in the hand of One\nwho mingles with a brother\u2019s sympathy and tenderness the Divine Father\u2019s\nequity and love.\n\nBut the text does not touch upon these difficulties of Esau\u2019s history.\nIt treats him broadly as the typical instance of the reprobate, the man\nwho by his own base acts has cast himself out of the position for which\nhe was born and trained; who by one decisive manifestation of his\ncharacter and propensities has shut himself out from a high career which\nopened fairly before him, and who finds no means of reversing the decree\nwhich excludes him, though he seeks it carefully with tears. It opens a\nvery terrible vision of the inexorable rigour with which deeds done,\nfacts when they are once fairly established, react upon our lives. But\nthe words are often perverted to yet darker meanings\u2014suggesting visions\nof unpardonable sins, of fruitless agonies of personal repentance,\u2014with\nwhich souls under strong conviction not seldom torment themselves, and\nwith which the text has absolutely nothing whatever to do. A man seeking\nchange of heart with an agony of tears, pleading with God to renew him,\nto restore him, and to cherish him to new life and hope, yet spurned\nfrom the gate of mercy, flung forth accursed from the arms of love, is a\npicture which, blessed be God, has no original in the Divine word. No!\nthus runs the gospel: \u201c_Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy\nladen, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me;\nfor I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your\nsouls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light._\u201d \u201c_Ask, and it\nshall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be\nopened unto you._\u201d \u201c_For every one that asketh receiveth, and he that\nseeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened._\u201d \u201c_If ye,\nbeing evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much\nmore shall your Father which is in heaven give the Holy Spirit to them\nthat ask him?_\u201d \u201c_Whoso cometh unto me I will in no wise cast him out._\u201d\n\u201c_This man, because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood;\nwherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto\nGod by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them._\u201d\n\nIf any who reads these words has ever made this text a stumbling-block,\nhas ever suffered the devil to thrust the thought into his heart that he\nhas sinned too deeply for repentance, and wandered too far for\nreturn\u2014that he can but lie moaning and weeping like Esau, and pleading\nwith anguished heart for repentance, to find his moans rained back in\nanathemas, and his tears with the fire of the wrath of the Lamb,\u2014let\nhim sweep back the thought as an unholy thing to the devil who inspired\nit, and cling to the outstretched hand of Him who \u201c_will not break the\nbruised reed, who will not quench the smoking flax, but will bring forth\njudgment unto truth_.\u201d\n\nThe text has literally nothing to do with personal repentance before\nGod. No man can spiritually seek a place of repentance carefully with\ntears, and fail to find it, for the very act is an act of repentance. I\ndo not care to discuss the question whether the repentance here spoken\nof is a change in the mind of Isaac, or of Esau himself. In either case\nthe meaning is substantially the same. He found no means of reversing\nthe decree, of winning the blessing of the firstborn, of inducing his\nfather to recall the benediction which had been treacherously diverted\nto the younger, though he sought it carefully with tears. If it were\npossible that this text, in all its dreadful meaning, could bear on\npersonal repentance for sin, and frighten men from it lest after all it\nshould be hopeless, it would deny the fundamental ideas and promises of\nthe gospel; nay, it would itself \u201c_trample under foot the Son of God,\nand count the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified an\nunholy thing, and do despite to the Spirit of grace_.\u201d\n\nNo! the text is a very solemn and even terrible warning of the\nirrevocable character of deeds done in folly or frenzy; the inexorable\ncharacter of the fate which takes possession of them when once they have\ngone forth from us, and which makes by them, it may be in spite of our\ntears and prayers and desperate struggles, a complete revolution in our\nlives.\n\nEsau\u2019s history is but the repetition of the history of the fall. And it\nis a history which we all constantly repeat in the critical moments of\nour lives. Esau fell as Adam fell, and fundamentally for the same\nreason. Adam despised his birthright, and thought that there was a\nreadier way to the satisfaction of the desires of his heart. Esau by one\nact changed, not his own history and destiny only, but the destiny of a\ngreat nation; Adam changed, by his one sin, the destiny of a great\nworld. \u201c_Wherefore_,\u201d says the apostle, \u201c_as by one man sin entered into\nthe world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men_.\u201d (Rom.\nv. 12.) Adam, like Esau, saw through the eyes of Eve that the \u201c_tree was\ngood for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be\ndesired to make one wise_.\u201d What good shall my birth-right do to me, he\nsaid practically when he saw the forbidden fruit, and he sold it; and\nthat moment\u2019s work for him, for you, for me, for all the myriad human\ngenerations, can never be recalled in time or in eternity. There is\nsomething very much nobler here than in Esau\u2019s profaneness. It was not\nin a moment of sensual lust that our first father sold his own\nbirthright and ours. The desire of wisdom, or what he took for wisdom,\nhad much to do with the force of the temptation; but the essence of the\nmatter is the same: Adam and Esau both chose, in the place of the good\nwhich God had provided for them, a good which they provided for\nthemselves. Bitterly Adam, like Esau, repented of his folly, and sought\nto undo his work. When the wilderness lay cold and bare before him, and\nthe flaming sword of the cherubim guarded the backward path to the\nbright abodes which he had lost for ever, he measured for the first time\nthe full significance of his transgression. And when the sun set angry\nand lurid on the wilderness, and the moaning winds swept hoarsely over\nthe waste, while a shudder shook the breast of nature as the tempest\nclouds gathered in the sullen sky, Adam caught the infection of the\ntremor, and watched with quivering eye the awful conflict of the forces\nwhich had broken loose from his allegiance, and which seemed to come\nthundering on as the doomsmen of the death which his Judge had decreed.\nThink you that then his heart did not cling to the memories of the\nsplendours and serenities of Eden with passionate longing; think you\nthat he did not prostrate himself in an agony of frenzied supplication\nthat the barred portal might be unclosed again, that the fiery sword\nmight be sheathed, that the flowers of Eden might again spring beneath\nhis footsteps, while the balmy breezes whispered a blessing as they\nplayed around the field of his labour and his bower of rest?\n\nAnd what has been the long and bitter cry of man\u2019s sad history? O God,\nreverse the sentence, reopen the gate of paradise, revoke the curse, let\nthe sunlight of Eden shine once more on a holy, peaceful, and happy\nworld! This is the great burden of human literature in all its deeper\nand more sacred utterances; it is the meaning of all the world\u2019s great\npoems, the refrain of all its immortal hymns. Recall the curse! let life\nagain become pure, peaceful, and blessed! Men, nations, ages have\nagonized, over the sentence; but they have found no place of repentance,\nno means to change the mind of the Judge or their own condition as the\nsubjects of it, though they have sought it carefully with tears. Esau\nwas the rejected of the birthright; you and I are the rejected of Eden.\nSinners we are by nature and proclivity, with a sinner\u2019s burdens, a\nsinner\u2019s experience, and a sinner\u2019s doom. And there is no way to change\nthe past, to rid us of the burden, to cancel the sentence, to mitigate\nthe anguish of a life on which the devil has seared the shameful brand;\nno way to force the barred gates of paradise, even by the banded\nenergies of a pain-racked, sin-tormented world.\n\nAnd I suppose that the private experience of most men furnishes the key\nto this. Who has not known something of the agony with which one dark\ndeed of passion, lust, falsehood, knavery, baseness, can torture a human\nheart? Look back. Is there nothing in the past, rising up at this moment\nin the full menace of its hateful form, clear as the ghost of Banquo\nbefore his murderer\u2019s sight, which you would give your wealth, nay, some\nof you would give worlds if they had them, to undo; if conscience might\nbut recover its serenity, and life its brightness; if the leprous flesh\nof their experience might again become, like Naaman\u2019s, fair, pure, and\nsweet as the flesh of a little child. It is not every Gehazi whose\nleprosy comes out in his flesh, and makes him loathsome to his fellows.\nHow many Gehazis move about among us, burying their leprosy within, but\nnone the less plague-stricken and perilous! Happy those who have no dark\nchambers in their being, haunted by the skeletons of their dead lusts,\nsins, or crimes\u2014skeletons which never fail to come forth at their\nbanquets to scare them, choosing ruthlessly the hours of their festivity\nand triumph to murder all their joys. There may be some readers of these\nwords who know this in all its horror, in whom the anguish of the\nirrevocable and irreparable has killed all the joy of life\u2014a word\nspoken, a passion indulged, a deed done, which in one brief moment has\ndrawn a brooding shadow over the once sunlit landscape of their lives.\nAnd you have wept and prayed, lying prostrate on the cold, ground,\nbeseeching the merciful God that He would blot out the record from your\nmemory and from the lives which it has embittered and cursed; but \u201cthe\nheaven has been as brass, the earth beneath has been as iron.\u201d The word\n\u201cirrevocable\u201d has forced its meaning upon you in all its terrible\nsternness, and you have needed no commentary to expound, or preacher to\ndrive home, the meaning of the sentence, \u201c_Beware lest there be any\nfornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold\nhis birthright. For ye know how that afterward, when he would have\ninherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of\nrepentance, though he sought it carefully with tears._\u201d\n\nAnd if there may be some readers who know this experience in all its\nhorror, there are a multitude who know it in its more modified forms,\nand who find it terrible enough even then. Who has not had forced upon\nhim the misery of regrets or remorse, the causes of which remain\nunalterable, fixed as the stars in their orbits, and the fruits of which\nleave deep traces on the experience and the destiny through time, yes,\nand through eternity? Did David, think you, ever look coldly or\ncarelessly on his bold soldier\u2019s bloody grave? Was there no sad shadow,\nto his eye, around the beauty of Bathsheba\u2019s child, which no murmured\n\u201cJedidiah\u201d could chase away? Was his home ever free from the shadow,\nfrom the hour when Nathan\u2019s \u201cThou art the man\u201d drove conviction home,\nand wrung from him the most bitter cry of a sinner\u2019s anguish which has\nfound record in the literature of our world? Few things in the book of\nhistory are more terrible than the sorrow which entered David\u2019s home,\nthe discord which rent his kingdom, the anguish which pierced his heart,\nfrom the hour of his great transgression. A sad, careworn, broken man,\nhe finished his course and went down to his grave. Compare the David of\n1 Kings i., ii., with the young shepherd in his early prime, if you\nwould estimate the havoc which one great sin may make in a noble life.\nAh! in a measure we all know it, in some form or other; words, deeds,\noutbursts of passion, which have wrung dear hearts with anguish,\nsundered precious bonds of love, have sullied reputation, clouded\nprospects, withered hopes, or blighted the promise of lives which we\nwere bound to cherish, or of our own. And we would give worlds to blot\nout their record, and to repair the evil which has been wrought; but it\nremains engraven with an iron pen in the rock for ever: man cannot\nobliterate it, and God will not.\n\nTo complete the subject, let me ask you to consider two thoughts.\n\n1. These dread seasons of crucial trial, on which the future of life,\nnay of eternity, is hanging, never come upon us in a moment.\n\nIt would appear from the text that one morsel of meat settled the\nquestion of the birthright; that one hard, hot morning\u2019s chase settled\nthe destinies of peoples for all time. That is one side of it, the\noutside. But the real settlement of the question was made already; any\ntrifle will serve to disclose what has already established itself as the\npermanent character within. Esau had nursed his contempt for the\nbirthright by a thousand daily lustings and cravings; many a bitter\nscoff too he had flung at Jacob\u2019s pious and meditative mood. Things like\nthis never stand alone. The life of the chosen family is described in\nwords of wonderful beauty and power in Heb. xi. 8\u201314. \u201c_By faith\nAbraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after\nreceive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither\nhe went. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange\ncountry, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with\nhim of the same promise. For he looked for a city which hath\nfoundations, whose builder and maker is God. Through faith also Sara\nherself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child\nwhen she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised.\nTherefore sprang there even of one, and him as good as dead, so many as\nthe stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand which is by the sea\nshore innumerable. These all died in faith, not having received the\npromises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and\nembraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on\nthe earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek\na country._\u201d This life Jacob believed in profoundly; this life Esau as\nprofoundly despised. He despised it all, and made his contempt\nabundantly apparent. \u201c_And Esau was forty years old when he took to wife\nJudith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Bashemath the daughter of\nElon the Hittite. Which were a grief of mind unto Isaac and to Rebekah_\u201d\n(Gen. xxvi. 34, 35). This shows how thoroughly out of sympathy with the\nspirit of the chosen race he was from the first, and remained through\nlife. All his sympathies and associations were with the pagans around\nhim. Jacob was the true heir of the promise, for he believed in it; Esau\nits outcast, for he despised it, and had despised it from the first. His\nevery act had expressed his contempt of it, and the sale of the\nbirthright for a mess of pottage but completed the witness that he was a\nprofane person, a pagan at heart. These moments mark the crises for\nwhich a long train of thought and habit has prepared. Many a secret sin,\nborn of luxury and nursed by royal power and splendour, broke out into\nthe daylight when David looked upon Bathsheba, and filled his life with\nunutterable sorrow and shame. God takes no man in a hasty moment and\nbrands him reprobate. A thousand daily touches through long years have\nshaped the image which there reveals itself, and on which is moulded\nthe everlasting destiny. The little sins of life are busily, hour by\nhour, creating the great sins. The small habits and actions, which we\nallow to pass unrebuked\u2014they seem to be such trifles\u2014soon pass away\nbeyond the power of memory to recall; but they leave their ineffaceable\ntrace on our constitution and character, and lay silently the train of\nsome great outburst of lust, passion, or wickedness, like Esau\u2019s or\nDavid\u2019s. Then is written a record on our nature and destiny which one\nday we shall agonize to blot out; but the inexorable eye looks coldly\ndown on the frenzied pleader, and the stony lips fashion themselves into\na voiceless \u201cToo late!\u201d Meet sin, meet all the devil\u2019s seductions and\nenticements, sternly on the threshold, and the citadel remains for ever\nsure.\n\n2. The irrevocable is not the irreparable, through the abounding mercy\nand grace of God.\n\n_Things_ cannot be obliterated or abolished. They remain, and their\nrecord remains, for ever. But, blessed be God, they may be transmuted,\nand wear Divine forms of beauty and joy. And this is what redemption\nmeans. Eden is closed for ever. To abolish the condition of man as a\nsinner, otherwise than by one grand sentence of doom which would abolish\nhis existence as a creature, is beyond the power even of heaven. A\nsinner\u2019s lot you inherit, a sinner\u2019s experience you must know, a\nsinner\u2019s agony you must taste, a sinner\u2019s horror of darkness you must\npass through\u2014to the pit, if the birthright never again seems to you\nbeautiful and glorious, a thing to be won by toil and tears and prayers;\nbut if your soul pines in its rioting, if it sickens in its worldly\nwealth and splendour, if the question forces itself upon you as it never\nseems to have forced itself upon Esau, \u201c_What shall it profit a man if\nhe gain the whole world and lose his own soul, or what shall a man give\nin exchange for his soul?_\u201d then the sinner\u2019s anguish, from which there\nis no escape for any one of us, may be made by Christ\u2019s dear love the\nstrait gate to the splendour, the glory, the bliss of heaven. And this\nis Redemption. Divine love, love that could die, love that _did_ die,\nthat its beloved ones might not die, is the solvent which transmutes all\nthe shame and pain of sin to heavenly glory and bliss. \u201c_Where sin\nabounded, grace did much more abound; that as sin had reigned unto\ndeath, even so might grace reign through righteousness, unto eternal\nlife, by Jesus Christ our Lord._\u201d Here is no reversal, no obliteration\nof the past, mark you; the thing that was is and shall be; no power in\nthe universe can blot out its trace. The experience of a sinner is part\nof your being, and in its transmuted form must remain part of your\nbeing, through eternity. These wounds and sores of sin, suffused by\nChrist\u2019s great love, become the lustrous pearls of heaven. Nothing in\nthe past, I care not how dark or damning it may be, is irreparable by\nthe love which \u201c_endured the cross and despised the shame_,\u201d that it\nmight win the right and the power to redeem. There is no sin whose\nstains may not be wept out at the Redeemer\u2019s feet. There is no life\nwhich may not win \u201cShe hath loved much, for she hath much forgiven\u201d as\nits record, earnest of a rapture of eternal bliss. But dream not that\nthe path can be an easy one, and that penitence can transmute the sorrow\ninto joy by a word. You have done that whose issues could only be undone\nby the agony and bloody sweat of Gethsemane, the cross and passion of\nCalvary; and you too must die, die to sin, that you may live to God. The\nflesh, which has despised your birthright, must be mortified, crucified,\nby grace. \u201c_I am crucified with Christ_\u201d you must learn to say; you must\nknow the fellowship of the sufferings of your Master, and taste the cup\nof which He drank the dregs, or the lost birthright is lost for ever,\nand the deed done on earth remains irreparable as well as irrevocable\nthrough eternity.\n\n\n\n\nVII.\n\nTHE CURSE OF THE GROUND.\n\n    \u201cCursed is the ground for thy sake.\u201d\u2014GEN. iii. 17.\n\n\nAre these words part of a curse, or part of a blessing? Are they a\nsentence on man, the doom of his transgression, or the first stage of a\nprocess destined to issue in the redemption of the heir of promise from\nsorrow and sin for ever? Few phrases are more frequently on our lips\nthan \u201cthe curse of labour.\u201d Men, women, yea little children,\noverburdened and crushed by the stern toil which is the necessity of\ntheir existence, easily catch up the sentence, and submit to the\nnecessity in the sullen bitter mood with which a slave accepts his\nchastisement, or a criminal the sentence of doom. Few things are more\nfirmly fixed in our minds than that the toil and the strain of life are\nGod\u2019s curse on transgression, having merciful bearings and issues no\ndoubt for the man who lovingly submits to the discipline, but in\nthemselves evil and hateful, born of sin, and a part of death.\n\nI propose to examine this idea in the present discourse, and to\nendeavour to estimate this curse upon the ground in its bearings on\nman\u2019s development as a spiritual being, and his relations to his\nRedeemer, God. That toil, care, and pain spring out of the one great act\nof transgression which every life repeats is the plain and indisputable\naffirmation of the word of God. The dark tones of man\u2019s present life\ngloom against a background of radiant brightness and beauty; in the\nchildhood of humanity, as in the life of every human child, Eden shines\nbehind all the toil and sorrow of the world. There has been a grand\ncataclysm in man and in nature. The structure of the world has been\nrent and contorted, and the fractures and contortions repeat themselves\nin life. \u201c_Sin entered into the world, and death by sin_;\u201d \u201c_God made\nman upright, but he sought out many inventions_,\u201d are the sentences of a\nsound philosophy, estimating the facts of consciousness and history, as\nwell as statements of the word of God. There has been a fall, a rupture,\nby the sinful guilty action of the freewill of the creature, of the\npristine perfect relation between man and God and man and the world.\nTransgression, the sinful exercise of freedom, is the fundamental fact\nof man\u2019s present nature and life; and the sentence on the transgressor,\nthe inevitable sentence, \u201c_the soul that sinneth it shall die_,\u201d lies at\nthe root of all the bitter anguish of the world.\n\nThere are abundant signs of the action of terribly destructive and\ndesolating forces in the physical structure of the world. The earth has\nbeen torn and convulsed as by the spasm of some great agony, and the\nsigns of it lie thick around. Huge beds of rock, thousands of feet in\nthickness, have been cracked and shivered like potsherds; streams of\nmolten metal have been injected into the fissures, and have surged\nthrough the rents and swept vast floods of burning lava over the smiling\nplains. There must have been times in the history of the development of\nthis earth, fair and calm as it lies now under the sun, when its whole\nstructure must have been shaken to the very centre; when there was dread\nperil lest, like some lost planet, it should be shattered into fragments\nand fill its orbit with a cloud of wreck. But some sure hand has helped\nearth\u2019s travail, and has brought forth out of the chaos of struggle and\nstorm an orderly, smiling, serene, and beautiful world. The signs of\npast agony are there, to those whose eye can pierce the surface; but a\nloving hand has clothed it all with a glow of beauty and a robe of\ngrace. The regions where the convulsion was fiercest, where the scars\nare deepest, are the regions of glorious mountain beauty, whither\npilgrims wend as to nature\u2019s most sacred shrine. The rents and chasms,\nclothed with the most splendid forests, with streams leaping and\nsparkling through the emerald meadows to the hollows below, breathe\nnothing but beauty, and stir all hearts to joy and praise. The touch of\nthe destroyer is everywhere masked by beauty; and out of the chaos of\nconfusion God has drawn forth, what never could have been but for the\nchaos, the infinite variety, the grace, the splendour, the glory of the\nworld.\n\nThis mystery of order and beauty, of cosmos, which reveals itself to us\nin nature, unveils itself too in man\u2019s spiritual world. Life, the life\nof the human, bears traces everywhere of kindred dislocation. A great\nconvulsion has rent man\u2019s nature, has torn it away from God and from\nEden, and scattered what, but for a redeeming restoring hand, would have\nbeen blasted wrecks, about the world. Toil, pain, care, anguish have\nchased the serenity and bliss of paradise from man\u2019s heart and from\nman\u2019s world. Earth is full of wailing, and life of misery. Looking at\nits surface aspects, we are tempted to call this life of man the\nabortion of freedom, and to cry with Job, with Jeremiah, Why did it not\nperish before it saw the sun? Look deeper. As in nature, so in man\u2019s\nlife, a loving restoring hand has been working; the wastes of sin are\nalready clothed with some tints of greenness; flowers of rare beauty and\nsplendour spring up on what sin had made a dreary, blasted desert. The\nmoral chaos, touched by the hand of the Divine love, the love of God the\nRedeemer, already puts on some dress of beauty; nay, it glows here and\nthere with a nascent glory whose fountain is beyond the stars. Some\nvision of a grand and glorious purpose of redemption unveils itself as\nwe search the secrets of man\u2019s sad history. \u201c_Where sin abounded_,\u201d we\nread in the book of life as well as in the book of Scripture, \u201c_grace\ndid much more abound: That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might\ngrace reign, through righteousness unto eternal life, by Jesus Christ\nour Lord_.\u201d (Rom. v. 20, 21.) What we see accomplished helps us to\nrealize the visions of the prophetic word. \u201c_The wilderness and the\nsolitary place, shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice,\nand blossom as the rose. It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice even\nwith joy and singing: the glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it, the\nexcellency of Carmel and Sharon; they shall see the glory of the Lord,\nand the excellency of our God._\u201d \u201c_Then the eyes of the blind shall be\nopened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame\nman leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing: for in the\nwilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert. And the\nparched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of\nwater: in the habitation of dragons where each lay, shall be grass with\nreeds and rushes. And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall\nbe called The way of holiness: the unclean shall not pass over it; but\nit shall be for those: the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err\ntherein. No lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast shall go up\nthereon, it shall not be found there; but the redeemed shall walk there.\nAnd the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with songs,\nand everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and\ngladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away._\u201d (Isa. xxxv. 1, 2,\n5\u201310.) Sin, the sin of the first parent, which every child of Adam\nrepeats, is the fundamental fact of man\u2019s being; no religion, no\nphilosophy, which makes light of it can lay firm hold of man\u2019s\nconscience and heart. But, blessed be God, grace is the crowning fact;\nand it is the crown which will remain conspicuous through eternity.\n\nThe sentence on sin then is a dread reality. \u201c_The soul that sinneth it\nshall die_\u201d remains as God\u2019s judgment record, which no art or effort of\nman can cancel. But in this first sentence on His sinful child God has\nwondrously interwoven benediction and judgment, warning and promise,\nwords of life and dooms of death. On the serpent the curse is decisive\nand final: \u201c_And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast\ndone this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of\nthe field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the\ndays of thy life._\u201d (Gen. iii. 14.) But the sternness relaxes and the\ndoom melts into a promise, when the Judge addresses Himself to man. The\nvery curse on the serpent is pregnant with blessing to the woman and her\nseed; the Executor of the Lord\u2019s judgment on the tempter is the\neverlasting triumphant Redeemer of mankind. And throughout the sentence\non our race blessing ranges in fellowship with judgment; and the\nsternest words, prophets of many ills and sorrows, are rich benedictions\nin disguise. And this \u201c_cursed is the ground_\u201d is amongst them. It\nsounds hard and stern, and prophesies a long and hard apprenticeship of\ntoil and pain; but stern as it seems, it is part of the blessing and not\nof the cursing, of the benediction and not of the doom. It describes the\nfirst stage of the redemptive process of which the sentence on the\nserpent had spoken, and is the condition of man\u2019s elevation out of the\nestate of a sinful, suffering, degraded creature to the friendship,\nfellowship, and likeness of God. In order that we may appreciate this,\nand see the true meaning and bearing of the judgment, I shall ask you to\nconsider with me\u2014\n\nI. The range of the sentence.\n\nII. Its work.\n\nI. The range of the sentence. It is the sentence, as far as it bears on\nman\u2019s present condition and experience, that I wish to consider,\u2014the\n\u201cmen must work and women must weep\u201d aspect of our life\u2014excluding the\ndeeper and more tremendous question of death and its issues. Not that\nany full consideration of the one is possible without reference to the\nother. The whole sentence hangs together; our life is of one texture,\none warp runs through the whole piece; and every groan, every pain,\nevery bead of sweat upon the brow, every shadow that glooms over the\nlife, has its full interpretation in the fact that \u201c_sin has entered\ninto the world, and death by sin_;\u201d all pain is truly a beginning to\ndie. But for our present purpose it is possible sufficiently to isolate\nthe conditions of man\u2019s life as the workman and the sufferer, and to\nconsider how they bear, benignly or malignly, on his essential interests\nas a spiritual being and his education for the destiny which through\ngrace sin has been instrumental to create rather than to destroy. The\nelements of the sentence which are closely connected with the cursing of\nthe ground, which in fact are links of the same chain, are three:\u2014\n\nToil\u2014pain\u2014care.\n\n1. Toil. This is fundamental. On this man\u2019s existence hangs; to pause\nhere is to stop the pulse of life. \u201c_And unto Adam he said, Because thou\nhast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree of\nwhich I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the\nground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy\nlife; Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou\nshalt eat the herb of the field: In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat\nbread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken:\nfor dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return._\u201d (Gen. iii. 17\u201319.)\nThe life of man in Eden was as free from toil as the life of a bee among\nthe limes. Toil is wearing, wasting work; work to which no inward\nimpulse, but the pressure of a stern necessity, moves us; work which we\nmust do, whether we love it or whether we hate it, whether it gently\ntasks us or strains and exhausts our wearied powers; work which compels\nus to put aside much that we would infinitely more gladly work at, which\ncuts us off from pleasant occupation, profitable to our intellectual and\nsocial life; work, in a word, which puts a yoke upon us, a yoke which\nwears and galls; work which makes us moan, and curse the day that we\nwere born to it, and fills us with wild, rebellious passion, which vents\nitself in railings, blaspheming the wisdom and goodness of the Creator\nand the divine order and beauty of the world. This is the work which we\nsinners are born to; work which urges us with bloody spur, and exacts a\ntribute of our life-blood as it drives us through the merciless round.\nThis is toil. This is what the curse of the ground has done for us; we\neat our bread, not joyously, thankfully, as in Eden, but in the sweat of\nbrow, brain, and heart. How bright the contrast of the Eden life! \u201c_And\nthe Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man\nwhom he had formed. And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow\nevery tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of\nlife also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good\nand evil. And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from\nthence it was parted, and became into four heads.... And the Lord God\ntook the man, and put him into the garden of Eden, to dress it and to\nkeep it._\u201d (Gen. ii. 8\u201310, 15.) Sweet, light labour, parent of yet\nsweeter rest. To dress and to keep the garden! A garden planted by the\nhand of the Lord. The fairest, brightest garden of the creation; dewy\nfragrance, radiant colour, splendid form; all that imagination can dream\nof beauty and glory, bathing man\u2019s life in an atmosphere of ravishing,\nexquisite, inexhaustible joy. One act of transgression, and the garden\nvanished. Like a dream it faded; and hard, stern realities, unlovely\nhues, ungraceful forms, unkindly elements, rose round Adam in its room.\nInstead of the garden where the touch of the Divine hand still lingered\nin forms and tones of bewildering beauty, a bare hard wilderness\nstretched everywhere around him, whence not a morsel of bread could be\nwrung but by the most strenuous labour; where not a gleam of beauty, not\na nestling nook of verdure, would smile on him, until he had created it\nby earnest, persistent, and wasting toil. \u201c_Cursed is the ground._\u201d\n\n2. Pain. Part of the sentence of toil is pain. \u201c_Unto the woman he said,\nI will greatly multiply thy sorrow, and thy conception; in sorrow thou\nshalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and\nhe shall rule over thee._\u201d (Gen. iii. 16.) The fountain-head of pain is\ntravail. It begins at birth, it ends in death; life on the whole,\nbetween the limits, is one long struggle to endure. \u201cMen must work, and\nwomen must weep.\u201d It is not a complete division: for men weep while they\nwork, and women work while they weep; toil and tears are the bitter\nheritage of us all. But the man has on the whole the chief share of the\nstrain, the woman of the pain, of life. Her life, if she has a woman\u2019s\nnobleness and the sense of a woman\u2019s mission, is one long travail. This\nbearing and rearing of children is symbolic. What is the life of all\nnoble, unselfish, ministering natures, but the continual bringing forth,\nwith sore pain of travail, of things which shall gladden and enrich the\nworld? But pain is a great mystery. Why the good God, serenely blessed,\nshould suffer pain to torment His child! How the heavenly powers can\nbear to look upon it, to hear all the moans of anguish, to see all the\nwrestlings of pain which each moment distract and waste the beings whom\nthey love! For much of the pain of life man himself is, directly and in\nthe first instance, responsible. He makes it, in spite of God, by his\ninsane folly, passion, or lust. But how much lies at the door of the\nheavenly Ruler, is His word, His ordinance, the discipline which He\npresses sternly on His child! Pain, that torments and maddens him while\nhe works; pain that pierces him from everything that he touches,\neverything that he delights in, every being that he loves; pain, that\nsearches the roots of his courage and endurance, which makes the marrow\nquiver in his bones, the blood curdle in his heart; pain, which rings\nfrom a man who is the very type of endurance the most bitter curses, the\nmost fierce anathemas on the very sunlight which shines on him, on birth\nand all its agony, on life and all its intolerable woe. \u201c_In sorrow\nshalt thou bring forth children_,\u201d and everything which is freighted\nwith any portion of thy life. Pain in birth; tears in the eyes of\nhelpless infants on their mother\u2019s bosom; the paths of the wilderness\nwet with the tears of brave men and women wrestling with pain too sharp\nfor endurance; tears rung out from the glazing eye, when it settles for\none painless moment into the fixed, cold stare of death!\n\n3. Care. \u201c_Dust thou art._\u201d Here lies the secret of care. I believe that\nthese words suggest altogether the most bitter and miserable experience\nof mankind. Toil may be borne, pain may be borne; but who in his own\nstrength can wrestle with and master care? Man\u2019s condition is that of\nthe most dependent of beings, while the things which he needs for the\nsatisfaction of his nature refuse to recognise the mastery of his hand.\nHe comes into the world the most helpless of all the infants of\ncreation. It is horrible to imagine what a human infant, in the hands of\na careless or cruel parent, may be made to endure. And this condition of\nhis infancy follows him through life: he is really an infant, a\nnursling, as dependent for the daily bread of body, mind, and spirit on\nsupplies which he cannot command, as an infant at the mother\u2019s breast.\nSo large is the range of his necessities, so infinite his wants, that he\nneeds just the arm and the treasure of the Omnipotent to supply it. And\nthe sentence \u201c_dust thou art_\u201d meets him everywhere. He feels it in the\nmiserable infirmity of his arm; he reads it in the accidents of life and\nthe decrees of fate. He knows that there are things needful to his\nhappiness, needful to his very life, things which he would die rather\nthan miss; and yet they mock the puny efforts of his arm, the feeble\nbreath of his prayer. He sees them passing hopelessly beyond the limits\nof his horizon, and he must live on and drag on from day to day, a\nbroken, wretched, beggared life. Who has not groaned in utter misery\nover his wretched helplessness in the hand of calamity, as though his\nlife were the sport of a demon, and all his pleasant things but\ninstruments of torture, with which some malignant spirit can torment his\nsoul and desolate his life? He is in the presence of masses and forces\nin the creation, which oppress and crush his spirit; but there seems to\nhim a maligner demon behind the veil of the creation, who delights to\nmake sport of his weakness and burn in the sentence \u201c_dust thou art_\u201d\nupon the tablets of his heart. Toil, pain, care, these are the bitter\ningredients of his experience; these make up how much of the daily\ncourse and order of his life. Verily men may well imagine that a curse\nwas meant here rather than a blessing, and dream that a devil, a\nmalignant spirit, is nearer to them and more potent on their lives than\nGod. So dread is the pressure, that in the absence of revelation, in the\nabsence of the assurance \u201c_Like as a father pitieth his children, so the\nLord pitieth them that fear Him, for He knoweth their frame, He\nremembereth that they are dust_,\u201d devil worship becomes inevitably the\nreligion of the pagan world.\n\nSuch is the range of the sentence. Now let us ask\u2014\n\nII. What is its work? Is it malign or benignant? Is it, in its very\nessence, a curse or a blessing to man?\n\nOur first notion on reading these words, \u201c_Cursed is the ground for thy\nsake_,\u201d is naturally that part of the curse on man has fallen on the\nground. It is cursed \u201c_for thy sake_,\u201d by transition of the curse from\nthee. But the word bears a nobler meaning. \u201cFor thy sake\u201d may as well,\nnay better, mean \u201cwith a view to thy good.\u201d The root of the sentence\nwould still be transgression. There had been no need of toil, care, and\npain, had not sin entered into the world. But sin having entered, toil,\ncare, and pain are ordained for the sake of man in the loftiest sense;\nthey are the most perfect ordinance which could be framed to bless him\n(or rather with a view to his full and perfect blessing, for they only\nbegin what higher influence must complete), by the Almighty Father\u2019s\nwisdom, power, and love. I am very anxious that the full force of this\nstatement should be understood. It is quite possible to take the\nfollowing view of it:\u2014Man having placed himself before God in the\nattitude of a sinner, justice demanded that he should be sentenced:\ntoil, care, pain, and death _are_ the sentence, the expression of God\u2019s\nanger against the transgressor, making man the outcast of His love; that\nthen, in pity, God took compassion on the outcast, and began a remedial\nwork, which, while leaving him still for the present under the action of\nthe sentence, sought to rescue him ultimately from its final doom. This\nwould appear to me a very imperfect and partial statement of the truth.\nTo me it seems as if the whole sentence were the expression of the\ntenderness which began to work in the Father\u2019s heart in the very moment\nof the transgression. The death which is the righteous doom, the\ninevitable fruit, of sin, is in the very moment of the sentence held in\nsuspense as it were by the promise; and the toil, care, and pain which\nare expressed in the sentence are the very first steps of the remedial\nwork. The sinner in the very moment of transgression is drawn to the\nbosom of God\u2019s mercy. Since the first promise was spoken, the death\nwhich was the sinner\u2019s doom can only be tasted in its bitterness by the\nman who treats the promise as a thing of nought. And all the hard and\nstern conditions of man\u2019s present lot, instead of being the doom of a\njudgment from which mercy is moved to rescue him, are themselves the\nmotions of mercy by which the work of rescue is begun. This is the\nprinciple on which alone it appears to me that the text can be\nunderstood.\n\nI do not propose to occupy your thoughts with any of what I may call the\nminor mercies of the sentence, and the minor ministries of toil, care,\nand pain to the true development of man. The sentence of toil at once\nbegan man\u2019s higher education. It brought him firmly and sternly, but not\nmalignly, into contact with the laws which he had broken, and whose\npenalties he had defied. Not a morsel of bread could he win without\nagain submitting to them; humbly, absolutely, utterly, he must become\ntheir servant if he would win the lightest blessing from their hand. But\nthe blessing was there, it was clearly possible that he should win it.\nHard and stern as has been his toil, through all these ages it has\nnourished him. Nature, though stern, is the reverse of malignant; all\nher conditions are not penal, but disciplinary; the sentence placed him\nat the foot of the ladder, a vision of which Jacob once saw, whose\nhighest rungs are lost in heaven. But instead of tracing this, I wish to\ndwell rather on the ministry of the sentence at once and directly to the\nunfolding of man\u2019s Divinest life. The more you look at it, the more\nclearly I think will it become apparent to you that it is through toil,\nand care, and pain alone that such a being as man can rise to the full\nheight of his godlike stature, and grow into the likeness and the\nfellowship of God. Let me ask you then to consider these three points:\u2014\n\n1. Through toil, and care, and pain, man becomes a creator\u2014not a\nservant, but a master workman, and springs, as compared with his\ncondition in Eden, into a higher region of life.\n\n2. Through toil, and care, and pain, he becomes acquainted with all the\nexperience of a father; the deepest and noblest relationships unfold\ntheir significance, and unutterably enrich and exalt his life.\n\n3. By toil, and care, and pain, he rises to the full and sympathetic\nknowledge of God his Redeemer, and enters into the holiest fellowship of\nthe universe for ever.\n\n1. The experience which grows out of the sentence constitutes him a\ncreator, a master workman, and lifts him into a higher region of life.\n\nMan in Eden was the loyal, loving servant of his Creator, no more. God\n\u201c_placed him in the garden to dress and to keep it_.\u201d Fair, sweet,\ngenial work, like life in one of the soft bright islands of the Pacific.\nEvery moment an exquisite sensation, every movement a pulse of joy.\nWell! there you have the whole of it. And I say boldly there is not\nenough of it. To dress and to keep even a paradise is poor, slight work\nfor a being framed and endowed like man. It was inevitable that sooner\nor later he should get to the end of its interest and the lees of its\njoy. A strong, hardy, brave, cultivated Englishman soon gets to the end\nof the soft, sweet life of the Pacific island. It suits the islanders,\nwho are mostly pulp, morally and mentally,\u2014the human jelly-fish,\nwithout muscle and fibre; but there is not enough of it for the\ncultivated and developed man. Toil, pain, and care set the exile of Eden\nat once about higher work. He went forth with a great sorrow in his\nheart, and a great shadow over his life, into the hard stern wilderness.\nThere he had not to _dress and to keep_ a garden, but to make one, and\nthat is altogether higher and nobler work. A higher range of faculties\nwas at once called into action. He had to create fruitful fields and\nhomesteads, and to frame a new paradise in imagination, which his\nstrenuous toil, pain, and care were to realize in time. His creative\nwork as a husbandman is symbolic of all his creation, his work as\nparent, thinker, artist, poet, and master of the world. In Eden\neverything was made for him, and was ready to his hand; in the world he\nhad to make, or at any rate to mould, everything, and to make his hand\nready for an infinite variety of work. And what does this constructive\ncreative toil imply? It means that he had to discover, to think out, and\nto reproduce, by the utmost strain his faculties would bear, the\nthoughts of God. He had to study nature, and to master her methods; he\nhad to discover the uses of his powers and the possibilities of his\nlife. He rose at once sad and stricken, but grand through the gentleness\nwhich had made him great, to the fulness of a godlike stature; and what\nare toil, and pain, and care, through life\u2019s brief day, if they lift man\nup to this excellent glory of his manhood, the power to think, to work,\nto create, in the track and after the method of God?\n\n2. By toil, and pain, and care, man becomes acquainted with the\nexperience of a father; the deepest and noblest relationships unfold to\nhim their significance, and unutterably enrich and exalt his life.\n\nTravail is the symbolic pain. \u201c_In sorrow shalt thou bring forth\nchildren_;\u201d and in sorrow all the products of the higher life are born.\nThe question is very simple. Ask a woman, when the cry of her first-born\nsounds in her ear, and its cheek nestles on her breast, how far the joy\ntranscends the pain. She can only murmur\u2014\u201cUnspeakably,\u201d and clasp her\nnursling closer to her heart. How much the pain enters into and exalts\nthe joy, who shall tell? Ask the man, a man like poor Palissy, or the\nblind bard who got \u00a310 for a \u201cParadise Lost,\u201d how the account stands\nwith him. He can but answer, The work, mighty as has been its cost, is\nthe joy and glory of my life\u2014perhaps because of its very cost. In a\ngrand and glorious country you must have the mountains and the valleys;\nthe depths measure the heights, you cannot divorce them; the two make\nthe beauty which pilgrims come from far to gaze upon, whose vision\nquickens the life in its dull springs. And all the toil, and care, and\npain which our intimate, our dearest relations with our fellows cost us,\nas husband, wife, parent, brother, sister, friend, teacher, poet,\nprophet, will be found closely, essentially connected with our highest,\npurest, and most enduring joys. Mothers shall be our witnesses: theirs\nis the typical pain, and care, and toil. How say you, careworn, toiling,\nbut rejoicing mothers? Where lie the springs of your sweetest pleasure,\nwhere lie the treasures which you would guard with life? The toils, the\ncares, the pangs that grow out of our human relations in a sad,\nstruggling, mortal world like this, call forth and string to the finest\ntension passions, loves, faculties, thoughts, energies, which Eden never\ncould have developed. There was little that was noble in the words of\nAdam on Eve\u2019s temptation in the garden; indeed, on neither side does any\nnobleness appear. But in the wilderness there are men by myriads who\nwould shield the woman they love from a pang or a reproach, and count\nthe cost light if they gave their lives. Oh! my friends, take a large\nand noble measure of the breadth of thought, feeling, faculty, which\ntoil, and pain, and care develop; and remember that every filament of\nlove and care which binds you to a human being, though intensely\nsensitive, and therefore in a world like this inevitably doomed to throb\nwith pain, is a tentacle of your spirit life which can never be detached\nfrom it but by your own baseness, and through which life, joy, rapture\nwill flow into it in the world in which sin is beaten, crushed for ever,\nin which there can be no more tears and no more pain.\n\nOne word more.\n\n3. Toil, care, pain raise man to the full and sympathetic knowledge of\nGod his Redeemer, and bring him into the holiest fellowship of the\nuniverse for ever.\n\nI say bring him. That is God\u2019s purpose; that is what God means by it:\nbut God does not force him. The word must be mixed with faith in them\nthat hear it; faith in the Son of God, who died that the sentence might\nbe a benediction instead of a doom. Some, when they heard, did not,\nwould not believe; and their carcases fell in the wilderness, and their\nbones whiten the sand.\n\nToil, care, and pain. Does God know nothing of them? \u201c_He is despised\nand rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we\nhid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him\nnot. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we\ndid esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was\nwounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the\nchastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are\nhealed. All we, like sheep, have gone astray; we have turned every one\nto his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. He\nwas oppressed, and he was afflicted; yet he opened not his mouth: he is\nbrought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers\nis dumb, so he opened not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from\njudgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out\nof the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he\nstricken._\u201d (Isa. liii. 3\u20138.) Count it the highest ministry of the\nsentence that it enables you to understand that; count it the highest\naim and glory of a man\u2019s life to enter into fellowship with that life of\nthe Lord. Hold this to be the deepest, most solemn prayer which has ever\nbeen uttered by human lips: \u201c_That I may know him, and the power of his\nresurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings: being conformed unto\nhis death; if by any means I may attain unto the resurrection from the\ndead._\u201d And grudge no pain, nay glory in every pain, which opens to you\na fuller comprehension of the sorrows of the Man of sorrows upon earth,\nthe joy and glory of the Lord of glory in eternity. Light the affliction\nwhich is but for a moment: its ministry is unspeakable blessing in this\nlife; you will find it infinite blessing in eternity. Sons of God, wear\nwith joy the marks of sonship! Brethren of Christ, tread with courage in\nthe Brother\u2019s footsteps! Heirs of glory, pay gaily with songs the price\nby which your glory is to be won.\n\n\u201c_What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came\nthey?\u201d \u201cThese are they which came out of great tribulation, and have\nwashed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.\nTherefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night\nin his temple; and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them.\nThey shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the\nsun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the midst of\nthe throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of\nwaters; and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes._\u201d\n\n\n\n\nVIII.\n\nTHE EASILY BESETTING SIN.\n\n    \u201cThe sin which doth so easily beset us.\u201d\u2014HEB. xii. 1.\n\n\nThese words occur at the close of the most brilliant rhetorical passage\nof the New Testament scripture. They form the point too of the most\nclose, subtle, and profound argument which is to be met with even in the\nepistles of St. Paul. We constantly use them; no sentence of the Bible\nis more frequently on our lips. But we isolate them from their\nsurroundings; we handle them as though they dealt with private matters\nof individual experience, the sins and follies to which each nature in\nits private propension is specially prone, rather than some broad human\nfault or infirmity which is the common sin and sorrow of mankind. We\nmust read these words in connection with the great argument of which\nthey form the culmination, and the splendid burst of eloquence which\nthey close; or we shall miss their large and weighty meaning, and shall\nnarrow to a private and partial experience what the writer intends to\nset forth as the easily besetting sin of mankind. The Epistle to the\nHebrews is certainly one of the most important and profound books in the\nNew Testament. Be it by Paul himself, as I believe, or be it by some\nPauline man, it is in a measure the keystone of the arch of revelation,\nif the Apocalypse is its crown. The way in which, in the order of the\nDivine dispensations, the old grows into the new\u2014the method by which,\nwhile so much once ordained by God goes apparently to wreck, to the eye\nof God and in the judgment of the far-sighted among men nothing Divine\nreally perishes, no Divine promise fails of fulfilment, no Divine\npurpose or hope misses its fruit\u2014is a subject of supreme importance,\nthe consideration of which is needful to the completeness of Scripture,\nwhile it is full of suggestion as a key to the Divine ways, to the\nsuccessive generations of mankind. Judaism has passed away in every\nrespect in which it is stronger than a memory. It is essentially, though\nJews live among us in Christendom by millions, a thing of the past; but\nthe Epistle to the Hebrews, which unfolds the method by which Judaism\ndeveloped into Christianity, is a living book in our Bibles, as full of\nvital interest for this present time as it was for the generation which\nwatched with strange awe and wonder the tremendous overthrow of the\nelect nation, and saw the last fragments of the ritual and order of a\nDivinely established system swept along by the flood as wreck. There is\nprofound instruction concerning the method of development in\nChristendom\u2014how the Church grows, and strikes deeper root through the\nages, while that which men call the Church and cling to suffers constant\nshocks, and is ever dropping piecemeal into decay and death\u2014in this\nsketch of the philosophy of the most remarkable and startling\ndevelopment recorded in man\u2019s spiritual history. Whether Paul wrote it\nor not, it is the work of a man with Paul\u2019s grasp of intellect, and\nsaturated with Paul\u2019s ideas both of Judaism and Christianity. One can\nhardly imagine Paul\u2019s life-work complete to his own mind without the\nproduction of such an essay as this. He alone grasped with perfect\nclearness the vital relation of the two dispensations; and we can well\nimagine with what intense earnestness this Hebrew of the Hebrews must\nhave desired to justify his apostolic ministry to his countrymen and to\nmankind. Be this as it may, and these a priori judgments are of little\nworth in criticism, the book is one of large thoughts, views, and\nprinciples, reaching deep down to the foundations on which the edifice\nof man\u2019s spiritual faith and hope is built.\n\nLet us try to realize some of the main difficulties of those to whom it\nis addressed, whose tormenting doubts and apprehensions it was intended\nto remove. They would be chiefly, I think, of two kinds; and they might\nbe put into the shape of questions.\n\n1. Can anything which is ordained of God be abrogated?\n\n2. Can the Messiah, the kingly Son of David, be come, while those who\nfollow Him are the world\u2019s outcasts, spoiled, persecuted, and slain?\n\nThe first is a standing difficulty with all the students of the\nmysteries of God, in all ages of the world. It pressed on the Hebrew\nChristians with peculiar force. They and their fathers for ages had\nbelieved that a certain visible system had been established on earth by\nGod\u2019s own hand, and sustained by His almighty power. It seemed to them\nas if the very foundations of the universe were shaken, when their\ntemple, their priesthood, their glorious Jerusalem, their beautiful\nfertile Palestine, vanished like a dream, and left them the beggars and\noutcasts of mankind.\n\nThe second difficulty was equally grave. It touched men where they are\never most sensitive, in their individual experiences and hopes. Can the\nhead of this Christian Church be the God-man, the glorious Being of whom\nour prophets prophesied, and of whose kingdom they had such brilliant\nvisions, whilst its subjects are despised, hated, and down-trodden, and\nits princes are the scum and off-scouring of all things unto this day?\nWe say that the Jews were expecting a splendid temporal kingdom, a\nvisible reign of the Messiah in righteousness over a regenerate and\nexulting world. We say it with a touch of scorn. We may spare our scorn;\nChristendom is always dreaming of it too. It would be a wonderful thing\nif the Jews had not nourished some such expectations. All men have not\nfaith. How many Christians understand Christianity better than the Jews\nunderstood the Judaism of their times? What is the Papacy but an\nendeavour to realize this splendid and prosperous reign of Christ, of\nwhich Judaism dreamed? A rule of righteousness, peace, and goodwill,\nunder the sceptre of Christ\u2019s immediate delegate and regent, is the\nvision which has haunted in all ages some of the ablest minds in\nChristendom; and the desire to realize this has been near the heart of\nsome of the most desperate struggles which rent the civilized world\nthroughout the middle age. We cannot wonder at their sad thoughts. We\nthink the same when things much less visibly ordained of God are\nshattered and swept away as wrecks. The answer of the writer of this\nepistle to the question which was wrung out of the death agony of that\nnation and church was substantially this: God does not establish things,\nHe plants seeds which grow. The principle of life in the seed is the\nprinciple of identity through the successive stages of the development\nof the organism. The body of man is one, though it changes form very\nvisibly at successive eras, and though every particle of matter\ncomposing it is in constant flux, passing away from without, restored by\nthe constructive force of the living principle within. Rise, he says, to\na loftier and more comprehensive view of the Divine dispensations. See\nhow the living principle of God\u2019s relation to you, to man, as Father and\nRedeemer, runs through all the dispensations, moulds the outward form of\nthe Church according to the exigencies of the times, and is ever\nbringing forth new forms as the ages need. See how the germ which was\nplanted before the law grew into the legal dispensation, and how when\nthe leafage and fruitage of that dispensation grew old and withered, as\n_things_ must grow old and perish, the living principle within took new\nand diviner form, suffered, as all divine things do, death and\nresurrection, and lived with a new and divine life in a new and\nregenerated world. \u201c_God, who at sundry times and in divers manners\nspake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last\ndays spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all\nthings, by whom also he made the worlds; who being the brightness of\nhis glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things\nby the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat\ndown on the right hand of the Majesty on high; being made so much better\nthan the angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent\nname than they._\u201d (Heb. i. 1\u20134.)\n\nIt ought not to be hard for us to understand and enter into the sore\nperplexities of the Hebrew believers when they found their ancestral\nkingdom uprooted, while no sign of the new Messiah\u2019s kingdom appeared,\nexcept the sway which a shameful cross was wielding over individual\nhuman hearts. Can this be the beginning of the kingdom? Can Christ be\nreigning there, and we His subjects here, the objects of His tenderest\ncare and love, be so harried and tormented for our truth and\nrighteousness as never men have been harried and tormented for lies and\nsins? Is it credible that God\u2019s sons in the world should be the world\u2019s\noutlaws; that those whom the hand of Omnipotence shields should be the\nhelpless victims of the most puny foes? Are slaves and beggars the chief\nsubjects of Messiah\u2019s kingdom? Does the fellowship of this new realm\ndraw us into loving, tender communion with the saddest, the poorest, the\nmost ignorant, the most wretched of mankind? Is the life of this new\nregenerate state a ceaseless struggle, a constant pain, with no issue\nbut by the gate of death, whose apparitors may be a lion\u2019s jaws or a\nheadsman\u2019s axe? Is the symbol of this splendid empire a cross? The\nanswer to these questions is the text. The question is the sin which so\neasily besets humanity, you and me quite as intensely as the Hebrews;\nand the cure for the sin, the answer to the question, is the faith which\ndraws from the writer this splendid eulogy, a faith which scans the\nbounds of the invisible universe, and measures the range of the Divine\nthought from the height of the Divine throne. It is as though the writer\nhad said, Looked at on the lower level, by the measures of the things\nseen and temporal, the lot is dark enough and sad enough: \u201c_If in this\nlife only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable._\u201d\n(1 Cor. xv. 19.) But rise to a higher level. Get up into the mountain,\nand survey the horizon of a wider world. Search into the nature of man\u2019s\ntrue well-being, and see where the springs of it rise. Measure the range\nof man\u2019s existence, the endless ages of his being, the boundless faculty\nof joy or sorrow, of bliss or anguish, that claims eternity as its time.\nAbove all, measure the stature of a man. Study the image after which he\nis fashioned, the godlike form he wears, the godlike experience he is\nmade to fathom, and the kind of satisfaction which his godlike powers\ndemand, robbed of which they hunger and pine and fill him at last with\nmadness and despair; so shall you comprehend more fully the grandeur and\nthe glory of his Christian vocation\u2014sharing the conflict, the toil, the\nsorrow, the joy, and the triumph of hisever God. Then lay aside \u201cevery\nweight and the sin that doth so easily beset you.\u201d That sin is poverty\nof faith\u2014a poor-spirited estimate of life, its experiences and its\nissues; a love for the serfdom of Egypt rather than the freedom of the\nwilderness, the fleshpots of Goshen rather than the bread of Canaan, the\npleasure of the moment rather than the joy which springs from fountains\nthat outlast eternity.\n\nThe sin which doth so easily beset us. Want of faith.\n\nI. In ourselves. II. In God. III. In the future.\n\nI. Want of faith in ourselves\u2014poor, base views of our nature, power,\nand destiny.\n\nThe essential dignity of man\u2019s nature, as God constituted it, and the\nutter debasement it has suffered through sin, are facts which in nowise\nclash or contradict each other. In truth, no man who has not faith\nenough to comprehend what \u201c_power to become the sons of God_\u201d may mean,\nas spoken of man, can enter into the depth of anguish and shame wrung\nout in the confession, \u201c_I was as a beast before thee._\u201d \u201c_I have heard\nof thee with the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee;\nwherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes._\u201d At the root\nof the humiliation, the debasement, lies this want of faith in our\nhigher being and destiny. We prefer the slave\u2019s portion, with the\nslave\u2019s security, to the cares and burdens of freedom, with its hopes\nand joys. The main difficulty in the emancipation of serfs arises always\nfrom themselves. They do not care, nay they fear, to be free. The\nresponsibility of self-government and self-control is a burden from\nwhich they shrink;\u2014let us creep safely on the lower levels, rather than\nstrain perilously up the mountain paths, with the free air around us,\nthe bright heaven above us, the mists, the clouds, the storms, seething\nand flashing beneath our feet. This is the cry of our souls\u2014yours and\nmine. God is ever stirring us to take the higher view of our nature and\ndestiny; we are ever burying ourselves in the lower:\u2014\u201c\u2018_Let us alone,\nJesus, thou Son of God._\u2019 Thy words are perilous; they search and judge\nus; they trouble us in our politics, our pleasures, our trade. We are\nfairly content as it is; why should we weary ourselves by straining\nafter the higher good, which seems thin, impalpable, and may easily\nelude our hand? Let us alone; depart out of our coasts.\u201d This was the\nmood of these Hebrew Christians; it is ours. And nothing does the\ndevil\u2019s work more surely within us than this feeling that on the whole\nwe were made for poor work, poor interests, and poor joys. Paul seeks to\nstir us to a nobler mood, to fire something within us which will burn\nwith a heavenly lustre and seek to mingle itself with the brightness of\nits native skies. Man is made to deal with the substance of things, the\neternal substance; you are content to converse with their fleeting\nshadows. \u201c_For the law, having a shadow of good things to come, and not\nthe very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they\noffered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. For\nthen would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the\nworshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins. But\nin those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every\nyear. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats\nshould take away sins._\u201d (Heb. x. 1\u20134.) The heavenly things themselves\nyour minds were made to contemplate, your hearts to love, your spirits\nto commune with; and you are grovelling amid the ashes of the perishing,\nwhile the imperishable, the eternal, passes for ever beyond the range of\nyour sight. Believe in humanity as the first step to a nobler life. Not\nthe poor, weak, trembling humanity which your self-communings reveal to\nyou; but the glorious, Divine humanity which God has set before you to\nhelp your infirmity, to recall the memory of the height from which you\nhave fallen, and to kindle the hope of the royal dignity to which you\nmay be restored. Look within; and man seems poor enough, and pitiful\nenough. But look above: \u201c_We see Jesus who was made a little lower than\nthe angels, for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour;\nthat he by the grace of God should taste death for every man._\u201d Then\n\u201c_lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset you,\nand run with patience the race that is set before you, looking unto\nJesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set\nbefore him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at\nthe right hand of the throne of God_.\u201d\n\nBehold in Him the perfect image of a man, in His life the beauty of a\nperfect human life. Believe in that image; gaze on it, meditate on it,\ntill contemplation kindles sympathy, and sympathy grows into love.\n\u201c_Consider the apostle and high-priest of your profession, Christ\nJesus_\u201d; and if you tread in His footsteps of present sorrow and\nhumiliation, glory in it, and pray that you may go on to know it more\nperfectly, \u201c_the power of his resurrection, the fellowship of his\nsufferings, being made conformable unto his death_.\u201d Believe that all\nthat a man was meant to be, to do, to become, can only grow out of this\nvital fellowship with Jesus. Believe in Him rather than in the world\u2019s\nideas, maxims, and hopes. Leave them to the Pagans. You, sons of God,\nheirs of God, joint-heirs with Christ, learn nobler lessons out of the\nbook of His life, aim at loftier marks, thirst for purer and perennial\njoys.\n\nII. Poor belief about God\u2014unbelief in the Incarnation, and all its\nblessed meanings to mankind.\n\nThe low and slavish idea of man\u2019s character and destiny inevitably\ninfects our views of God and of God\u2019s action and purpose in the world.\nHaving poor hope ourselves, we cannot understand God\u2019s hope, the hope\nwhich lit the path to Calvary, and shed a flood of glorious light around\nthe saddest and most shameful passage of man\u2019s sad and painful history.\nTo those who believe that man is the serf of the creation, the\nIncarnation is incredible. God would be ashamed to be called the God, in\nany high Christian sense, of such beings as some men believe themselves\nto be and act as if they were. The Hebrew Christians could not believe\nin the Incarnation; that is, they were beset with unbelief about it.\nTheir fathers could not believe in their angel guide. A glorious\ntriumphant King, coming to the world in splendour, scattering the hosts\nof His foes by His thunders, and leading His armies to rapid and easy\nvictory, they could comprehend well enough. But the cross was their\nstumbling-block. Can the living God suffer shame, anguish, and death,\nfor such beings as we are, for such a kingdom as this Crucified One\nmaybe able to win? \u201c_That be far from thee, Lord_;\u201d it is blasphemy to\ndream of it. They were like a man in poverty and straits, who is always\nexpecting that a splendid fortune will fall to him suddenly, will enable\nhim to make a magnificent figure, and to be a model of dignity,\ngenerosity, and manly grace. But the MAN is he who wins his fortune by\nbearing the strain of toil through long years of patience, and who\ntrains himself by discipline to rule it as a realm when gained. And we\nare, most of us, of this foolish temper. What wonderful people we should\nbe, we think, if our platform were higher, and a stronger light were\nthrown upon our lives! If God would but mend our surroundings, our\nvirtue and dignity would appear! Believe that it seemed good to God,\nthat it became God, to reveal to us the truth of this relation between\nsurroundings and life, by sending His Son, in the likeness of sinful\nflesh, to live the life of God in poverty, sorrow, and shame, and\nmanifest in that depth of humiliation the mystery of the life eternal.\n\u201c_For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all\nthings, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their\nsalvation perfect through sufferings. For both he that sanctifieth and\nthey who are sanctified are all of one: for which cause he is not\nashamed to call them brethren, saying, I will declare thy name unto my\nbrethren, in the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee. And\nagain, I will put my trust in him. And again, Behold I and the children\nwhich God hath given me. Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of\nflesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that\nthrough death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is,\nthe devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their\nlifetime subject to bondage. For verily he took not on him the nature of\nangels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham. Wherefore in all things\nit behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a\nmerciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make\nreconciliation for the sins of the people. For in that he himself hath\nsuffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted._\u201d\n(Heb. ii. 10\u201318.)\n\nIt was a hard, an incredible saying to many among the Hebrew Christians.\nIn all its deep meaning it is a hard, an incredible saying to us. Do we\nbelieve in our heart of hearts that the life of daily denial,\ncross-bearing, and Divine ministry, missing all earthly honour, golden\ntreasure, and worldly joy, is the life which the Lord God of heaven\nlived on earth, and glorified earth by living it? Have we an eye for\nthat inner glory? Is that tear-stained path He trod, beautiful,\ntranscendently beautiful, in our sight, as it is to the angels and the\nwhite-robed choir on high? Shame on our lives then, if this is the\nbelief of our hearts about it. If we believe that He who was in the\nform of God, and \u201c_thought it not robbery to be equal with God; but made\nhimself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant and\nwas made in the likeness of men_\u201d (Phil. ii. 6\u20138), left us an ensample\nthat we should follow in His steps, what are our lives like before Him\nand before the angels, filled as they are with selfish aims and\npassions, strivings after things that perish, that crumble to dust as we\ngrasp them; contemptuous as they are of celestial things and powers, of\nall that made His life luminous to the eye of spirits, of all that He\ncame through shame and anguish to set palpably before the vision of our\nsouls. \u201c_Lay aside the sin that doth so easily beset you_\u201d\u2014this sin of\nlight thoughts of Christ, of the intense reality of His human life, and\nall the high meanings and inspirations with which it is charged for you,\nfor me, for all mankind. Open wide the gates of your spirit, and let\nthis King of Glory in. \u201c_Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift\nup, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in._\u201d Who is\nthis King of Glory? The Man of Sorrows, He is the King of Glory.\nBelieve, faint heart, and live.\n\nIII. Unbelief in the future.\n\nWe cannot believe that this is purely a seed-time. Like children, we are\nfor reaping where we have not sown, and gathering where we have not\nstrawed. Or, if by chance we drop a seed into the earth and leave it for\na moment, next morning we are digging about it to see if it is growing,\nand are sick at heart if it promises no immediate fruit. The Hebrew\nChurch demanded the instant fruitage of the death of Christ. \u201c_And Jesus\nanswered them, saying, The hour is come, that the Son of man should be\nglorified. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall\ninto the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth\nforth much fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that\nhateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal._\u201d (John\nxii. 23\u201325.) Lord, we have seen the seed corn cast into the ground, we\nhave seen it lie there, we have seen it rise, and where is the harvest?\nWhere is the kingdom? Where are the throngs? Where is the throne? The\noffence of the cross still lies in the way of triumph. Tribulations are\nthe only gifts of the kingdom still! The writer of this epistle does not\ncare to argue about the moment. Be it so. Be it as bad as you say:\ntribulations, persecutions, contempt, spoiling of your goods, and bonds.\nBe it so. \u201c_Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin._\u201d\nYou have not faced the last extremity, and the last extremity may be in\nstore. But what matters? Sons of God, brethren of Christ, citizens of\nthe heavenly state, heirs of everlasting joys and glory, what matters\nit? \u201c_Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the\nearth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and\nlatter rain. Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of\nthe Lord draweth nigh. Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye\nbe contemned: behold, the judge standeth before the door. Take, my\nbrethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an\nexample of suffering affliction, and of patience. Behold, we count them\nhappy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen\nthe end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender\nmercy._\u201d (Jas. v. 7\u201311.) Is patience no longer beautiful, divine, when\nit is heaven which has to be waited for, a royal sceptre, an everlasting\ncrown? For shame! moaning over the moment\u2019s pains, which are the seeds\nof everlasting joys; over the dust of the husks and shells of the\ntemporal things, when, as they waste and perish, the glorious forms of\nthe things not seen and eternal, which they veiled, appear. I say not,\nCompare the one with the other, weigh them well, and make your\nselection. There is no comparison possible. \u201c_I reckon that the\nsufferings of this present life are not worthy to be compared with the\nglory that shall be revealed._\u201d \u201c_For our light affliction, which is but\nfor a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of\nglory; while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things\nwhich are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the\nthings which are not seen are eternal._\u201d (2 Cor. iv. 17, 18.) It is\nblank unbelief to talk about comparison. The one is infinitely small and\npitiful; the other is infinitely great, beautiful, and glorious. \u201c_What\nthings were gain to me_,\u201d when the visible things of earth and time\nfilled my sight, \u201cthose I have counted loss for Christ. Yea, doubtless,\nand I count all things but loss, for the excellency of the knowledge of\nChrist Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things,\nand do count them but dung, that I may win Christ.\u201d (Phil. iii. 7, 8.)\nThis is the Christian estimate. This is the true entrenchment of the\nhuman spirit against all the floods of calamity which may beat around\nthe rock on which it builds its hopes. Be my lot what it may, my God, my\nFather ordains it; and He has the power, the will to make every pain,\nevery wound, every heartache, every cross, every shock, the seed of a\nharvest whose glorious wealth I cannot measure even in my dreams. The\npower and the will, said I? His strongest promises, His profoundest\npurposes, are engaged in the fulfilment of the hope which He kindles in\nmy breast, and which makes me master of the world. Nay, He has staked\nHis life, the very existence of His throne, upon it. He has subjected\nyou and me and the vast creation to vanity, \u201c_in hope, the hope that the\ncreation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption\ninto the glorious liberty of the sons of God_.\u201d We have no true measure\nof these sad scenes and experiences of earth\u2014and they are sad enough,\nnothing is to be gained by painting them as lighter than they are; but\nwe can measure them fairly when we get up into the higher region, strong\nin faith, and share the thought and hope of God. _We are saved by hope._\nLet us bless God for it, for the blessed and boundless future in which\nthe far-off interest of tears will be our eternal portion, and the\nharvest of brave endurance and patient pain. \u201c_Behold we count them\npatient which endure._\u201d And who are they? The world\u2019s weaklings and\nfools. Listen to the bead-roll, and hush your moans for very shame.\nAbel, Enoch, Noah head the line; Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. \u201c_These all died\nin faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar\noff, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that\nthey were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such\nthings declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they had\nbeen mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have\nhad opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better country,\nthat is an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their\nGod: for he hath prepared for them a city._\u201d (Heb. xi. 13\u201316.) \u201c_And\nwhat shall I more say? for the time would fail me to tell of Gedeon, and\nof Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthae; of David also, and Samuel, and\nof the prophets: who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought\nrighteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched\nthe violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness\nwere made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of\nthe aliens. Women received their dead raised to life again: and others\nwere tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a\nbetter resurrection: and others had trial of cruel mockings and\nscourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment; they were stoned,\nthey were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they\nwandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted,\ntormented; (of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts,\nand in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth._\u201d (Heb. xi.\n32\u201338.) \u201c_And these all_\u201d\u2014the world\u2019s chief heroes, whose names are\ndear and honoured through the ages on earth, as they shine resplendent\nas the stars in heaven\u2019s firmament on high\u2014\u201c_These all, having obtained\na good report through faith, received not the promise; God having\nprovided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be\nmade perfect._\u201d (Heb. xi. 39, 40.) \u201cWherefore seeing ye are compassed\nabout with so great a crowd of witnesses\u201d\u2014these grand and glorious\nforms, who watch your battles from their thrones, and prepare to hail\nyour triumphant entrance to the kingdom which the victory of faith shall\nwin\u2014\u201c_lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset\nyou, and run with patience the race that is set before you, looking unto\nJesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set\nbefore him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at\nthe right hand of the throne of God_.\u201d (Heb. xii. 1, 2.)\n\n\n\n\nIX.\n\nTHE LAW OF ABSTINENCE.\n\n    \u201cWherefore, if meat (food) make my brother to offend, I will eat\n    no flesh while the world standeth, lest I make my brother to\n    offend.\u201d\u20141 COR. viii. 13.\n\n\nOf all the great writers of the world, the apostle Paul perhaps most\nneeds to be read with the eye of the heart, as well as with the eye of\nthe understanding. Moral sympathy is an essential condition of the full\nunderstanding of the apostle\u2019s words. Most especially is it needed in\nsuch passages as the present, in which he gives vehement and even\npassionate utterance to his vivid sympathies with the weaker brethren\nwho were still struggling with the difficulties and perplexities from\nwhich his powerful genius had already emancipated him, or who were\ntormented by doubts which he had laid happily at rest for ever. There is\nno great writer who is less careful to guard himself from even grave\nmisconstructions, or whose eager, impetuous sentences, when matters\nwhich touch his sympathies and affections are in question, are more\nlikely, if formulated into maxims and rules of action, to lead weak\nminds astray. Indeed, there is a sense in which the Bible is the most\nunguarded of all books. Meant more than any other book to be a guide of\naction, it is less careful about misunderstandings of its meaning, and\nlays itself open to more complete misapprehensions, than any other book\nin the world. And this precisely because it will be read with the spirit\nas well as with the understanding. It needs no worldly scholarship; but\nit will not make its meanings plain to those who do not care to bring to\nbear on it, not the attention of their heads only, but that of their\nhearts. How many startling sentences are there which, in the first\nflash of their meaning, seem to strike at the root of institutions or\nprinciples which we learn from other passages the Bible is most\nearnestly solicitous to maintain and secure. Take some utterances of the\nmind of the apostle Paul about women for instance, as isolated dicta;\ntreat them as complete authoritative utterances, giving the law to us;\nthe result would be the utter confusion of all man\u2019s most sacred\nrelations, and the overthrow of human society. There are words too,\nuttered by yet more sacred lips, which it needs no little spiritual\nexperience and insight to avoid misunderstanding, and applying to uses\nwhich the whole tenour of the Saviour\u2019s life and teaching would sternly\ncondemn. Paul, a man vividly sympathetic and tender, easily touched by\nsuffering, easily drawn by love, intense, passionate, and impetuous,\nsuffers himself ever and anon to express in one short, startling\nsentence some vivid impression which for the moment occupied his whole\nsoul. But we must pause\u2014as he would have paused, nay, did manifestly\npause\u2014before we treat it as a mould in which we are to cast our rules\nof action or habits of life. The sentence expresses the desire and\npurpose of the apostle\u2019s heart, that which would animate and give aim to\nall its action; but the action itself would be wisely modulated by a\nhundred secondary considerations, and by other co-ordinate principles,\nso as to secure, as far as might be possible, the end at which he aimed,\nwithout imperilling other and it might be yet higher things. It would be\na grand mistake then to formulate such a sentence as this into a rigid\nrule of action. Treated thus, the first thing which would fall under\ncondemnation would probably be the apostle\u2019s life.\n\nThese words are very constantly employed as though they laid down a rule\nof action concerning things indifferent which might lead easily to sin,\nand set before us a way of helping men against vicious habits at the\ncost of some personal self-sacrifice. That may be a very important\nsubject, and it has plenty of passages bearing on it in the word of\nGod. But it is not the difficulty here. This passage has quite a\ndifferent bearing. It is a case, not of a weak will, but of a weak\njudgment, a weak conscience, in which there is danger of false beliefs\nor of a lowering of the tone of the conscientious principle of action.\nIt is this, and not any question of vicious habits, which draws from the\napostle, who had fought his way through the whole jungle of doubts and\ndifficulties and perplexities in which the weaker brethren were\nstruggling painfully still, these ardent and decisive words.\n\nI. At the root of this declaration lies the conviction that there is no\nconsideration which may compete in a man\u2019s motives with the desire to\npromote the spiritual welfare and progress of mankind. It is the object\ndearest to God. It was the object dearest to the apostle\u2019s heart. It\nseemed so great to God, so essentially glorious, that God came forth in\nthe form of a man to die for it. This is the true form of the\nCalvinistic tenet that to God His own glory is His highest end. And Paul\nwas prepared to die for it too. \u201c_And as we tarried there many days,\nthere came down from Jud\u00e6a a certain prophet, named Agabus. And when he\nwas come unto us, he took Paul\u2019s girdle, and bound his own hands and\nfeet, and said, Thus saith the Holy Ghost, So shall the Jews at\nJerusalem bind the man that owneth this girdle, and shall deliver him\ninto the hands of the Gentiles. And when we heard these things, both we,\nand they of that place, besought him not to go up to Jerusalem. Then\nPaul answered, What mean ye to weep and to break mine heart? for I am\nready not to be bound, only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name\nof the Lord Jesus._\u201d (Acts xxi. 10\u201313.) When a man has settled that, and\nhas taken his life in his hand to fulfil a ministry to mankind, he has\nbut one supreme consideration; his own interests vanish; man\u2019s\ninterests, the estate of the poorest and most wretched of mankind, fill\nthe sphere of his aims and hopes. (1 Cor. iv. 9\u201313.) No wonder that\nnothing could move him from this ministry, and that life was valueless\nsave as it might be a \u201c_finishing his course with joy, and the ministry\nwhich he had received of the Lord Jesus to testify the gospel of the\ngrace of God_.\u201d Of course, if life was freely laid on that altar, \u201c_as\nthe life is more than meat, and the body than raiment_,\u201d meats would be\nfreely offered as a sacrifice too. The man who was ready to die for man\nwas not likely to suffer a morsel of meat, any worldly possession, any\nphysical or mental pleasure, to stand for an instant in the way of any\nhelp or guidance which he might offer to the weakest of mankind. \u201c_For\nthough I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all,\nthat I might gain the more. And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I\nmight gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law,\nthat I might gain them that are under the law; to them that are without\nlaw, as without law, (being not without law to God, but under the law to\nChrist,) that I might gain them that are without law. To the weak became\nI as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men,\nthat I might by all means save some. And this I do for the gospel\u2019s\nsake, that I might be partaker thereof with you._\u201d (1 Cor. ix. 19\u201323.)\nWe must take this sentence then, as explaining the full readiness of the\napostle, as far as his own tastes, habits, and appetites were concerned,\nto eat no meat to his dying day, if he saw that such a course of action\nwould remove effectually an offence, a stone of stumbling, from the path\nof the weakest of his fellow-men.\n\nBut all are not apostles. How far is the conduct of this great Christian\nteacher to be regarded as giving the rule to us? This is but another\nform of a yet graver question\u2014How far do we feel ourselves bound to be\nfollowers of the Son of man in the regeneration, in the reconstruction\nof man\u2019s nature and of human society, in the working out of His benign\nplans and purposes for mankind? \u201c_Be ye followers of me_,\u201d said Paul,\n\u201c_as I am of Christ_.\u201d The apostle\u2019s life was simply the most Christlike\nlife, and those who care to follow Christ must drink of the same\nsprings, and aim at the same ends, while they pursue the various\ncallings by which society is sustained and developed. To be Christian is\nto have in us the same mind which was likewise in Christ Jesus. The\nmeasure of our Christian vitality is the measure in which that mind is\nin us, and in which we are able thereby to enter into this language of\nthe apostle Paul. Those that can enter into it perfectly, and can live\nit, following Paul as Paul followed Christ, are the heaven-sent leaders\nand ministers of mankind. It is a sacred line which God keeps unbroken\nthrough all the ages, the men of apostolic spirit and self-devotion to\nthe good of their fellows. But those who follow can only follow through\nsympathy. They must be able to believe in this spirit, to make it the\naim of their lives to work it out in their limited spheres, with feebler\nit may be, but with honest and manly effort; or Christianity becomes\nsimply the efflorescence of civilization, and the sad world has to seek\nits helper, teacher, and saviour still. Clearly then Paul was ready for\nthis, and far more than this, if thereby he might effectually help a\nweak brother on his way.\n\nII. Actually, as far as we have the means\u2014and we have some means\u2014of\nknowing, Paul continued to eat meat to his dying day, while the\ndifficulty still remained a pressing one, and the stone of stumbling\nstill continued to block many a weak Christian\u2019s path.\n\nWhat was the difficulty? How did the offence arise? The meat spoken of\nhere is meat which had been offered in an idolatrous temple, and which\nmight be supposed by those who had not the lofty intelligence of the\napostle to have contracted some moral contamination thereby. Under all\nsystems the meat offered in sacrifice was in some measure the perquisite\nof the priest. (Lev. vii. 7\u201319.) The abuse of the custom is thus\ndescribed:\u2014\u201c_Now the sons of Eli were sons of Belial; they knew not the\nLord. And the priest\u2019s custom with the people was, that, when any man\noffered sacrifice, the priest\u2019s servant came, while the flesh was in\nseething, with a flesh-hook of three teeth in his hand; and he struck it\ninto the pan, or kettle, or caldron, or pot: all that the flesh-hook\nbrought up, the priest took for himself. So they did in Shiloh unto all\nthe Israelites that came thither. Also before they burnt the fat, the\npriest\u2019s servant came, and said to the man that sacrificed, Give flesh\nto roast for the priest; for he will not have sodden flesh of thee, but\nraw. And if any man said unto him, Let them not fail to burn the fat\npresently, and then take as much as thy soul desireth; then he would\nanswer him, Nay; but thou shalt give it me now; and if not I will take\nit by force. Wherefore the sin of the young men was very great before\nthe Lord: for men abhorred the offering of the Lord._\u201d (1 Sam. ii.\n12\u201317.) There is a very interesting question behind this, into which I\nmust not enter here; how far all animal sacrifice is to be regarded as\nthe consecration of food; the recognition of God as the giver, as the\nlord of the animal slain, and of man\u2019s right to slay as a right which\nhad been delegated by the Lord. That there is some deeper idea in animal\nsacrifice no thoughtful reader of the Bible, I imagine, can well\nquestion; but that this is a very important part of the meaning I feel\nwell assured. It casts a flood of light on the immense slaughter of\nvictims at the consecration of the temple and other high occasions;\nwhile it is itself illustrated by the customs of orientals with\nreference to the slaughter of animals to this day. But the priest\u2019s\nportion was a recognised thing. Portions of this, not needed by the\npriest\u2019s household, would be sold in the shambles. Portions belonging to\nthose who offered the sacrifice might be similarly exposed. Sometimes a\nfeast would be made in the temple, the animal which furnished the flesh\nbeing sacrificed there (ver. 10); sometimes in a private house (x. 27),\nwhere Christians, following the liberal law, the law of liberty laid\ndown by the apostle (1 Cor. v. 9, 10), would be constantly brought into\ncontact with it, and through it, it might seem to them, with the idol by\nwhose name it had been consecrated. A serious difficulty would thus\narise. I beg you to mark carefully where the real heart of the\ndifficulty lay. It was not at all a question of meat in itself, noxious\nin quality or becoming noxious by quantity. If it had been a question of\na man eating unwholesome food, or eating good food to excess, damaging\nhealth of body and mind thereby, I cannot imagine that Paul would have\ntreated it as a difficult question at all. You have a sinful habit he\nwould say, you are injuring and destroying your system; you must break\nit, absolutely, decisively, or perish: what help I can give you as man\nto man, by the influence of my words or works, is at your service; but\nit is no question of what I do or do not: it is a simple point, it is\nbetween you and God; fly to Him for grace and strength, and master your\nlust.\n\nBut here the case is quite different. It is a case not of a vicious\nhabit, but of a puzzled conscience; a feeble apprehension of truth, a\ndoubt as to what is right or wrong, in which the conduct of the wise and\nenlightened would be a most wholesome and valuable guide. This weak soul\ntrying to see its way needed guidance. What a glutton or a sot needs is\npower. For the one use, example is most precious; the other need can\nonly be supplied from a yet deeper spring. How far am I in contact with\nidolatry in this eating of meat offered to idols? might easily be a very\nfair question; and not only with the weakest of the young Gentile\nChurch. Some would eat it with conscience of the idol. They would be\npained and distressed, and a constant tolerance of such pain and\ndistress is demoralizing. Doing great acts of life with a half heart,\nwith a troubled faith, paralyses conscience, and in the end opens the\nway to tremendous sins. The constant converse with idolatry which\nattending these feasts with a \u201cconscience of the idol\u201d would generate,\nmight easily end in apostasy, shipwreck of faith and hope for ever.\n\nHow beautiful is the mingled wisdom and charity with which the apostle\nhandles the difficulty! It was absolutely none to him. The idol to him\nwas not anything at all. It was a vain imagination of man\u2019s vain heart.\nThere could be no conscience of an idol in his mind in dealing with\nanything created by God, however the idol might have been connected with\nit by others. Who would recognise an usurper because he occupies the\npalace and assumes the signet of the rightful king? \u201c_The earth is the\nLord\u2019s, and the fulness thereof._\u201d The creature is the Lord\u2019s, every\nlimb, every particle. If I can but use it for the end for which the Lord\ncreated it and put it under my hand, I will rejoice and give thanks that\nso far the usurper is despoiled. Thus the instructed Jew would look at\nthe matter: \u201c_the idol is not anything at all_.\u201d But the Corinthians\nwere converted Gentiles. The idol was a reality, and a very terrible\nreality to them; in memory and association at any rate, if not in\nconviction. Relapse into idolatry, which was all round them, many dear\nto them being devoted to it, was a very pressing peril; and association\nwith idolaters, with conscience of the idol in the act of association,\nmight easily bring the danger near.\n\nThere was but one thing which could deliver them; a thoroughly Christian\nconviction that the idol is not anything at all: that \u201c_every creature\nof God is good and is to be received with thanksgiving, being sanctified\nby the word of God and by prayer_.\u201d But these noble and lofty beliefs\nare not born in a moment. God had been for ages educating the Jews to\nthe belief of which the Christian Paul, the Hebrew of the Hebrews, in\nthis as in other things was reaping the fruit. And education is a slow\nand delicate process, and needs to be managed by a nursing hand. While\nthese Gentile converts are being trained to this loftier view, beware\nlest, puffed up by your superior knowledge, your conduct tempts them to\na course which will deaden that fine tact of conscience, by which alone,\nwhen it has fastened on the higher truth, the emancipation can be\ngained. Act on your higher knowledge as your rule of living. The fools\nand the weaklings are not to be the lords of life and the masters of the\nworld. But if you see any attempt made to draw you into visible contact\nwith the idol, that those weaker than you, led by your example, may be\ndrawn into a contact which to them would be detrimental and degrading,\nbend the higher law for the moment, or rather lift it higher still\u2014lose\nit in the lovelier law of charity, and practise a forbearance the motive\nof which is a brother\u2019s good. \u201c_All things are lawful for me, but all\nthings are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but all things\nedify not. Let no man seek his own, but every man another\u2019s wealth.\nWhatsoever is sold in the shambles, that eat, asking no question for\nconscience sake; for the earth is the Lord\u2019s, and the fulness thereof.\nIf any of them that believe not bid you to a feast, and ye be disposed\nto go; whatsoever is set before you, eat, asking no question for\nconscience sake. But if any man say unto you, This is offered in\nsacrifice unto idols, eat not for his sake that shewed it, and for\nconscience sake: for the earth is the Lord\u2019s and the fulness thereof:\nconscience, I say, not thine own, but of the other: for why is my\nliberty judged of another man\u2019s conscience? For if I by grace be a\npartaker, why am I evil spoken of for that for which I give thanks?\nWhether ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of\nGod._\u201d (1 Cor. x. 23\u201331.)\n\nFree use of all God\u2019s good gifts with bold conscience is to be the law\nof Christian living, the daily practice and habit of the life. Voluntary\nabstinence, forbearance in the use of the freedom, is demanded of us by\na yet higher law, the law of Christian charity, the charity which has\nChrist for its model and inspiration; but only when we find that it will\nbe helpful to a weak brother in our personal intercourse with and\ninfluence over his soul. That Paul did not adopt this as his rule of\nliving seems quite indisputable. He could not have omitted to refer to\nit and explain it in such a passage as 1 Tim. iv. 1\u20135, if his own rule\nhad been abstinence. \u201c_Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the\nlatter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing\nspirits, and doctrines of devils; speaking lies in hypocrisy; having\ntheir conscience seared with a hot iron; forbidding to marry, and\ncommanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received\nwith thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth. For every\ncreature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received\nwith thanksgiving; for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer._\u201d\nAt the same time we cannot question that he frequently acted on it when\nbrought into personal contact with brethren of weak faith and tender\nconscience, whom he sought, by sympathy with their doubts and\ndifficulties, to educate to a more vigorous and healthy life. In order\nto understand what we have every reason to believe was the habit of the\napostle\u2019s life, the free and temperate use of all the good gifts of God,\nwe must consider\u2014\n\nIII. That the adoption of a rule of abstinence, in permanent deference\nto weak consciences, would simply transfer to the weak the regulation of\nthe order of human life and the progress of the world. The pace of\nprogress would thus be permanently adjusted to the strength of the\nweakest, instead of being so regulated as to stimulate and help the\nweaker to press on into the front line. The result would be a grievous\nimpoverishment of moral and mental power; and Christianity, instead of\nbeing the power of God unto salvation, would be the instrument of\ndecline and a ministry of death. Surely it is a fundamental principle\nthat the framework of a man\u2019s life, his daily habits, should be set in\nthe measure of his own personal stature and power. What suits his\ncharacter and life, and ministers to his development, he is to embody in\nhis habits, as the best service which he can render to God and to his\nfellow-men. To be strong, wise, self-controlled, is the best beginning,\nthe only true beginning of real service to mankind. The best work which\na man can work at, for the service of his fellows, is his life. To\nregulate permanent habits on the wants and the weaknesses of others is\nto deny this principle, and to exalt the influence of spasmodic effort\nabove the broad, grand ministry of life. Paul was far from such\nillusions. Freedom was with him the fundamental condition of vital\nprogress; and if his sympathy with the weak and perplexed led him again\nand again to veil his freedom for the moment, it was that he might help\nthe weak to strength, the perplexed to clearness of vision, the bondsmen\nto liberty\u2014strength, clearness, and freedom of which he offered\nconspicuous examples in his own constant habits of life. \u201cBe ye as I\nam,\u201d was his appeal: free and strong; able to see the Lord\u2019s mark on all\nthings and creatures, and not the idol\u2019s. To live habitually as if he\nsaw the idol\u2019s mark would have seemed to him a base act of treason, a\nshameful forsaking of that liberty which he had in Christ, and which he\nwas resolved to hold for himself and his brethren even unto death.\n\nTo generalize and formalize into laws of action the impulses and\npurposes which inspire the spirit in its personal contact with the will,\nthe consciences, and the affections of its fellows, is in most cases to\nrob charity of its life and grace of its power. It is to substitute law\nfor grace in our personal relations and dealings with mankind. Had Paul\nlaid down the rule,\u2014There are weak consciences, which cannot get rid of\nthe savour of the idol; they shall rule our conduct; I will never eat\nmeat offered to idols, and I ordain the same to the Church,\u2014the\ndevelopment of mankind by Christianity would have been killed at the\nvery root. Scruples would have become the consecrated thing instead of\nliberty, and Christianity would have made manifest the weakness of man,\ninstead of the power of God, to the world. No! his supreme concern was\nthat they might master their weakness, break their bonds, and grow from\nbabes to men. If this abstaining from flesh while the world stood would\nhave helped them to that progress, he loved them well enough to do it\nwithout a pang of regret. But he evidently was eager to see them rise\nout of the lower region which is haunted and tormented by such scruples.\nHe ignored them as far as possible, though he dealt with them in tender\ncharity, when, as in chap. x. 28, they were forced on his sight.\n\nSomething very parallel to this difficulty of the meat offered to idols\nwas the question about the theatre which was a sore perplexity to pious\nbut intelligent spirits a few years ago. There was something, which had\nin it essentially no element of evil. But it was closely connected with\na world and a worldly life which those nurtured in the Church or brought\nunder its influence were sedulously taught to shun. Many who felt\nthemselves strong abstained. They saw no harm, and would get no harm,\nbut rather a positive good. But they denied themselves, that others of\nweaker faith might not be in the way of harm, and that no sin or ruin of\na brother might by any chance be laid at their door. Whether the rule of\nabstinence was wise I am not called here to consider. It was complicated\nby moral considerations\u2014which too were not absent in the case which the\napostle treats of here\u2014which make it less easy to pronounce judgment in\na word. But it must always be remembered that a rule or law of\nabstinence in such cases on the part of the strong consecrates the\nscruple, associates evil permanently with that which has no essential\nevil in it, and multiplies thereby the stumbling-blocks of mankind.\n\nThe case of actual vice, like drinking to excess, seems to me to fall\nunder quite another category; though it is constantly regarded as\nsettled by the text, as though it had been written, \u201cWherefore, if drink\nmake my brother to offend I will drink no wine while the world standeth,\nlest I make my brother to offend.\u201d We have no call here to discuss and\npass judgment on a movement by which men of most unquestioned goodness,\nand self-devotion to the best interests of others, think that they see a\nmeans of largely helping the morally weak by removing a fatal temptation\nfrom their path. We only say that it is a question well worthy of the\nmost careful consideration, how far in the long run and on a large scale\na permanent confession of weakness can be helpful to human development;\nhow far a habit of life confessedly built on the weakness of others can\noffer a noble and inspiring example to those who it is hoped would\nprofit by it; and how far an unnatural condition can have in it the\nelements of a true and vital reformation. But these considerations are\nreally beside the true scope of the text, though they are naturally\nsuggested by it. And in closing this discussion of a perplexed and\ndifficult subject I would say in brief:\u2014(1) That isolated acts of\nabstinence, which may have their special reason and justification, when\nmoulded into habits fall in the way of the withering denunciation which\nthe passage I have quoted from 1 Tim. iv. 1\u20134 expresses; (2) That the\nmoulding of our personal habits on the follies, weaknesses, or vices of\nothers, is a betrayal of trust, for that which we have chiefly in trust\nis life\u2014to live a life free, strong, and fearless, shining as a light,\nnot of rebuke or of caution, but of guidance to mankind; and (3) That\nevery concession to doubt and weakness to which Divine charity moves us\nis futile and vicious, unless in the very act we are putting forth a\nhand to lift a weak brother to a standing ground where he will be above\nthese fogs of fear and infirmity for ever.\n\n\nButler & Tanner, The Selwood Printing Works, Frome, and London.\n\n\n\n\n_BY THE SAME AUTHOR._\n\n_In crown 8vo, 5s., cloth._\n\nIDOLATRIES, OLD AND NEW:\n\nTHEIR CAUSE AND CURE.\n\n\nOpinions of the Press.\n\n\u201cThe present volume we should think is by far the best which the author\nhas sent forth. This, indeed, is the most fundamental and comprehensive\nargument on the principles involved in the ritualistic controversy which\nwe have yet seen.\u201d\u2014_London Quarterly Review._\n\n\u201cWe heartily recommend to our readers this eloquent, vigorous, and\nwell-reasoned book. It puts things familiar to only a few strong\nthinkers in fresh and forcible lights; it is a noble vindication of the\nspirituality and freedom of the Christian life; it is written in a manly\nchastened style, and is inspired by a high-toned and earnest spiritual\nfeeling,\u201d\u2014_English Independent._\n\n\u201cHis style is as forcible and eloquent as his thinking is clear and\nvigorous. Of the genuine power of the book\u2014a power derived from its\nhigh-toned principle, its manly freedom, its intense earnestness\u2014there\ncan be no question.\u201d\u2014_Nonconformist._\n\n\u201cA thoughtful, earnest, and intelligent protest against the idolatry of\nthe priest, of the sacrament, and of the word, written with manly vigour\nand much beauty.\u201d\u2014_Freeman._\n\n\nLONDON: HODDER & STOUGHTON, 27, PATERNOSTER ROW.\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber\u2019s Note:\n\n\nPunctuation has been standardised. Paragraph enumeration and\nhyphenation have been retained as they appear in the original\npublication. A table of contents has been added above the\nbeginning of the book. Changes have made been as follows:\n\n    Page 40\n    nature of things befal a free spirit _changed to_\n    nature of things befall a free spirit\n\n    Page 77\n    bring forth judgmedt unto truth _changed to_\n    bring forth judgment unto truth","title":"Misread Passages of Scriptures","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":47628}