[1] Preached to soldiers in camp, 1863.
XI.
LOVE TESTED.[1]
Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?—Johnxxi. 17.
Were the dear Lord to appear personally in our midst this morning, addressing one after another by name, and putting the same question thus pointedly to all, who would answer in the negative? Who would frankly confess so base an ingratitude? Who of all this assembly would, by the acknowledgment of so flagrant an impiety, write himself down with the reprobate? However negligently or wickedly men live, few are willing to admit that they are utterly wanting in love to him who loved them to the death.
But is love to Christ indeed so common? With a few exceptions of unbelief so blasphemous as to shock ordinary irreligion, are all men truly his friends? Are they so taken with his teaching, so enamoured of his virtue, so captivated by the beauty of his character, that they are ready to forsake all to become his disciples, and prove the sincerity of their attachment by the cheerful endurance of the severest sufferings? Do they generally accord to him his claims, practically observe his requirements, and devote all their energies to his service? Do they so believe in him as the one only Mediator between God and man, the one only name under heaven given among men by which they can be saved, that they renounce all others and cling with the tenacity of a death-grasp to his cross?
Let us ask ourselves the question. Let us enter solemnly into conference with our own hearts. Let every one bring his consciousness, his recollection, the facts of his life, to the test. "Do I truly love the Lord Jesus? Will my love bear the ordeal of a faithful and impartial scrutiny? Is my conduct, public and private, such as to put the matter beyond all doubt and controversy? Should my crucified Friend come visibly into the church, take me by the hand, look straight into my eyes, and say, as he did to 'Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?' could I answer as promptly, as honestly, as emphatically, as the apostle did—'Lord, thou knowest that I love thee'!"
No superfluous or unprofitable inquiry is this, my dear brethren; but a matter of infinite moment, addressing itself immediately to each individual soul. Had Jesus deemed it a question of little consequence, think you he would have put it thrice in so searching a manner to St. Peter? Does not the repetition seem to imply a danger of mistake and self-deception? Yet the question obviously supposes the apostle might know with certainty whether he really loved or not. And if he, why not we? I will not put it to your consciousness, in which any man may be deceived; but the manifestation and fruits of love furnish certain practical tests, quite easy of application and far less liable to mistake; so that no soul, well instructed in the principles of Christianity, need remain in ignorance of so vital a matter.
Here, however, before we proceed any farther, a word of explanation and caution seems necessary. The passion of love, as we all know well enough, is innate. We naturally love our friends and all that is pleasing and attractive to us. But to this general rule love to Christ Jesus is certainly an exception. So fallen and sinful are we, that we cannot love that which is holy, perfect, divine, without the enlightening and purifying Spirit of grace from above. So blinded is our sight, so depraved and perverted our moral taste, that Christ is to us as a root out of a dry ground, without form or comeliness, and there is no beauty that we should desire him. His sublime purity we cannot appreciate; his beauty of holiness we cannot endure. We must be regenerate, quickened together with Christ, raised from a death in trespasses and sins to a new life in righteousness. Possible it may be, indeed, for the infant, consecrated to Christ in baptism, to "lead the rest of his life according to this beginning;" from the very font, daily increasing in God's Holy Spirit more and more, until he come to Christ's everlasting kingdom. But if, as commonly happens, the fact prove otherwise—if there has been a defection from baptismal grace—there must be a return to the bond of the covenant, and a renewal by the power of the Holy Ghost, or there can be no true love to Christ. And those who now sincerely and supremely love him may know precisely when and where the blessed restoration took place, and the Sun of righteousness arose upon them with healing in his wings. And others, not baptized in childhood, may have a vivid recollection of the place and the moment in which they first discovered the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, and the Redeemer began to be unspeakably precious to their souls. Love to Christ, therefore, is not natural, but supernatural—not the result of self-culture, but the product of divine grace—a new and heavenly principle shed abroad in the heart by the power of the Holy Ghost. The test of which let us now apply; and may God help us to do so with honest and faithful heart! "Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?"
If you love the Lord Jesus, you will think of him with pleasure. Love produces tender thoughts of the beloved. You cannot cease to think of them even when long absent. Can those who love the Saviour ever forget him? Will not their meditation of him always be sweet? How is it with you? Can you say with the psalmist—"The desire of our soul is unto thy name, and to the remembrance of thee"? Do you think often of Jesus, and dwell with delight upon his love? Do you meditate sweetly of him in the night-watches? Is the thought of him ineffably pleasing and joyful to your soul?
If you love the Lord Jesus, you will delight in communion with him. Love finds its greatest happiness in the presence of the beloved. Long absence is painful, and hopeless separation is intolerable. Every opportunity of communion with Christ, therefore, the saints value as a high privilege and seize with eager joy. The word in which he speaks to them is their sweetest music; the closet in which they meet with him is their highest Pisgah; the table at which he feeds them is the very antepast of heaven. Is this your experience? Do you love to speak with Christ in prayer? Do you joyfully listen to the messages of his grace, and read with pleasure the epistles of his love? Do you feast with a keen relish upon the heavenly manna and the new wine of the kingdom which he provides for you in the
"Rich banquet of his flesh and blood"?
Can you appeal to him in the language of the psalmist—"Lord, I have loved the habitation of thy house, and the place where thine honor dwelleth"? and when deprived of its privileges, do you exclaim with him—"My soul longeth, yea even fainteth, for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God; when shall I come and appear before him?"
If you love the Lord Jesus, you will constantly aim and study to please him. With regard to any undecided course of action, you will not ask, "How will this please others?" but, "How will it please Christ?" Him whom your soul loveth, whatever the effect upon your neighbors, you will never be willing to displease. You would rather offend every friend you have on earth than the heavenly "Friend that sticketh closer than a brother." "Ye are my friends," saith he, "if ye do whatsoever I command you." And again he saith, "If any man love me, he will keep my words." Hearty obedience is the best proof of love. If you truly love him, your obedience will be prompt, earnest, constant, uniform, unquestioning and uncompromising. Try yourselves, my brethren, by this criterion. Is the word of Christ the supreme law of your life? In all things, do you seek his pleasure, and rejoice to do his will? Are his commandments grievous to you, or do you find his yoke easy and his burden light? Do you esteem his service a hard bondage, or the blessed freedom of the sons of God? Is it your meat and drink to do his will, as it was his to do the will of his Father? He is now challenging your affection, as Delilah challenged that of Samson: "How canst thou say, I love thee, when thy heart is not with me?"
If you love the Lord Jesus, you will rejoice even in suffering for his sake. What was it but love stronger than death to him who died for them that made the apostles glory in tribulations, sing hymns of praise at midnight in their dungeons, wear their chains and manacles more proudly than princes ever wore their jewels, and welcome the scourge and the cross which completed their conformity to the divine Man of sorrows? And why did Ignatius chant so cheerfully among the lions, and Polycarp pour forth his thanksgiving so joyfully as he stood unbound in the flames? And why did so many Christians, in the early persecutions of the Church, rush to the tribunal to confess their faith in Christ, hastening to share the fiery coronation of their bishops and their brethren? There is but one answer to these questions; and if you love Christ as they loved him, you will be ready to make any sacrifice or endure any suffering for his glory. Like Moses, who "esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than all the treasures of Egypt," you will "choose rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season." Like the Hebrew captives in Babylon, you will prefer the company of the king's lions to the society of his courtiers, and the sevenfold heat of the Chaldæan furnace to the perfumed breezes that regale the royal gardens. Hard sayings are these to ears like yours? Have you no sympathy, then, with the Prince of sufferers? Are you not ready to take up your cross, and follow him to Calvary? If not, how can you say, "We love him because he first loved us"?
If you love the Lord Jesus, you will love those who are the special objects of his love. Love to him is one half of his religion; love to his followers is the other half. The latter is the fruit of the former, and the best evidence of its reality. "By this," saith our Saviour, "shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another." And did he not pray for his little flock, that they might love one another as he had loved them? And does not his most loving apostle plainly tell us that this is the proof of our having passed from death to life? And does not St. Paul assure us that it is "the bond of perfectness" and "the fulfilling of the law"—more important than faith, knowledge, miracles, the grandest eloquence, the largest beneficence, and even martyrdom itself? How can you love Christ, and not love Christians? If you love the Father, will you not love his children? If you love the Master, will you not love his servants? Truly loving your Monarch, can you fail to love your loyal fellow-subjects? What proof give you, then, of your love to the brethren? Do you prefer their society to that of the world? Do you delight to converse with those who delight to converse with Christ and to converse with you about him? Is it a great pleasure to you to do them kind offices, supply their temporal needs, promote their spiritual well-being, and cheer and comfort them in the manifold sorrows of life? Is their interest as dear to you as your own, their reputation, and the salvation of their souls? If not, how can it be said that you love them as you love yourself? And, failing in this, where is the proof of your love to him who laid down his life for us all?
If you love the Lord Jesus, you will sympathize with him in his grief for those who love him not. Over the Jews who rejected him Jesus wept upon Olivet, and for the Romans who crucified him he prayed upon his cross. And when his loving heart broke beneath the burden of its anguish, think you he ceased to grieve for a guilty and ungrateful world? As he looks down from his mediatorial throne upon the multitudes who everywhere spurn the gospel of his grace and seek death in the error of their way—despising the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering, treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God—does he not still weep and pray for the perishing neglecters of so great salvation, and seek those who can weep and pray with him, in whose tears and intercessions he can pour forth the full measure of his loving sorrow for the undone? And, loving him, will you not respond to his compassionate lamentations, feeling as he feels for the impenitent ingrates who are despising their own mercy and trampling upon the precious blood of their redemption? How is it with you, dear brethren? Am I saying what sounds strange to you, if not absurd and preposterous? Have you never wept for the wicked as Elisha did when he foresaw the cruelties of Hazael, or as St. Paul did when he told his brethren of the enemies of the cross of Christ? Have you never said with David—"I beheld the transgressors, and was grieved; rivers of waters run down mine eyes because they keep not thy law"? Tell me not that you love Christ, while you have no sympathy with his love for sinners—no self-sacrificing zeal to save them, pulling them out of the fire!
If you love the Lord Jesus, you will look for his glorious appearing and long for his eternal fellowship. This was the one great gladdening hope of the apostles and all the early Christians. Before his departure, their dear Master had promised them that he would come again, and receive them unto himself; and with perfect faith in his word, they joyfully waited and watched for his return in the clouds of heaven. And still the expectant bride is on the outlook for her absent Lord; and often we hear her from behind the lattice of her chamber-window calling—"Make haste, my Beloved! and be thou like the young hart upon the mountains of spices!" What Christian soul does not respond to the sweet words of Milton? "Come forth out of thy royal chambers, O Prince of all the kings of the earth; put on the visible robes of thy imperial majesty; take up that unlimited sceptre which thy Almighty Father hath bequeathed thee; for now the voice of thy bride calls thee, and all things sigh to be renewed!" What saint of Jesus does not thrill to the eloquent strain of Edward Irving? "Blessed consummation of this weary and sorrowful world! I give it welcome; I hail its approach with joy; I wait its coming more than they that watch for the morning! O my Lord, come away! hasten, with all thy congregated ones! My soul desireth to see the King in his beauty, and the beautiful ones he shall bring along with him!" Verily, "herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment, because as he is so are we in this world." But were he this very day revealed from heaven in flaming fire, should we take lute and timbrel and go forth to welcome him to his ransomed world, or fly to the rocks and mountains to hide from his presence and escape from his wrath? In a great earthquake which shook a vast city, when the people said it was the day of judgment and sought where they might take refuge from their Judge, a certain poor man began to cry out—"Oh! is it so? is it so? Then whither shall I go to meet my Lord? on what mountain shall I stand to see my Saviour?" Oh! to greet the Redeemer in his glory—who that loves him does not leap for joy at the expectation? "For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and the trump of God;" and the saints in their redeemed bodies "shall be caught up in the clouds to meet him in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord." Again the happy bride looks forth and cries—"The voice of my Beloved! behold, he cometh, leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills!" And you, my dear brethren, if you truly love your Saviour, so far from dreading him as your judge, will hail him as your friend; when the sound of his chariot-wheels, heard from pole to pole, shall gladden the graves of his beloved; and the voice of rejoicing and praise, rising from the tabernacles of the righteous, shall roll its thunder-chant through all the realms of joy!
Take, then, thesecriteria, and test your love to Christ. Surely the result will be worth the examination. For what transcendent importance, everywhere in Holy Scripture, is given to this divine principle! and in all ages, especially all Christian ages, what fine things have been said and sung of love! Not to recite the sublime statements of St. John and the inspired raptures of St. Paul, with which you are all familiar; the great bishop of Hippo calls it "that sweet and sacred bond of the soul, having which the poorest is rich, wanting which the richest is poor;" while the golden-mouthed orator of Antioch declares it "the grandest mastery of the passions, and the noblest freedom of the redeemed man." The prince of schoolmen, the Angelical Doctor, writes: "Divine love surpasseth science, and is more perfect than understanding; for we love more deeply than we know, and love dwelleth in the heart, while knowledge remaineth without." The greatest military chieftain of modern times remarked to his friend in St. Helena: "I have conquered nations by the sword; Jesus Christ overcame the world by love." A more heroic spirit—St. Catherine of Sienna—says: "Love was the cord that bound the God-man to the cross; the nails could not have held him there, had not love bound him fast." The martyr-monk of Florence—Savonarola—cheering his fellow-sufferers in the kingdom and patience of Jesus, assures them that love to the dear Lord "plucks the sting of death and disinherits the grave," and that he who thus conquers Satan in his final assault upon the soul "has won the battle of life." And here is the noble testimony of Thomas à Kempis: "Nothing is sweeter or purer than love; nothing is higher, or broader, or fuller; nothing more pleasant, or more excellent, or more heroic, in earth or heaven. Weary, it is not tired; oppressed, it is not straitened; alarmed, it is not confounded; sleeping, it is ever watchful; like a living flame and burning torch, forcing its way upward and overcoming all things." Finally, Eloquence takes wing, and soars with her sister Song; chanting in the strain of Sir Walter Scott—
"Love rules the court, the camp, the grove;And men below, and saints above;For love is heaven, and heaven is love!"
or with Charles Wesley from his fire-chariot at the gates of pearl—
"By faith we are come to our permanent home;By hope we the rapture improve;By love we still rise, and look down on the skies,For the heaven of heavens is love!"
In conclusion, let me repeat what I said in the outset. The question of our Lord is a plain matter of fact, about which there need be no uncertainty; and every one of us, with careful self-examination, may be able to answer it at once. I have heard some honest Christians sing:
"'Tis a point I long to know;Oft it causes anxious thought;Do I love the Lord or no?Am I his, or am I not?"
Discard that verse, my brethren! Its theology is worse than its poetry. For a filial love, or a conjugal love, about which the wife or the child is uncertain, you would not give a farthing. Do not the anxious thought and the longing to know indicate at least some small degree of love? Not loving at all, you would care nothing about it, you would be quite indifferent to the question. Dim indeed the spark may be in your bosom; but bless ye the Lord that it is not utterly gone out, and answer his gracious inquiry with this better verse:
"Lord, it is my chief complaint,That my love is still so faint;Yet I love thee, and adore;Oh for grace to love thee more!"
So praying, the breath of the Holy Spirit will soon blow the spark into flame; and when the Master asks once more, "Lovest thou me?" with bounding heart you will reply: "Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee!"
[1] Preached in London, Eng., 1866.
XII.
MANIFOLD TEMPTATIONS.[1]
Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations, that the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, may be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.—1 Pet.i. 6, 7.
Why is not the Christian life a perpetual joy? Why do so many sincere Christians seem often melancholy and unhappy? The human heart is easily moved, and very little is necessary to set it vibrating with pleasant emotion. The voice of a happy child, the carol of a forest bird, the beauty of an opening rose, the glory of a sunset sky, the coming of a valued friend, the visitation of a vagrant dream, the recollection of a peaceful hour, the wind that chases away the misty cloud, even a word in season fitly spoken, may fill the soul with tranquil happiness or raise it to an ecstasy of delight. Why, then, should not the believer in Jesus rejoice evermore with joy unspeakable and full of glory? With the glad tidings which the gospel brings us, the love of God in Christ which it reveals, the assurance of redemption, the remission of sins, the communion of saints, the ministry of angels, the visions of paradise restored, the anticipated epiphany of our Lord in his glory, the advent of the New Jerusalem in all its golden magnificence, the restitution and renovation of this disorderedcosmos, the awakening of the body from its long sleep in the sepulchre, and the life everlasting of the just in the many mansions of their Father's house, why do we not make the valley of Baca ring with the prelude of our eternal song? Strange, indeed, that all this should have so little power to cheer, and gladden the people of God in the house of their pilgrimage—that Christian enjoyment should seem in general so feeble and so fleeting, when it ought to flow on with the constant strength and increase of a great river to its repose in the amplitude of an unsounded sea.
The apostle in the text solves for us the mystery. It is not that there is nothing in Christianity to cheer and elevate the feelings. In the great mercy of God, which hath begotten us again to a new and living hope by the certain resurrection of our crucified Lord—in the prospect of an imperishable inheritance reserved for us in heaven, and the perfect assurance of our divine preservation till that inheritance shall be revealed—we do indeed "greatly rejoice," exult with gladness, leap with exuberant joy; though now for a little while, as necessary for our spiritual discipline, we may be put to grief in "manifold temptations." Faith we have in these glorious disclosures of Christ's evangel, and that faith is genuine, efficient, sometimes quite triumphant; but at present, perhaps, the gold is in the furnace, enduring the test from which it shall soon come forth purified, beautified, fit for the coronal of our expected King.
The word temptation sometimes means enticement, and sometimes trial. We are tempted when we are enticed to evil, whether by Satan, or his servants, or our own evil hearts; and we are tempted when our faith is tried, when our virtue is tested, when our character is put to the proof, whether by the malice of men or the providence of God. Evidently, the term here is to be taken in the latter sense. The temptations of which the apostle speaks are trials, such as those of Job, Jacob, David, the holy prophets and martyrs, all in every age who live godly in Christ Jesus. "Manifold temptations" are complicated trials—trial within trial—one infolding another—one overlapping another—many involved in one—all so interlaced and bound up together that we cannot analyze them, cannot even trace the threads of the tangled skein. The grief or "heaviness" which they produce does not necessarily indicate a want of trust in God, or of submission to his holy will. The firmest believer and most steadfast disciple may sometimes, through outward affliction, walk in darkness and have no light, even while he trusts in the name of the Lord and stays himself upon his God. Christ never doubted his Father's love, nor feared the issue of his mighty undertaking; yet when the hour and the power of darkness came upon him, he "began to be sorrowful," "sore amazed," and "very heavy." "Not my will, but thine, be done"—was the language of his guiltless lips, when bowed in his baptism of blood beneath a burden which might have crushed a world. So his suffering servants patiently endure their tribulations, glorifying God in the midst of the fire, and singing with the royal psalmist—"Why art thou cast down, O my soul! and why art thou disquieted within me? hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance!"
Christianity offers us no exemption from the ills of life, but gives us grace to bear them, and sanctifies all to our highest good. It is as true now as in the days of David, "Many are the afflictions of the righteous;" and after more than eighteen centuries, the apostolic statement needs no qualification—"It is through much tribulation that we must enter into the kingdom of heaven." The thwarted scheme; the blighted hope; the ill-requited love; the frequent betrayal of confidence; the falseness or fickleness of trusted friendship; the cross of shame laid by another's hand upon the shoulder; the deep anxiety about the future, which robs the present of more than half its joys; the sudden failure of health, withering the bloom of youth, or bringing down the strength of stalwart manhood; the moral defection of one long loved and cherished, involving the irretrievable ruin of a character as dear to you as your own; the death-couch where, day by day and night by night, the mother fans the flickering spark of life in her darling child; the dear mounds in the cemetery, where affection fondly strews her memorial blossoms, and keeps them fresh and fragrant with her tears; many a secret grief, too sacred for the stranger to meddle with, and too tender to be breathed into the ear of the most familiar friend; and more than all, Christ's virgin bride weeping in sackcloth and ashes—a broken-hearted captive that cannot sing the Lord's song in the land of the idolater and the oppressor;—these are some of the fiery trials and manifold temptations by which a gracious Providence is disciplining us for our better destiny. But the ordeal is as varied as the shades of character and the aspects of human life. Now we have fears within; anon we have fightings without; then deep calleth unto deep at the noise of God's water-spouts, and all his waves and billows are gone over us. But the Lord rideth in the tempest and sitteth upon the flood; saying to the fiery steeds of the one and the angry waters of the other—"Hitherto, but no farther!" No chance is here; all is beneficent design and transcendent wisdom, restricting and controlling the agencies of our providential discipline as our spiritual interests may require. "Now," not always—"for a season," not forever—"if need be," not without the ascertained—are the Lord's beloved subjected to these terrible ordeals. The probation must precede the award. The shock of battle comes before the victor's triumph. Be not disheartened, but hold fast to your hope. The tide that is gone out will soon return. The revolving wheel that has brought you so low will soon lift you on high. But there is no rose without its thorn, nor dayspring unheralded by the darkness. Our light afflictions are but for a moment. Like summer showers they come and go, leaving the heaven brighter and the earth more beautiful. Many a sore chastening, over which we have wept with a sorrow almost inconsolable, has proved one of the greatest blessings that God ever granted us in this vale of tears. What is needful for us, he knows better than we. The refiner sits by his furnace; and the hotter the fire, the shorter the process and the more thorough the purification. The physician watches by his patient, with his hand upon the pulse, observing every symptom, and thrilling to every throb of pain. The trial cannot be too severe for his purpose, nor too long continued for our good. God wants to see how much joy, how little sorrow, he can mingle in our cup, with perfect safety to our spiritual health, and a long series of experiments may be required for the perfect solution of the problem. He is leading us through the great and terrible wilderness to a city of habitation; and as we look back from the hills of our goodly heritage upon the rough path of our pilgrimage, the whole journey may seem to us as a dream when one awaketh. Not all of the Christian's sufferings are the products of Christianity; many of his bitterest griefs are altogether of his own creation; and yet there is not an evil he endures, from which Christianity does not propose to evolve good for him—not a dark cloud which it does not glorify with its beams, nor a crown of thorns which it does not convert into a jewelled diadem.
But while the burden is mercifully lightened, it is not at once removed. The aim of our heavenly Father is not so much to take it away, as to enable us so to bear it that it may become a blessing. Thus he would test our faith, develop its strength, prove its reality and efficiency. But why should faith be thus tested? why not rather the whole Christian character? Because faith is the root of character; and as is the root, so is the tree. The test of faith is practically the test of character, and in this fact lies the obvious value of the test. It is the law of the universe, and an essential factor in the process of our salvation. Look at this mass of gold just brought from the mine. How beautiful! how precious! But there are impurities in it. The true metal must be disengaged from all baser substances. Cast it into the crucible. "See! it is melted!" Yes, but not destroyed. "Is it not welded to the alloy?" No; it is separated from it—purified—glorified! So with our faith. Too precious to be purchased, even a single grain of it, with all the gold-fields of the world, it must be purged of its dross, and made easily distinguishable from the common counterfeits which deceive mankind. God gives it to the furnace. Does it perish in the process? Nay, it is as imperishable as Christ, and as enduring as the soul. The ordeal proves its genuineness and develops its latent lustre. The principle is universal, and everywhere manifest—evolved by Nature, illustrated by Providence—testing laws, customs, institutions, civilizations—awarding due honors to the wise, the pure, the brave, the true-hearted—consigning the false, the foolish, the indolent, the pusillanimous, to merited oblivion or infamy. Over the pearl-gates of the city of God is inscribed: "Blessed is the man that endureth temptation; for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life which the Lord hath promised to them that love him." Abraham's faith was tried by fire in the Plain of Mamre and on the Mount Moriah. St. Peter's faith was tried by fire in the garden, in the basilica, and at the Saviour's cross. In Eden, the first Adam's innocence was tested to our shame; in the wilderness of Judæa, the second Adam's obedience was tested to our glory. Before the birth of humanity, angelic loyalty passed through its ordeal in the heavenly places; and when the fulness of the prophetic times was come, God made proof of his love to a fallen race by a trial which shook the earth and rocked the thrones of hell. "If these things are done in the green tree, what shall not be done in the dry?" Every thing else tested, why not Christian character? For, what is Christian character? Is it not a man's protest against sin, his declaration of a new life in Christ, his assertion of a citizenship in heaven and joint heirship with the Son of God? Surely, this is a matter of sufficient moment to require a test, and no test can be too rigid that brings out the blessed reality. Think not strange, then, of the fiery ordeal. Providence is thus co-operating with grace for your sanctification. Bruised by tribulation, the flowers of Christian virtue give out more freely their fragrant odors; and the clusters of the vine of God must be trodden in the wine-press before they yield the precious juice which shall gladden the children of the kingdom. "When he hath tried me," saith Job, "I shall come forth as gold." By trial faith is transmuted into works, and by works faith shall be justified before the assembled worlds. "The Egyptians, whom ye have seen to-day, ye shall see no more forever." Courage, ye fearful saints! The clouds which are gathering over you shall rain righteousness upon you; the lightning that blinds you reveals the chariot of your King; the thunder that terrifies you assures you of his love. Courage! His glorious epiphany is at hand. Forth shall he come from the pavilions of the sky, with an escort of many angels, and anthems that wake the echoes of eternity. Then shall the tears of earth become the gems of heaven; and the tuneful sorrows of every psalmist shall rise, thrilling, into choral hallelujahs! And who will ever regret the "heaviness through manifold temptations" which hath wrought in him a meetness for the bliss immortal, or behold with aught but joy ineffable the precious gold of his faith which was tried with fire, now "found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ!"
[1] Preached at East Brent, Somersetshire, Eng., 1866.
XIII.
CONTEST AND CORONATION.[1]
I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight; I have finished my course; I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.—2 Tim.iv. 6-8.
I go back eighteen centuries and a half into the past, and find myself in a grand old Syrian city. About midday I ride out at a western gate along a great highway looking toward a picturesque group of mountains. Straight before me towers the white head of Hermon, like that of a patriarch amidst his children. On my right and left are groves and gardens and smiling villas, a paradise of verdure and beauty, as far as the eye can reach. On this road marched Abraham two thousand years before me, and Jacob returning from Padan-Aram, and Jonah going to Nineveh, and all Israel in chains to Babylon. Enough, surely, in these objects, to stir the dullest brain and kindle the coldest heart. Thus occupied, my attention is suddenly arrested by a troop of horsemen riding briskly toward the city. Their leader is a young man, of rather low stature, with keen black eye, and stern and determined aspect. A single look is sufficient to assure me that he is no common man, and here on no common errand. It is the tiger of Tarsus, in fierce pursuit of some of the lambs of the Good Shepherd. A few Christians from Jerusalem, driven out by persecution, have come hither for refuge; and Saul, with full authority, self-solicited, is on their track, "breathing out threatening and slaughter." You know the rest. Blessed be the lightning-stroke that consecrated what it smote, and made the bold persecutor the bravest apostle of the Crucified!
Thirty years later, in the world's metropolis, I visit the Mammertine Prison adjoining the Forum. Who is this, sitting on a block of travertine, with a tablet on his knee, a stylus in his hand, and a little ewer-shaped lamp at his side? As he looks up a moment from his writing, I see something in his face that reminds me of the young officer at the head of that vengeful expedition. He is indeed the same man—the same, and yet another. Toil, hardship, privation, imprisonment, and cruel treatment of all kinds, have wrought sad changes in his physical frame. Bent, bald, almost blind, though not more than sixty-five years old, I should hardly have recognized him without a word from his warder. One of Nero's victims, he waits here calmly for the hour of his release by the sword. Already doomed perhaps by sentence of the tyrant—it is not certain—neither he nor his keeper knows—he has undertaken another letter—most likely the last he will ever write—to Timothy, his "dearly beloved son." Abounding with godly counsel and encouragement to an intrepid and zealous young bishop, it is full also of the most inspiring utterances of Christian faith and hope. Among other incentives to diligence and fidelity, he adduces his own experience and expectation, and these are his words of cheer: "I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight; I have finished my course; I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing."
Not all called to be ministers and martyrs of Christ, we are all called to be his constant and uncompromising followers; and in the humblest sphere of Christian discipleship there is demand for the utmost activity and zeal, and in many cases for the heroic martyr-spirit commended to the bishop and exemplified in the apostle. Let us see, then, what instruction we can get from the text.
The first thing here to be noted is the apostle's calm contemplation of his present position: "I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand."
In a popular work of fiction two characters are taking final leave of each other. The one is full of heart and hope; the other, deeply dejected and despondent. "Farewell," is the last sad word of the latter—"Farewell! your way leads upward to happiness; mine downward—to happiness also." Such helpless resignation to the inevitable, in one form or another, we may all have witnessed. Few things are more common in human experience; and the dying, however much they have loved life or dreaded death, yield themselves at last to what cannot be averted or avoided. But in the apostle's language there is something more than this stolid and sullen submission. There is cheerful faith and buoyant hope—a conscious triumph over all the evils of life and all the terrors of death.
I had a friend very ill. For three days his life hung in doubt with his physician. When he began to recover, he said to me: "Death came and looked me in the face; but, thank God! I could look him in the face without fear." Here stands a man face to face with the last enemy in a far more terrible form. To die as a public criminal at the hand of the executioner is very different from lying down to sleep one's self into another world—very different even from falling in the field fighting for all that is dearest to the patriotic heart. Yet the apostle speaks of his fate as calmly as if he were about only to set out on a journey or embark for a voyage. The manner of his death he already knows. A Roman citizen, he cannot be burned, strangled, or crucified, like some of his brethren; and Nero, devil as he is, can do no worse than take off his head and send him to his Saviour. He is ready to be offered as a sacrifice—poured out as a libation; and the time of his departure—the loosing of the hawser—the lifting of the anchor—is at hand, when he shall sail out upon the ocean of eternity.
A good man, dying, said: "I am in the valley, and it is dark; I feel the waters, and they are cold." Not so the apostle. All with him is bright, hopeful, joyous. His last hours are the best of his life. It is not a stoical indifference to suffering, nor a disgust with the world that has misused him, nor a weariness of his holy work. Long since he learned in every state to be content. Some years ago he was in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, but willing to remain a while in the flesh for the benefit of his brethren. For him, to live is Christ, to die is gain. Living or dying, he is the Lord's, and Christ is magnified in his flesh. At peace with heaven and earth, what has he to fear from either? Knowing whom he has believed, and confident that he is able to keep that which he has committed to his custody, he is ready at the beck of the executioner to go forth from his dungeon, and his last walk on the Ostian Way shall be the triumphal march of the conqueror.
The second thing here to be noted is the apostle's pleasing review of his accomplished career: "I have fought a good fight; I have finished my course; I have kept the faith."
The reference is to the old Grecian games—the Olympian, the Isthmian, the Nemean, and the Pythian. These festivals, we are informed, originated with Pelops, were brought to perfection by Hercules and Atreus, and restored by Iphitus when they had fallen into neglect. Very popular they were, celebrated with great pomp and ceremony, and made use of to mark memorable events and public eras—that of consuls at Rome, of archons at Athens, of priestesses at Argos. From Greece they passed to Italy; and were so much in vogue at the world's metropolis, that an ancient author speaks of them as not less important to the people than their bread. With these spectacles both St. Paul and his beloved Timothy must have been well acquainted, and in the writings of the former no metaphors are more frequent than those drawn from the Grecian games.
"I have fought a good fight"—literally, striven a good strife, or agonized a good agony. The reference is to the athletic contests of the arena—wrestling, boxing, and fighting with swords. The apostle's life had been a perpetual struggle and conflict. He says he has "fought with beasts at Ephesus"—a metaphorical description doubtless of his fierce encounter there with the enemies of Christianity. Wherever he went, he met hosts of foes, marshalled under the banners of Jewish prejudice and pagan superstition. And the world assailed him with all its enginery of temptation and persecution; and the native corruption of his own heart caused him many a sore conflict, though in all these things he was more than conqueror through the victorious Captain of his salvation. As with St. Paul, so with all Christians; baptized into a warfare with the world, the flesh and the Devil; and signed with the sign of the cross in token of this consecration as Christ's servants and soldiers to their life's end. But this is "a good fight"—in a good cause, under a good captain, with good arms, good allies, good comrades, good supplies, good success, and good rewards—in all respects better than the patriot's battle for freedom, the crusader's conflict for the holy sepulchre, or any competition ever maintained in the arenas of Greece and Rome.
"I have finished my course." The figure is changed. Seated with fifty or sixty thousand spectators in the Circus Maximus, we are looking down upon thestadium, where men stripped to the waist, with eyes fixed upon the goal, are rushing along for the prize. There goes St. Paul!
"Swiftest and foremost of the race,He carries victory in his face,He triumphs while he runs!"
Forgetting the things which are behind, and reaching forward to those which are before, how eagerly he presses toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus! With our apostle this is a favorite illustration of the Christian life—its steady aim, its strenuous action, its habitual self-denial, and patient endurance to the end. "Know ye not," he writes to the Corinthians, "that they who run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run that ye may obtain.... They do it to obtain a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible." And in the Epistle to the Hebrews we read: "Seeing we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and run with patience the race that is set before us." So all Christians must run, never pausing in their progress, nor for a moment relaxing their energies, till from the goal they can look back and say—"I have finished my course."
"I have kept the faith." Here seems to be a reference to the strict rules and rigid discipline to be observed in both these methods of competition. In the arena and on thestadiumevery thing was duly ordered and prescribed, nothing left to chance or choice, and he that strove for the mastery was not crowned except he strove lawfully. In the race, there must be no deviation from the line marked out for the runner; in the combat, no unfairness nor violation of the rules. "I therefore so run, not as uncertainly," saith the apostle; "so fight I, not as one that beateth the air; but I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection, lest after having preached to others I myself should be rejected." "Would you obtain a prize in the Olympic games?" said a pagan philosopher. "A noble design! But consider the requirements and the consequences. You must live by rule; you must eat when you are not hungry; you must abstain from agreeable food; you must habituate yourself to suffer cold and heat; in one word, you must surrender yourself in all things to the guidance of a physician." "The just shall live by his faith." Without adherence to this rule, there is no reward. "The life which I live in the flesh," saith St. Paul, "I live by the faith of the Son of God." It is faith that strengthens the Christianagonistiwith might in the inner man. It is faith that unites the soul to Christ, and overcomes the world. The shipwreck of faith is the shipwreck also of a good conscience. Keep the faith, and it will keep you. St. Paul kept it, and triumphed in martyrdom.