"Hold fast that which is good." 1
Thessalonians 5:21
My trumpet ought to give no uncertain sound. With
abounding temporal prosperity, we seem, as a nation, to be sitting on
the edge of a volcano, and at any time may be blown to pieces, and
become a wreck and a ruin.
Worst of all, the air seems filled with vague
agnosticism and unbelief. Faith languishes and dwindles everywhere, and
looks ready to die. The immense majority of men, from the highest to the
lowest, appear to think that 'nothing is certain in religion,' and that
it does not signify much what you believe. Even in our Universities, the
tendency to multiply the 'doubtful things' of Christianity, and to
diminish the the essentials, appears to grow and increase every year.
All the foundations of faith are out of course.
In times like these, I shall make no apology for
charging you to beware of losing, insensibly, your grasp of Christian
truth, and holding it with slippery and trembling fingers. I ask you,
therefore, to hear me patiently this day, while I try to set before them
a list of cardinal points on which I think it of essential importance to
'hold fast that which is good.' Of course I do not expect you all to
agree with some of the things I am going to say. Far from it! I lay no
claim to infallibility. But at any rate you will not be left in
ignorance of my opinions.
I. First and foremost, let me charge you to hold fast the great
principle that Christianity is entirely true, and the only religion
which God has revealed to mankind.
In reviews, magazines, newspapers, lectures, essays,
novels, and sometimes even in sermons, scores of clever writers are
incessantly waging war against the very foundations of Christianity.
Reason, science, geology, anthropology, modern discoveries, free
thought, are all boldly asserted to be on their side. No educated
person, we are constantly told nowadays, can really believe supernatural
religion, or the plenary inspiration of the Bible, or the possibility of
miracles. Such ancient doctrines as the Trinity, the Divinity of Christ,
the Personality of the Holy Spirit, the Atonement, the obligation of the
Sabbath, the necessity and efficacy of prayer, the existence of the
devil, and the reality of future punishment, are quietly put on the
shelf by many professing leaders of modern thought, as useless old
almanacs, or contemptuously thrown overboard as lumber! And all this is
done so cleverly, and with such an appearance of candor and liberality,
and with such compliments to the capacity and nobility of human nature,
that multitudes of unstable Christians are carried away as by a flood,
and become partially unsettled, if they do not make complete shipwreck
of faith.
The existence of this plague of unbelief must
not surprise us for a moment. It is only an old enemy in a new dress, an
old disease in a new form. Since the day when Adam and Eve fell, the
devil has never ceased to tempt men not to believe God, and has said,
directly or indirectly, 'You shall not die, even if you do not believe.'
In 'the latter days' especially, we have warrant of Scripture for
expecting an abundant crop of unbelief—'When the Son of Man comes, shall
he find faith on the earth?' 'Evil men and seducers shall wax worse and
worse.' 'There shall come in the last days scoffers.' (Luke
18:8; 2Tim. 3:13;
2Pet. 3:3.) Here in England skepticism
is that natural rebound from semi-popery and superstition, which
many wise men have long predicted and expected. It is precisely that
swing of the pendulum which far-sighted students of human nature looked
for; and it has come.
But, as I tell you not to be surprised at the
widespread skepticism of the times, so also I must urge you not to be
shaken in mind by it, or moved from your steadfastness. There is no real
cause for alarm. The ark of God is not in danger, though the oxen seem
to shake it. Christianity has survived the attacks of Hume and Hobbes
and Tindal; of Collins and Woolston and Bolingbroke and Chubb; of
Voltaire and Paine and Holyoake. These men made a great noise in their
day, and frightened weak people; but they produced no more real effect
than idle travelers produce by scratching their names on the great
Pyramid of Egypt. Depend on it, Christianity in like manner will survive
the attacks of the clever writers of these times. The startling novelty
of many modern objections to revelation, no doubt, makes them seem more
weighty than they really are. It does not follow, however, that hard
knots cannot be untied, because our fingers cannot untie
them, or that formidable difficulties cannot be explained, because
our eyes cannot see through or explain them. When you cannot answer
a skeptic, be content to wait for more light; but never forsake a
great principle. In religion, as in many scientific questions, said
Faraday, the famous chemist, 'the highest wisdom is often a judicious
suspension of judgment.'
When skeptics and infidels have said all they can, we
must not forget that there are three great broad facts which they
have never explained away; and I am convinced they never can, and never
will. Let me tell you briefly what they are. They are very simple facts,
and any plain man can understand them.
(i) The first fact is Jesus
Christ Himself. If Christianity is a mere invention of man,
and the Bible is not from God—how can infidels explain Jesus Christ? His
existence in history they cannot deny. How is it that without force or
bribery, without arms or money, without flattering man's pride of
reason, without granting any indulgence to man's lusts and passions—He
has made such an immensely deep mark on the world? Who was He? What was
He? Where did He come from? How is it that there has never been one like
Him, neither before nor after, since the beginning of time? They cannot
explain it. Nothing can explain it but the great foundation-principle of
revealed religion, that Jesus Christ is truly God, and that His Gospel
is all true.
(2) The second fact is the
Bible itself. If Christianity is a mere invention of man, and
the Bible is of no more authority than any other uninspired volume, how
is it that the book is what it is? How is it that a book written by a
few Jews in a remote part of the earth, written at distant and various
periods without concert or collusion among the writers; written by
members of a nation which, compared to Greece and Rome, did nothing for
literature—how is it that this book stands entirely alone, and that
there is nothing that even approaches it, for high views of God, for
true views of man, for solemnity of thought, for grandeur of doctrine,
and for purity of morality? What account can the infidel give of this
book, so deep, so simple, so wise, so free from defects? He cannot
explain its existence and its nature on his principles. We only can do
that—who hold that the book is supernatural, and is the book of God!
(3) The third fact is the
effect which Christianity has produced on the world. If
Christianity is a mere invention of man, and not a supernatural, Divine
revelation, how is it that it has wrought such a complete alteration in
the state of mankind? Any well-read man knows that the moral difference
between the condition of the world before Christianity was planted, and
since Christianity took root—is the difference between night and day;
the difference between the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of the
devil. At this very moment I defy anyone to look at the map of the
world, and compare the countries where men are Christians—with those
where men are not Christians, and to deny that these countries are as
different as light and darkness, black and white. How can any infidel
explain this on his principles? He cannot do it. We only can who believe
that Christianity came down from God, and is the only Divine religion in
the world.
Whenever you are tempted to be alarmed at the
progress of infidelity, look at the three facts which I have just
mentioned, and cast your fears away! Take up your position boldly behind
the ramparts of these three facts, and you may safely defy the utmost
efforts of modern skeptics. They may often ask you a hundred questions
you cannot answer, and start clever problems about geology, or the
origin of man, or the age of the world, which you cannot solve. They may
vex and irritate you with wild speculations and theories, of which at
the time you cannot prove the fallacy, though you feel it.
But be calm and fear not. Remember the three great facts I have named,
and boldly challenge them to explain them away. The difficulties of
Christianity no doubt are great; but, depend on it, they are nothing
compared to the DIFFICULTIES OF INFIDELITY.
II. In the next place, let me charge you to hold fast the authority,
supremacy, and Divine inspiration of the whole Bible.
About the authority of that blessed book I
need not say much. I am addressing men who have answered the solemn
questions of the Ordination Services, and subscribed the Thirty-nine
Articles. By so doing you have declared your belief that the Scriptures
are our Church's rule of faith and practice. The clergyman who preaches
and teaches anything which flatly contradicts the Bible, appears to me
to forget his own pledges, and deals unfairly with the Church of which
he is a minister.
About the inspiration of the Bible I feel it
necessary to speak more fully. It is, unhappily, one of the chief
subjects of controversy in the present day, and one about which you have
a right to know what I think.
The subject of inspiration is always important. It is
the very keel and foundation of Christianity. If Christians have no
Divine book to turn to as the warrant of their doctrine and practice,
they have no solid ground for present peace or hope, and no right to
claim the attention of mankind. They are building on a quicksand, and
their faith is vain. If the Bible is not given by inspiration
throughout, and contains defects and errors—it cannot be a safe guide to
heaven. We ought to be able to say boldly, 'We are what we are,
and we do what we do, and teach what we teach—because we
have here a book which we believe to be, altogether and entirely, the
Word of God.'
The subject without doubt is a very difficult one. It
cannot be followed up without entering on ground which is dark and
mysterious to mortal man. It involves the discussion of things which are
miraculous, supernatural, above reason, and cannot be fully explained.
But difficulties must not turn us away from any subject in religion.
There is not a science in the world about which questions may not
be asked which no one can answer. It is poor philosophy to say we will
believe nothing—unless we can understand everything! We must not give up
the subject of inspiration in despair, because it contains things 'hard
to be understood.'
One cause of difficulty lies in the fact that the
Church has never defined exactly what inspiration means, and
consequently many of the best Christians are not entirely of one mind. I
am one of those who believe that the writers of the Bible were
supernaturally and divinely enabled by God, as no other men ever have
been, for the work which they did, and that, consequently, the book they
produced is unlike any other book in existence, and stands entirely
alone. Inspiration, in short, is a miracle. We must not confound it with
intellectual power, such as great poets and authors possess. To talk of
Shakespeare and Milton and Byron being inspired, like Moses and Paul, is
to my mind, almost profane!
Nor must we confound it with the gifts and graces
bestowed on the early Christians in the primitive Church. All the
apostles were enabled to preach and work miracles—but not all were
inspired to write. We must rather regard it as a special supernatural
gift, bestowed on about thirty people out of mankind, in order to
qualify them for the special business of writing the Scriptures; and we
must be content to allow that, like everything miraculous, we cannot
entirely explain it, though we can believe it. A miracle would not
be a miracle—if it could be explained! That miracles are possible, I do
not stop to prove here. I never trouble myself on that subject, until
those who deny miracles have fairly grappled with the great fact, that
Christ rose again from the dead. I firmly believe that miracles are
possible, and have been wrought; and among great miracles I place the
fact that men were inspired by God to write the Bible. Inspiration,
therefore, being a miracle. I frankly allow that there are difficulties
about it which at present, I cannot fully solve.
The exact manner, for instance, in which the minds of
the inspired writers of Scripture worked when they wrote—I do not
pretend to explain. I have no doubt they could not have explained it
themselves. I do not admit for a moment that they were mere machines
holding pens, and, like type-setters in a printing-office, did not
understand what they were doing. I abhor the 'mechanical' theory of
inspiration. I dislike the idea that men like Moses and Paul were no
better than organ-pipes, employed by the Holy Spirit, or ignorant
secretaries—who wrote by dictation what they did not understand. I admit
nothing of the kind. But I do believe that in some marvelous manner the
Holy Spirit made use of the reason, the memory, the intellect, the style
of thought, and the peculiar mental temperament of each writer of the
Scriptures.
How and in what manner this was done, I can no more
explain than I can the union of two natures, God and man, in the Person
of our blessed Lord Jesus Christ. I only know that there is both a
Divine and a human element in the Bible, and that, while the men who
wrote it were really and truly men, the book that they wrote and handed
down to us is really and truly the Word of God. I know the result—but
I do not understand the process. The result is, that the Bible is
the written Word of God; but I can no more explain the process,
than I can explain how the water became wine at Cana, or how five loaves
fed five thousand men, or how the Apostle Peter walked on the water, or
how a few words from our Lord's lips raised Lazarus from the dead. I do
not pretend to explain miracles, and I do not pretend to explain fully
the miraculous gift of inspiration.
The position I take up is, that while the
Bible-writers were not 'machines,' as some sneeringly say—they only
wrote what God taught them to write. The Holy Spirit put into their
minds thoughts and ideas, and then guided their pens in writing and
expressing them. Even when they made use of old records, chronicles,
pedigrees, and lists of names, as they certainly did, they adopted,
used, and compiled them under the direction of the Holy Spirit. When you
read the Bible, you are not reading the unaided, self-taught composition
of erring men like yourselves—but thoughts and words which were given by
the eternal God. The men who were employed to write the Scripture 'spoke
not from themselves.' They 'spoke as they were moved by the Holy
Spirit.' (2 Pet. 1:21.) He who holds a
Bible in his hand should remember that he holds not the word of man—but
of God. He holds a volume which not only contains—but
is God's Word!
In saying all this, I would not be mistaken. I only
claim complete inspiration for the original languages in which the books
of the Scripture were written. I admit fully that transcribers and
translators were not infallible, and that occasional mistakes may have
crept into the sacred text, though amazingly few. When, therefore, some
critics object to a word or a verse here and there, reason would tell
us—that we should bear with them patiently, and agree to differ.
Difficulties about the meaning of many places in the Bible, apparent
discrepancies, obscure passages, no doubt, there always will be. But the
book, as a whole, contains nothing that is not true.
But unhappily the battle of inspiration does not end
here. A school of men has risen among us, who boldly deny the
inspiration of large portions of the Old Testament. The book of Genesis,
for example, is declared by some to possess no Divine authority, and to
be only a collection of interesting fictions. I can find no words to
express my entire disagreement with such theories. I maintain
firmly—that the Old Testament is of equal authority with the New, and
that they stand or fall together. You cannot separate them, any more
than you can separate the warp and woof in a piece of woven cloth. The
writers of the New Testament continually quote the words of the Old
Testament, as of equal authority with their own, and never give the
slightest hint that these quotations are not to be regarded as the Word
of God. The thrice-repeated saying of our Lord, taken from Deuteronomy,
'It is written,' when tempted by the devil, is deeply significant
and instructive. (Mat. 4:5-10).
But this is not the whole of my objection to these
modern theories. I contend that attacks on Genesis in particular involve
most dangerous consequences. They tend to dishonor our Lord Jesus Christ
and His apostles. That they regard the events and persons mentioned in
Genesis as real, historical, and true, and not fictitious—is clear to
any honest reader of the New Testament. Now, how can this be explained
if Genesis is, as some say, a mere collection of fictions? You cannot
explain it except on the supposition that our Lord and His apostles were
ignorant, and did not know as much as modern critics do—or else that
they secretly suppressed their knowledge in order to avoid offending
their hearers. In short, they were either fallible or fallacious,
deceived or deceivers. God forbid that we should adopt either one
conclusion or the other! I frankly confess that my whole soul revolts
from these modern teachings about Genesis.
When I read that our Lord Jesus Christ is 'One with
the Father,' that 'In Him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and
knowledge,' that He is 'the Light of the world,' my mind cannot conceive
the possibility of His being ignorant, as latter-day theories about
Genesis certainly imply. That blessed Savior to whom I am taught to
commit my soul, in the very week that He died for my redemption, spoke
of the Flood and the days of Noah as realities! If He spoke ignorantly,
with Calvary in full view, it would shake to the foundation my
confidence in His power to save me, and would destroy my peace. I abhor
the idea of an ignorant Savior! From all distrust of any part of
the Bible—may you ever be delivered. How any English clergyman can read
a lesson from Genesis in church, if he does not believe its inspiration,
I cannot understand. And how after this he can gravely ascend the
pulpit, select a text from Genesis, preach a sermon on the text, and
draw lessons from it, when he does not believe in his heart that the
text he has chosen was given by inspiration; this, I say, is one of
those things which fill my soul with amazement, and make me tremble for
the ark of God.
Well and wisely has this age been called 'an age of
downgrade theology.' The man who only admits a partial
inspiration of the Bible, has been justly compared to one with his head
in a fog and his feet on a quicksand. From theories like these may you
ever be preserved!
III. In the next place, let me charge you to hold fast the old doctrine
of the sinfulness of sin, and the corruption of human nature.
I can find no words to express my sense of the
vastness and importance of this subject. It is my firm conviction that a
right knowledge of sin lies at the root of all saving religion. The
first thing that God does when He makes man a new creature in Christ—is
to send light into his heart, and show him that he is a guilty sinner.
The material creation in Genesis began with 'light,' and so also does
the spiritual creation. I have an equally firm conviction that a low and
imperfect view of sin, is the origin of most of the errors, heresies,
and false doctrines of the present day. If a man does not realize the
extent and dangerous nature of his soul's disease, you cannot wonder if
he is content with false or imperfect remedies. I believe that one of
the chief wants of the Church in the nineteenth century has been, and
is, clearer, fuller teaching about sin.
Sin, I need not remind any Bible reader, consists in
doing, saying, thinking, or imagining anything that is not in perfect
conformity with the mind and law of God. 'Sin,' as the Scripture says,
is 'the transgression of the law.' (1 Jo. 3:4.)
The slightest outward or inward departure from absolute mathematical
parallelism with God's revealed will and character, constitutes a sin,
and at once makes us guilty in God's sight. The Ninth Article of our
Church declares that sin is 'the fault and corruption of the nature of
every man that naturally is engendered of the offspring of Adam; whereby
man is very far gone from original righteousness, and is of his own
nature inclined to evil, so that the flesh lusts always contrary to the
spirit; and, therefore, in every person born into the world, it deserves
God's wrath and damnation.'
Sin, in short, is that vast moral disease which
affects the whole human race, of every rank and class and name and
nation and people and tongue, the plague of rulers and statesmen, the
divider of Churches, the destroyer of family happiness, the cause of all
the miseries in the world.
Now I am obliged to declare my conviction, that the
extent and vileness and deceitfulness of sin are a subject which is not
sufficiently brought forward in the religious teaching of these days. I
do not say it is ignored altogether. But I do say that it is not pressed
on congregations in its Scriptural proportion. The consequences are very
serious.
One result, I am persuaded, is the immense increase
of that sensuous, ceremonial, formal kind of Christianity, which has
swept over England like a flood in the last forty years, and carried
away so many before it. I can well believe that there is much that is
attractive and satisfying—in this system of religion, to a certain order
of minds, so long as the conscience is not fully enlightened. But when
that wonderful part of our constitution is really awake and alive, I
find it hard to believe that a sensuous, ceremonial Christianity will
thoroughly satisfy us. A little child is easily quieted and amused with
gaudy toys and dolls and rattles, so long as it is not hungry; but once
let it feel the cravings of nature within, and we know that nothing will
satisfy it but food. Just so it is with man in the matter of his soul.
Music and singing and flowers and banners
and processions and beautiful vestments and and man-made
ceremonies of semi-Romish character, may do well enough for man under
certain conditions. But once let him awake and arise from the dead, and
he will not rest content with these things. They will seem to him mere
solemn triflings—and a waste of time!
Once let him see his sin, and he must see his Savior,
in order to obtain rest for his soul. He feels stricken with a deadly
disease; and nothing will satisfy him but the Great Physician. He
hungers and thirsts; and he must have nothing less than the bread of
life. I may seem bold in what I am about to say—but I fearlessly venture
the assertion, that one half of the semi-Romanism of the last forty
years would never have existed, if English people had been taught more
fully and clearly the nature, vileness, and sinfulness of sin.
I believe the likeliest way to cure and mend this
defective kind of religion is to bring forward more prominently, and
expound more frequently, the Ten Commandments as the true test of sin.
They really seem to me to have fallen into the rear of late, and, with
the exception of the sixth and eighth, to receive less attention than
they deserve. Let us try to revive the old teaching in nurseries, in
schools, in training colleges, in universities. Let us not forget that
'the law is good if a man use it lawfully,' and that 'by the law is the
knowledge of sin.' (1Ti. 1:8;
Rom. 3:20, Rom. 7:7)
Let us bring it to the front once more, and press it on men's attention.
Let us expound and beat out the Ten Commandments, and show the length
and breadth and depth and height of their requirements. It is the way of
our Lord in the Sermon on the Mount. It was the way of great divines
like Andrews and Leighton and Hopkins and Patrick, whose works on the
Commandments are classics to this day.
We would do well to walk in their steps. We may
depend upon it, men will never truly come to Christ, and stay with
Christ, and live for Christ—unless they feel their sins, and know their
need of a Savior. Those whom the Holy Spirit draws to Christ are those
whom the Spirit has convinced of sin. Without real conviction of sin,
men may seem to come to Christ and follow Him for a season—but they will
soon fall away and return to the world.
I commend this point to your private consideration. I
suspect that the prevailing desire to make things pleasant to hearers,
and the fear of giving offence by plain speaking, have much to say to
the neglect of the law in this day. But the testimony of the Bible is
clear—'BY the law is the knowledge of sin.' (Rom.
3:20, Rom. 7:7). The words of
Lightfoot are most deeply true, "The consciousness of sin is the true
pathway to heaven."
IV. In the next place, let me charge you to hold fast
the great foundation-principle of Scripture: that forgiveness of sins is
only given to man through the atoning death of Jesus Christ on the
cross.
This is a deep and solemn subject; but there is such
an immense amount of strange doctrine floating in the air about it, that
I dare not pass it over. It seems to me to lie so near the roots of the
Gospel, that it is my duty not to be silent.
So far as I can understand, the theory of many
appears to be—that it is the incarnation, rather than the
sacrifice; the human nature that Christ took on Him rather than the
death He died—which is intended to be the chief ground of hope for our
souls. It seems to be held that the blood which 'cleanses from all sin'
is not so much the life-blood which Christ shed when He died, as the
blood of human nature of which He became partaker when He was born into
the world, and by partaking ennobled all Adam's race, and made salvation
possible for fallen man.
As to the old doctrine that the blood which flowed on
Calvary was the ransom paid for our souls and the price of our
redemption from the punishment due to our sins, it seems to be thrown
aside by many like an obsolete dogma, unworthy of these latter days.
Some even sneer at it as 'blood theology,' and tell us that Christ's
death was only the death of a great martyr, and a grand example of
perfect submission to God's will—but not a propitiation for sin.
Now I know not what some of you may think of the
theory I have tried to delineate; but I must plainly say that I cannot
for a moment admit that it is true, and will bear the test of calm
examination. The subject is one about which I dare not call any one
master.
(1) I cannot
reconcile the theory with scores of plain texts in the New Testament, in
which the forgiveness of sins, salvation, justification, reconciliation,
redemption, deliverance from wrath to come, and peace with God—appear to
be inseparably connected with the sufferings and death of
Christ, and not with His life. The expression in Romans, 'We shall be
saved by his life' (Rom. 5:10), is
sometimes quoted as a reply to what I am saying. But that text does not
mean anything but Christ's life of intercession, and it is like the
words in Hebrews—'He is able to save to the uttermost, seeing that he
ever lives to make intercession.' (Heb. 7:25.)
When Moses and Elijah appeared in the Transfiguration, the one subject
they were heard speaking about was our Lord's 'decease,' and not His
life. (Luk. 9:31.) When the saints in
Revelation are shown to us in vision as singing a new song before the
throne, the theme of it was, 'You were slain, and have
redeemed us to God by your blood.' (Rev. 5:9.)
(2) I cannot
reconcile the theory with the uniform teaching of the Old Testament
dispensation about the way of access to God. The great principle which,
like a red line, runs through the whole Mosaic ceremonial, is the
absolute necessity of sacrifice. Day after day, all the year round, and
especially at the Passover, the Jew was taught by emblems and figures
that 'without shedding of blood' there was no safety for the soul, and
'no remission of sins.' If the Mosaic system was meant to keep before
the mind of Israel, by types and figures, the great future sacrifice of
the Lamb of God on Calvary, and redemption by His blood, I can quite see
its reasonableness. But if the vicarious death of Christ was not to be
the main purpose of His coming into the world, the incessant slaughter
of innocent animals on Jewish altars for fourteen hundred years, appears
to my eyes an unnecessary waste of animal life, inconsistent with God's
mercy towards all His creatures, and admitting of no satisfactory
explanation.
I may not dwell longer on this solemn subject. If
time permitted, I might remind you how the 'story of the cross' and the
blood has always been found the most effective weapon in the mission
field all over the globe. But the time limit will not allow me. If
others are content to turn away from the 'old paths' of redemption by
blood and substitution, and to rest on a vague hope that, somehow or
other, they will be saved by Christ's incarnation, I am not their judge.
Give me rather for my faith the standing-place of the noble army of
Martyrs and the goodly company of Reformers, namely, the blood and
passion of Christ. I dare not launch forth into a world unknown on any
other plank but this!
V. Let me charge you, in the next place, to hold fast sound and
Scriptural views of the work of the Holy Spirit.
Faith in the Holy Spirit, we must always remember, is
as truly a part of Christianity as faith in Christ. Every child who
repeats the Church Catechism is taught to say, 'I learn to believe in
God the Holy Spirit, who sanctifies me and all the elect people of God.'
Furthermore, the work of the Holy Spirit, though mysterious, will
always be known by the fruits He produces in the character and
conduct of those in whom He dwells. It is like light which can be
seen, and fire which can be felt, and wind which causes
noticeable results. Where there are no fruits of the Spirit, there is no
presence of the Spirit. Those fruits, I need not tell you, are always
the same, conviction of sin, true repentance, lively faith in Christ,
and holiness of heart and life.
Now I believe this kind of truth about the work of
the Holy Spirit needs strongly to be pressed on congregations in the
present day. I am afraid there are myriads of professing Christians
throughout the land, who really know nothing about the Holy Spirit. They
seem to think that as baptized members of a great ecclesiastical
corporation, that they possess all the privileges of members. But of the
work of the Spirit on their own individual hearts, of conversion,
repentance, and faith—they know nothing at all. They are spiritually
asleep and dead—and unless they awake are in great danger. To arouse
such people to a sense of their unsatisfactory condition, to stir them
to see that if the Holy Spirit indwells them, they ought to know
something of Him by inward experience, and never rest until they feel
this. This is work which I am convinced every clergyman ought to keep
continually in view, and I entreat you to do so this day. Not only
preach Christ—but take care that you also preach the Holy Spirit.
While we are thankful for the increase of public
religion, we must never forget that, unless it is accompanied by
private religion, it is of no real solid value, and may even produce
most mischievous effects. Incessant running after sensational preachers;
incessant attendance at hot, crowded meetings protracted to late hours;
incessant craving after fresh excitement and highly-spiced pulpit
novelties—all this kind of thing is calculated to produce a very
unhealthy style of Christianity; and, in many cases, I am afraid, the
end is utter ruin of soul. For, unhappily, those who make public
religion everything, are often led away by mere temporary emotions,
after some grand display of ecclesiastical oratory, into professing far
more than they really feel. After this, they can only be kept up to the
mark, which they imagine they have reached, by a constant succession of
religious excitements. By and by, as with opium-eaters there
comes a time when their dose loses its power, and a feeling of
exhaustion and discontent begins to creep over their minds. Too often, I
fear, the conclusion of the whole matter is a relapse into utter
deadness and unbelief, and a complete return to the world. And all
results from having nothing but a public religion! Oh that people
would remember that it was not the wind, or the fire, or the earthquake,
which showed Elijah the presence of God—but 'the still small voice.' (1Ki.
19:12.)
I desire to lift up a warning voice on this subject.
I want to see no decrease of public religion, remember; but I do want to
promote an increase of that religion which is private between
each man and his God, and that religion which is most beautifully
exhibited at home. I want to see more attention paid to those
passive graces which are the truest evidence of the work of the
Spirit. To be religious among the religious, and spiritual among the
spiritual, all this is comparatively easy. But to adorn the Gospel, and
be Christlike, in the midst of a large family circle of unconverted and
uncongenial relatives; to be always patient, gentle, loving, kind,
unselfish, good-tempered; this is the grandest fruit of the Holy Spirit.
We need more of this kind of religion. The root of a plant or
tree makes no show above ground. If you dig down to it and examine it,
it is a poor, dirty, coarse-looking thing, and not nearly so beautiful
to the eye as the fruit or leaf or flower. But that despised root,
nevertheless, is the true source of all the life, health, vigor, and
fertility which your eyes see, and without it the plant or tree would
soon die. Now, private religion is the root of all vital Christianity.
Without it we may make a brave show in the meeting or on the platform,
and sing loud, and shed many tears, and have a name to live, and the
praise of man. But without it we are dead before God.
Our forefathers had far fewer means and opportunities
than we have. Full religious meetings and crowds, except occasionally in
a large room or in a field, when such men as Whitefield or Wesley
preached, these were things of which they knew nothing. Their
proceedings were neither fashionable nor popular, and often brought on
them more persecution and abuse—than praise. But the few weapons they
used, they used well. I have a strong impression that they had among
them more of the presence of the Holy Spirit than we have. In quantity
of religious profession we have far surpassed them; in quality,
I fear, we are sadly behind. With less noise and applause from man, they
made, I believe, a far deeper mark for God on their generation than we
do, with all our conferences, and meetings, and mission rooms, and
halls, and multiplied religious appliances. Their converts, I suspect,
like the old-fashioned cloths and linens, wore better and lasted longer,
and faded less and kept color, and were more stable and rooted and
grounded than many of the new-born babes of this day.
And what was the reason of all this? Simply, I
believe, that they gave more attention to private religion than
we generally do. There was more deep, solid work, quiet work of the Holy
Spirit, among them. There was more private Bible-reading and private
prayer. They walked closely with God, and honored Him in private, and so
He honored them in public. Oh, let us follow them—as they followed
Christ! Let us exhort our people to go and do likewise. Let us honor the
Holy Spirit more than we have done.
After all, there is a world to come—a life after
death, an eternity either in heaven or hell. We must all die at last,
and stand before the judgment-seat of Christ, when we rise again. Never,
never let us cease to maintain and proclaim these great realities,
whether men will hear or whether they will forbear.
VI. Let me charge you, in the last place, to hold fast the teaching of
Scripture about the state of man after death.
This is a very solemn and painful topic, and flesh
and blood naturally shrink from its contemplation. But so many strange
doctrines are floating in the air about the whole subject, that I dare
not refuse to consider it. The language of the Bible about 'judgment to
come' and the future punishment of those who die impenitent, appear to
me so distinct, that I do not see how it can be explained away. Those
who object to the doctrine of future punishment, talk loudly about love
and charity, and say that it does not harmonize with the merciful and
compassionate character of God. But what says the Scripture? Who ever
spoke such loving and merciful words as our Lord Jesus Christ? Yet His
are the lips which three times over describe the consequence of
impenitence and sin, as 'the worm that never dies, and the fire that
is not quenched.' He is the Person who speaks in one sentence of the
wicked going away into 'everlasting punishment,' and the righteous into
'life eternal.' (Mar. 9:43-48; Mat. 25:46)
Who does not remember the Apostle Paul's words about
charity? Yet he is the very Apostle who says the wicked 'shall be
punished with everlasting destruction' (2 Th.
1:9). Who does not know the spirit of love which runs all through
John's Gospel and Epistles? Yet the beloved Apostle is the very writer
in the New Testament who dwells most strongly, in the book of
Revelation, on the reality and eternity of future woe! What shall we say
to these things? Shall we be wise above that which is written? Shall we
admit the dangerous principle that words in Scripture do not mean what
they appear to mean? If so, where are we to stop? Is it not far better
to lay our hands on our mouths and say, 'Whatever God has written must
be true!' 'Even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are your
judgments.' (Rev. 16:7.)
I lay no claim to any peculiar knowledge of
Scripture. I feel daily that I am no more infallible than the
Pope of Rome. But I must speak according to the light which God has
given to me, and I do not think I would do my duty if I did not raise a
warning voice on this subject, and try to put our ministers on their
guard. Six thousand years ago, sin entered into the world by the devil's
daring falsehood—'You shall not surely die!' (Gen. 3:4.) At the end of
six thousand years, the great enemy of mankind is still using his old
weapon, and trying to persuade men that they may live and die in sin,
and yet at some distant period may be finally saved. Let us not be
ignorant of his devices. Let us walk steadily in the old paths. Let us
hold fast the old truth, and believe that, as the happiness of the saved
is eternal, so also is the misery of the lost.
(i) Let us hold it fast in
the interest of the whole system of revealed religion. What
was the use of God's Son becoming incarnate, agonizing in Gethsemane,
and dying on the cross to make atonement—if men can be finally saved
without believing on Him? Where is the slightest proof in Scripture,
that saving faith in Christ's blood can ever begin after death?
Where is the need of the Holy Spirit, if sinners are at last to enter
heaven without conversion and renewal of heart? Where can we find
the smallest evidence that any one can be born again after death,
and have a new heart—if he dies in an unregenerate state? If a man may
escape eternal punishment at last, without faith in Christ or
sanctification of the Spirit, sin is no longer an infinite evil, and
there was no need for Christ to die on Calvary!
(2) Let us hold fast
the doctrine of future eternal punishment, for the sake of holiness and
morality. I can imagine nothing so pleasant to men, as the
fallacious theory that we may live in sin—and yet escape eternal
perdition; that although we 'are slaves to many wicked desires and evil
pleasures' while we are here in this world, we shall somehow or other,
all get to heaven hereafter! Only tell the young man who is 'wasting his
substance in riotous living,' that there is a heaven at last, even for
those who live and die in sin, and he is never likely to turn from evil.
What does it signify how he lives, if there is no 'judgment to come?'
Why should he repent and take up the cross—if he can get to heaven at
last without trouble?
(3) Finally, let us hold it
fast for the sake of the common hopes of all God's saints.
Let us distinctly understand that every blow struck at the eternity of
punishment, is an equally heavy blow at the eternity of reward.
It is impossible to separate the two things. No clever theological
definition can divide them. They stand or fall together. The same
language is used, the same figures of speech are employed, when the
Bible speaks about either condition. Every attack on the duration of
hell is also an attack on the duration of heaven. It is a
deep and true saying, 'With the sinner's fear—our hope departs.'
I turn from this section, with a strong sense of its
painfulness. I feel keenly, with Robert M'Cheyne, that 'it is a
difficult subject to handle lovingly.' But I turn from it with an
equally strong conviction, that if we believe the Bible, we must never
give up anything which it contains. From hard, austere, and unmerciful
theology, Good Lord, deliver us! If men are not saved, it is not
because God does not love them, and is not willing to save them—but
because they 'will not come to Christ.' (Joh. 5:40.) But we must not be
wise above that which is written. No morbid liberality, so called, must
induce us to reject anything which God has revealed about the next
world. Men sometimes talk exclusively about God's mercy and love and
compassion, as if He had no other attributes, and leave out of sight
entirely His holiness and His purity, His justice
and His unchangeableness, and His hatred of sin. Let us beware of
falling into this delusion. It is a growing evil in these latter days.
Low and inadequate views of the unutterable
vileness and filthiness of sin, and of the unutterable purity of the
eternal God, are fertile sources of error about man's future state.
Let us think of the mighty Being with whom we have to do, as He Himself
declared His character to Moses, saying, 'The Lord, the Lord God,
merciful and gracious, patience and abundant in goodness and truth,
keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, and transgression, and
sin.' But let us not forget the solemn clause which concludes the
sentence—'And who will by no means clear the guilty.' (Exo. 34:6-7.)
Unrepented sin is an eternal evil, and can never cease to be sin; and He
with whom we have to do is an eternal God!