Psalm cxxx., 4.
“There is forgiveness with Thee.”
We all know what forgiveness of sin means, namely, remission of the punishment due to it by Divine sentence, and restoration of the offender to the position and privileges of the righteous. We all know, too, our individual need, our ever fresh recurring need of this forgiveness; and we also know, all of us, that forgiveness is granted only for the sake and merits of the Lord Jesus Christ, and on fixed conditions.
Alas! my brethren, how little do we feel what we know. With what vain speculations, what idle dreams, what perverse errors do we too often darken knowledge!
Forgiveness, ransom from eternal death, deliverance from the terrible inflictions of Almighty wrath, gracious reception into God’s own family, and full participation of His inexhaustible love and benediction, how can sinners consent not to value this when given or offered, not to desire and seek it when needed? Yet so it is. There is many an one of our poorest possessions which we cherish more fondly; there is many an unobtained bauble which we would make more real effort to obtain.
Ask yourselves, seriously, and answer to yourselves, honestly, my fellow-sinners, whether it is not so. All of you believe that you have been forgiven some thing, nay, many things. You do not suppose that you are carrying about, each one of you, the unmitigated condemnation of original sin; the full burthen of every transgression and omission of your whole lives, from the first exercise of your self-will in childhood, to that in which you offended but an hour since. You know, indeed, that much remains written against you; but you believe that much more has been blotted out; that God has been propitiated and reconciled to fallen man by the sacrifice and intercession of His Son; that wrath has been displaced by love; that the way of return is open; that the ears of mercy are unclosed; that the arms of grace are stretched out to unfold all those, who by birth inherited banishment, and were kept in exile by the fiery sword which turned every way and allowed none to pass to the paradise of bliss and the tree of life. What Adam lost, that and much more has Christ won. In Him you already have regained much; through Him you may have all and abound.
This you know. How much of it do you feel? Where is your joy of deliverance? where your heart-leapings of praise? where your homage of gratitude for what has been forgiven? And where are your yearnings, your wrestling prayers, your strenuous efforts after the forgiveness yet needed? the cries and struggles of drowning men, grasping in your fresh peril the again stretched out rope of deliverance; imploring to be taken up once more into the ark of salvation; to be landed yet again on the shore of hope? Alas! where? Is not forgiveness obtained, unheeded; forgiveness not obtained, unsought? Not altogether, God be praised! There are some who never forget their deliverance; who have learnt from it gratitude for the past, and hope and direction for the future. There are some who are wont to gaze upon the book of the Divine account of them (that is, so much of it as is revealed), and as they gaze, to keep moist with the tears of humble penitence and love, the red stain of Christ’s blood, which hides, nay, has obliterated so many of the black items against them; and who, seeing how much is cancelled, cannot bear that aught should remain uncancelled, and therefore rest not, nor cease from pleading and entreating, while one single black figure is uncovered by the crimson mark of remission.
Some of you, my brethren, surely there are, who, looking back, perhaps upon a youth of wild and wicked folly, or a manhood of worldliness, or much of an old age of dull, spiritual indifference, from the thraldom of which, by God’s grace, you have been delivered, whose fearful guilt, you have reason to believe, has been remitted; some of you, I say, surely there are, who so appreciate the obtained mercy as to think nothing comparable to it, no gratitude enough for it; and who, therefore, when need of more forgiveness arises (as, of course, it constantly does), betake yourselves early, with the first fruits of your desires, and the quick steps of urgent, craving want, to the fountain that ever floweth, by whose waters alone you can be cleansed and refreshed. Yes, there are such; a few of them; and they do value, they do seek forgiveness.
But, do the many? Judge for yourselves, brethren. Trace back, all of you, as far as you can, the course of your respective lives; review your old habits, your former careers of transgression or omission; or pick out some single sin, if you will of recent date; some one of those many offences against which God’s wrath is pronounced, and on account of which it must descend, unless forgiveness is secured. Is it a lie, a filthy jest, a profane speech, a word of slander? Is it a thought of malice, an encouraged lust, a meditated misdeed? Is it an act of fraud? Did you use false balances, or adulterate your wares, or drive an unfair bargain, exacting more, or giving less than was right? Did you pilfer from your employer, or rob him of your bought service, or betray his interest? Is it direct ungodliness? Did you act in defiance of God’s known commandment? Did you profane His holy day? Did you disregard His fear? Did you withhold aught that He claims of service, of prayer, of praise, of money, time, talents, influence, of example?
Brethren, most of you follow, or have followed, some bad habit; at least, each of you has committed, and can now bring to quick remembrance, some one evident, wilful sin. Now God forbade that sin, and warned you of condemnation if you did it. God witnessed its commission. His displeasure arose; He registered it in heaven; He wrote down death, eternal death, against it; and angels, beholding what He did, prepared themselves to fly with the lightning’s speed and execute that sentence, at the first motion of His commanding will. The sentence is not executed. The sin has, or has not, brought you inconvenience, perplexity, contempt, pain, sickness, loss. But, at any rate, it has not brought you death. Brethren, why not? Do you know? do you imagine? do you care? Is the sentence still impending, or has it been reversed? Are you forgiven? or have you yet to seek forgiveness? Do you concern yourselves at all about the matter? If you have forgiveness, do you really value it? If you have it not, do you really seek it? Oh! judge yourselves, brethren, that ye be not judged of the Lord.
I can imagine the comparatively religious ready to urge, “Thus saying, you reproach us also; you bring all in guilty; you do not allow that any are in the right.” Even so, brethren, for there is none clear in this matter. The standard of right is so high, that all come short of it. Infirmity checks the accomplishment of our best purposes. Sin defiles even our holy things. The flesh ever resists the spirit, and too often blinds and deadens it. And so our warmest desires are often all but cold; our greatest industry is but little removed from sloth. We cannot do the things, nor think the thoughts that we would, in perfection. Let us gather consolation from the fact, that this is a law even of our regenerate being, when we fall short of what we desire and aim at; but let us not thereby justify ourselves in spiritual indifference, nor suppose that a general culpability exonerates the individual. Much will always be amiss, through the opposition of the flesh, and through the difficulty of discerning spiritual things; and much allowance we may hope will be made for us: but, much that is amiss, might be corrected, and ought to be; nay, unless it is, we shall be without excuse. It is so, be assured, in this matter of forgiveness. At the best, we shall never, in this world, appreciate it fully, when bestowed; nor seek it with sufficient earnestness, when needed. But, if we concern ourselves to think right thoughts about it; if we ascertain more clearly what it is, and how obtained, we shall speedily become more grateful for it, more eager to obtain it, more sure partakers of it. Let me throw out a few suggestions, which, by God’s blessing, may help to bring us nearer to this better state.
First, consider what Divine forgiveness is. It is not capricious reversal of the sentence, “The soul that sinneth it shall die.” Divine justice does not give up its claim. Divine truth does not belie itself; Divine resoluteness become fickle. God is not a man, that He should repent, or that He should say and not do, or that He should come to love what once He hated. God might have been freely reconciled to the transgressor, if He had not made transgression sin. He might, even then, have left the sinner alone, imposing no other punishment than exile from His presence, if He had not solemnly declared, “In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die.” But now, His holiness, His justice, and His truth are irrevocably pledged to banish and destroy transgressors. It can never be otherwise. Holiness cannot tolerate near unholiness: like Satan from heaven, like Adam and Eve from paradise, it must be cast out. Justice cannot acquit the guilty. Truth can never say, “Thou shalt not die,” to him to whom it has already said, “Thou shalt die.” There is no such forgiveness. If you transgress, you are a sinner; if you sin, you are condemned; if you are condemned, you must die. God has said it, and there is no variableness, or shadow of turning, in Him.
We are wont to think otherwise. We fancy that sin, though wrong, is not destructive: we wrap ourselves in false security, and flatter and mislead others, by a perverse assurance that God will not be extreme to mark what is done amiss. Yea, we think we have Scripture warrant for so doing. We read of Divine promises which were never realised, and Divine threats which were never executed; and we gather from them that, like our poor fickle selves, God easily goes back from His resolution of favour or wrath.
But let us look again at those promises and threats, and we shall see that, if they were not fulfilled, it was not because God changed, but because the objects changed on whom He had resolved to operate, for good or evil. Jerusalem (bound to God by a covenant of allegiance) was promised perpetual preservation. Jerusalem forsook the allegiance, and therefore was destroyed. Nineveh’s cry of wickedness provoked the Lord to threaten it with destruction within forty days; but when those forty days were expired there was no cry of wickedness to be answered; but a cry of repentance, a pledge of amendment, a nation’s voice and posture of worship. God did not change, but Nineveh did. The judgment was ready to fall; but there was no object for it to fall upon, and so it fell not. If the righteous ceases to be righteous, the promises made to his righteousness cannot be fulfilled; if the sinner becomes sinless, the sentence of sin cannot be executed upon him. “At what instant,” says God, by Jeremiah, “I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, to pull down, and to destroy it; If that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them. And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it; If it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good, wherewith I said I would benefit them.” [90] And the like is elsewhere declared of individuals.
Thus only does God change His word; thus only is there forgiveness with Him. The sinner must change his sin, for sinlessness; and then for wrath he shall have favour. But this change he cannot make. He cannot wipe out or undo the past; he cannot bring a clean thing out of an unclean; he cannot repair the breaches in his soul; he cannot strengthen the things that are ready to perish. Vain, then, is his idle trust in the non-fulfilment of a published threat; and vain are all his efforts to avert that threat. While he is a sinner, God will not forgive him; and a sinner he can never cease to be.
But, what man cannot do himself, Christ has done for him. Having in His own person satisfied the Divine law, and stood sinless and accepted before the Father, He has made Himself the human source of faculties and graces, by which other men, joined to Him, may partake of the infinite merits of His atonement, His tasting of death for every man; and may also be cleansed, and restored, and strengthened, and become again sinless; escaping the guilt, and putting away the corruption of sin. There is such forgiveness. Mark, it is not an indulgent Father’s concession to the mere request of His loved Son. It is not, again, such a substitution of the innocent for the guilty, that no more account of sinners is taken; nor is it a compromise by which one death is accepted instead of many. It is a merited power, vested in the God-Man, to be the source of absolution and sanctification. It is a purchased right to apply that power to all who will observe prescribed conditions. Christ holds and exercises that power. It is in Him to save whom He will; it is in Him to desire to save all.
But still, He has not handed over the forgiveness to all. Nay, let it be said with all reverence, He cannot so hand it over. Men must come to Him for it; they must be joined to Him to derive it; they must become like Him to be saved by Him. On conditions He received the power of salvation, and on conditions He imparts it. Those who do not observe these conditions, so far from escaping condemnation through what He has done, and what He has attained unto, do thereby become subject to surer and worse condemnation. The same work, the same authority, which made Him the Saviour of all men, made Him also the Judge of all; and imposed the inflexible law, that every one that would not be saved by Him must be destroyed by Him.
Now, in this day of grace, He is labouring to save: and He will save to the uttermost all who seek His salvation. But, by and by, He must come to judge; and then, whosoever has not been already saved, must be utterly destroyed. Are you forgiven? Christ has forgiven you. Are you seeking forgiveness? If you seek it aright, Christ will bestow it. Are you not forgiven? Will you not seek forgiveness? Then, rely upon it, you must be condemned; and that not only or chiefly by the law, but by the Gospel, the dispensation on the one hand of unspeakable goodness, on the other of unpardonable severity. If Christ is not made your Saviour, He will be your destroyer. There is forgiveness with Him. There is no forgiveness elsewhere.
Let me press this upon you, dear brethren, even though in so doing I repeat what I have already said. There is no forgiveness with God, the Father, apart from Christ, the Saviour. There is no forgiveness, for the Saviour’s sake, to those who do not belong to the Saviour. You must not go to the Father and plead, while you continue in your sin, that, since One has died for sins, there is no longer any such thing as sin. You must not suppose that holiness, and justice, and truth are set at nought in all other cases, because they have been maintained in one. You must not expect that He who once refused forgiveness, now freely grants it to the same persons in the same state; that He is changed, and, therefore, you need not be. No! to find any comfort in the assurance, “There is forgiveness with Thee,” and to verify it in your own case, you must have observed, and be still observing, the prescribed conditions. You must have become Christ’s, and Christ have become yours. You must have obtained the pardon from Him, and you must hold it through Him; and He must testify thereof, and plead for you, ere the Father will pronounce His absolution: “The Lord hath put away thy sins: thou shalt not die.”
But how is all this to be done? Not by idly assenting to the truth, that it ought to be done. Not by mere thinking and talking of Christ. Not by working upon your feelings, and warming your affections, by the contemplation of Him as a historical character; not even by making mention of Him in your prayers, and pleading His merits, and asking to be wrapped in His imputed righteousness; but by intelligently, and heartily, and actively observing the conditions and using the means of salvation, which Christ has proposed to you, and put within your reach.
As soon as Christ had accomplished His work on earth, and had been exalted to be the new head of the human race, the source of pardon and grace, calling in the powers of His Godhead, He established supernatural means whereby other men might be actually joined, and kept joined, to Him, and might derive from Him the properties and privileges of a renewed and perfected nature. The Holy Spirit, the third Person of the blessed Trinity, became the wonderful agent to effect and maintain this union and communication, providing mysteriously for the gradual subjugation and destruction of the old nature, with its guilt and proneness to sin, and for the development and establishment of spiritual excellence in all those who become objects of His operations. To become such objects, it is necessary that men should be prequalified (and He gives them the power, if they ask it), by realising the misery and condemnation of their natural state, by sorrowing over and renouncing their sins, by desiring pardon and grace, and by believing that Christ had them to bestow; and, then, after becoming thus prequalified, it is further necessary, that they should make appointed use of certain outward ordinances, in the due observance of which He pledges Himself to meet them, and to apply to them the merits and the graces, in the possession of which they shall be accounted dead with Christ unto sin, and alive with Him unto righteousness. On none but those thus qualified will the Spirit operate; and on these only, when they come to Him and invite His operation in appointed ways. Such, my brethren, is the doctrine of forgiveness; such is the law of its bestowal. There is forgiveness with God of this kind, and on these terms; but there is no other forgiveness.
It is because we are not fully persuaded of this truth, that we are so indifferent, so apathetic, so unthankful, so unrighteous. We do not appreciate forgiveness, through not understanding it; we do not duly seek it, through not considering how only it is to be obtained.
Dear brethren, let us strive to be wiser and better. First, let us qualify ourselves for the application to us of forgiveness, by realising the guilt and condemnation of sin; by convincing ourselves that we are sinners, and by ascertaining in what we sin; by sorrowing for sin, loathing it, and desiring to get free of it; by giving up its work, forsaking its haunts, and restoring, as far as may be, its plunder (i.e., by labouring to undo what we have done amiss). Then let us meditate on pardon, and holiness; on the happy freedom and glorious privileges of those who are forgiven and sanctified in Christ, till our reason and affections unite in demanding that our lips and lives should seek forgiveness and sanctification. We have already learned where and how to seek. Let us hasten to use our knowledge. Let us seek the Spirit where He is to be found; let us submit ourselves to Him, and ask His blessing in the prescribed ways; the ways revealed to us in the Bible, and made accessible to us through the Church of Christ: baptism once, for death and burial with Christ unto sin, and new birth unto righteousness; holy communion frequently, for the sustenance of the new life, the meat and drink of the Spirit; and the ministry of reconciliation ever, as the constant salve for the soul’s constant wounds.
Commending to your full and serious consideration the great importance of all the Gospel-ordinances, and bidding you remember (and profit by the remembrance) the sin and danger of neglecting any one of them, let me now confine your attention, for a few minutes, to the application of forgiveness by the authorised ministers of reconciliation, in what is called ministerial absolution. Whenever you draw near to God in the sanctuary, and make a public confession of your sins, whether in the ordinary daily service, or in the office for the holy communion, immediately after such confession, the priest is directed to stand up and pronounce what is called an absolution; in the one case declaring, that “God pardoneth and absolveth,” in the other, praying that He may do so. Whenever private scruples and peculiar spiritual difficulties keep you from the holy communion, you are exhorted to go to some discreet and learned minister, that you may receive the benefit of absolution; and whenever you are laid on a bed of sickness, and the clergyman is summoned to your side, he is directed to move you to a special confession, if you feel your conscience troubled by any weighty matter, and if you humbly and heartily desire it, to absolve you from all your sins, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. All of you know that such things are to be found in the Prayer-Book. Some of you treat them with perfect indifference, caring not that they are there, neither assenting to them or opposing them. Others accept the poor explanation, that they are mere kind, comfortable delusions for weak minds. Others kick against them, and denounce them as relics of Popery and instruments of priestcraft, indignantly repelling the notion, that there is any such forgiveness promised or allowed by the Word of God.
Hear me dispassionately, dear brethren, while in few words (and, God knows, without any party bias) I endeavour to vindicate the Church’s teaching; and to guard it against both superstitious misuse and profane contempt. You know, of course, that Christ, in His life-time on earth, before His passion, commissioned certain disciples to go before Him into every city whither He Himself would come, and when they entered into any house, to pronounce peace upon its tenants, with the assurance that His peace should, in such case, always rest upon them, if they were worthy. You know, too, that just before His ascension, He invested the apostles with the power of remitting and retaining sins; and that they both exercised that power themselves, by absolving and excommunicating, and also handed it on to others—so that St. Paul tells the Corinthian presbyters, that to whomsoever they forgive anything, He forgives also, and that his forgiveness is the forgiveness of Christ. And you likewise know (if you are conversant with Church history) that the doctrine of ministerial absolution, and the practice of administering it, have been steadily maintained in all parts of the Church, from the apostolic age to the present.
In one place, or time, the doctrine has been distorted; in another, the practice has been abused: but everywhere, and at all times, by Greeks and Romanists, by high-Churchmen, and by not a few low-Churchmen, it has been, and is asserted, that Christ gave by commission, and continues by His promise to be always present with His Church, power and command to use ministerial absolution. The Church of England claims that delegated power, and obeys that positive command. She does not blasphemously exalt her clergy, and plant them on the throne of God, to usurp His prerogative—to be judges between good and evil, and awarders of favour or wrath; nor, on the other hand, does she degrade them to mere voluntary reporters, such as any of yourselves might be, of statements contained in a published revelation: she sends them forth to minister, as in other respects, so in this, the grace which Christ would communicate through them for the good of the fold, whereof they are under-shepherds. It is nothing of their own that they minister; they can claim no honour, nor thanks, for ministering it, and woe to them if they withhold it when rightly sought; but to them it is intrusted to minister, and through their ministry it is to be sought. God, the Father, the primary Giver of every good thing, is nowhere directly approachable. Christ, the second Adam, to Whom all that pertains to man’s salvation is committed, sits at the right hand of God, the Father, and operates upon man only through the agency of the Holy Spirit. God, the Holy Spirit, does not convey Himself spontaneously and independently of means into every heart, but connects the gifts of His presence and working power, with certain outward ordinances, administered by appointed agents, and promised to be efficacious in all faithful recipients. We sprinkle with water in baptism, and, if there be no unworthiness in the person we sprinkle, the Holy Spirit then and there regenerates. We administer blessed bread and wine, and, on like conditions, God’s Spirit conveys into the recipient’s heart the spiritual food of Christ’s body and blood. We say to those who have confessed their sins, “He pardoneth and absolveth;” or, “Almighty God pardon and deliver you from all your sins;” or, “By virtue of His authority, I absolve thee from all thy sins:” and in the case of every real penitent, there is then, there, and thereby forgiveness from God. We do not bid you look to us for pardon; we tell you plainly that we cannot pardon you; but we distinctly maintain, that if you want pardon, you must seek it in appointed ways; that this is an appointed way; that none have due recourse to it, and fail of spiritual blessing; that those who despise it despise not men, but God.
Brethren, thus soberly and scripturally regard the Church’s ordinance of absolution. On the one hand, do not superstitiously look upon it as an inherent power, which any priest can give to whom he will, and withhold from whom he will; or as an indemnity, to be bestowed without conditions, to operate as a charm in absolving those who have not desired, nor prepared themselves for forgiveness; and, on the other hand, do not make light of its true exercise, and forego opportunities of having it applied to yourselves, according to Christ’s appointment, and your several needs. Prepare yourselves duly for it, and heartily accept the ministry of it, and give God the glory. Yes! be sure you give God the glory. Use the means, and reverence them, because God has instituted them; but let the gift be more thought of, and let the Giver be adored. When, with penitent hearts and humble lips, you have made your open confession, and the herald’s consequent proclamation of pardon is ringing in your ears, bethink you that it is God’s forgiveness which is being offered to your acceptance. Bless Him for the ordinance; but look through it to the Spirit who is present in it, to the Saviour who sent the Spirit, to the Father who provided the Saviour, and let the vision both convince you of the sinfulness and condemnation of sin (which could only be put away by such a wonderful contrivance, and such continued operation of the Blessed Trinity), and also prompt you to value the forgiveness which God has so much at heart, and so labours to bestow. “There is forgiveness with thee.” Take to yourselves the unspeakable comfort of so sweet an assurance when it is offered; but be sure that you always respond to it, out of grateful and resolute hearts: “Therefore, O God, shalt Thou be feared, and served, and loved.”
II. Samuel, xxiv., 24.
“Neither will I offer . . . unto the Lord my God of that which doth cost me nothing.”
It was a thrice enforced precept of the law that none should appear before God empty; that when men drew near to Him to celebrate His past mercies and deliverances, to ask for blessings, to deprecate wrath, to render thanks, to acknowledge dependence on His providence, they should at the same time present unto Him some offering of their substance. And this, be it observed, was not a mere temporary ordinance. It was not, like the sacrifices of bulls and goats, a ceremonious shadowing forth and pleading of the one sacrifice by which alone God could be approached and propitiated. It was a free-will offering, an acknowledgment that all things come of God, and that all things, though intrusted to them, belonged still to God. It was a confession of His Lordship, an act of homage, an exhibition of gratitude, a pledge of readiness to yield all that He might require. As such, it was to be offered whenever man perceived God to be operating upon, or for him, or whenever he would have God to be thus operating; it was to be presented at prescribed places, and under prescribed circumstances, which rendered pains and exertion necessary in the offerer; and it was to be of a kind and in a measure which should make it a real sacrifice—the giving up of something valuable and valued. “Every man shall give as he is able,” says Moses. “I will not offer unto the Lord my God,” exclaims David, “of that which doth cost me nothing.”
Under the Gospel, this duty is not only continued, but, like all the other moral sanctions of the law, enlarged and spiritualised. We Christians are to present ourselves, our souls and bodies, continually, as a reasonable sacrifice unto God. We are to give up our wills, our powers, our affections, our time, our substance, our lives to Him. Our prayer is to be instant; our praise continual; our sacrifice perpetual; our offering all that we are and have. He who withholds anything from God, gives Him nothing. He who does not deny himself, denies God; he who loves any one or anything more than God, hates God; he who bestows more thought and pains, and spends more of his substance on any other object than on religion, takes no thought, bestows no pains, spends none of his substance on God. Lip-service, stinted service, careless or partial service is no service; easy religion, cheap religion, intermittent religion is no religion. Religion, to be worthy of the name, must cost something; yea, and much—much thought, much feeling, much affection, much labour, much self-denial, much submission, much renunciation, much cheerful sacrifice of self and substance. The only limit to our offering is to be our capability; the only time when we may forbear to offer it, is when God gives us no opportunity. Hence it was, that the young man who would not sell all that he had, and give to the poor, and follow Christ whithersoever He went, could not be His disciple. Hence it is, that selfishness, and worldliness, and pride, and self-glorying, and covetousness, are such grievous sins. Hence it is, that life must not be counted dear, when to be faithful to religion would endanger it. Hence it is, that not only directly spiritual acts are to be frequent, and spiritual offerings to be many and large, but that everything we have is to be held for religion, and everything we do, to be done for religion; our daily tasks, our rest and labour, our very eating and drinking. Christ has purchased us entirely soul and body, talents and possessions, to glorify Him by perpetually offering to Him the sacrifice of love; and there is no love in that offering which is formal, indolent, unwilling, self-saving; which is restrained from thought, and effort, and hazard, and bountifulness, by the consideration, how much it will cost. “I will not offer unto the Lord my God,” and the Lord my God will not accept “of that which doth cost me nothing.’”
This is the principle and measure of Christian offering to God. Would we offer affection? it must be all affection. “My Son, give me Thy heart.” Submission? Deny Thyself in all things. Time? Let it be all time—instant, continual, day and night. Substance? Be ready to part with all that thou hast. Work? It must be all work; every labour, and every occupation. Whatsoever thou doest, do all to the glory of God, that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ. We, and all that we are and have, are claimed as whole sacrifices to God. The duration of the offering is to be the length of our life. The altars upon which we are to be offered, are all the places and all the circumstances in which God puts us, or we put ourselves; and we are to be continually laying ourselves upon these altars, without fear or grudging of the cost, yea, rather with cheerful incurring of it.
It is a great and difficult service. The very best of our fallen race, the Abrahams and the Pauls, who have most realised this service, and loved it, and laid themselves out to render it, have yet fallen short, very far short of the perfect offering. Many a time have they reluctantly laid the costly sacrifice on the altar; many a time, alas! have they substituted the lame, the halt, the lean, the blemished, for the firstling of the flock; many a due sacred journey has not been undertaken; many a holy service has been unperformed, or performed amiss; many an altar has been bare, without an offering. Yes, the most godly, the saints that excel, have fallen far short of God’s standard, and have withheld or offered amiss what God required. But yet through infirmity, not through wilfulness or selfishness, have they done it, and speedily and deeply have they repented of it, and then have they straightway laid upon the nearest altar the sacrifice of a broken and a contrite heart, in whose fragrance the ill savour of the other has been lost, with whose costliness God has been well pleased. Such a sacrifice He never despises. Those who offer it shall be forgiven all that is past. They shall be dealt with by the after, not the former life. But, my brethren, if such as these fall short of God’s standard, what of us, who, alas! can lay no claim to attempted perfection, or to grief and contrition for shortcomings? What of our service of God? What do we offer Him? What does religion cost us?
It should cost us much thought—more thought than anything else. Does it? Is it the most frequent and most encouraged employment of our minds to meditate on God, our Creator and Preserver, our Redeemer, our Sanctifier, our Lord and Judge, on heaven, on holiness, on trial and reward, duties and hopes? We all of us have some favourite subject of thought and meditation, something which we ponder chiefly, and lay most plans about, and zealously occupy our mental faculties upon. Is it religion? Does that cost us more thought than anything else? or does business or pleasure, or politics or philosophy, or worldly prospects or cares? If so—no matter how innocent the object, how laudable in some respects its concern—in making it a chief consideration, we leave nought to offer God but that which costs us nothing, and which is therefore nothing accounted of, yea, rather is rejected by Him.
Again, religion should cost us much affection. Our affections should be chiefly set on it, and only on other things when they can be lawfully considered the adjuncts of religion. Is it so? Do we love God more than anything else? Do we desire heaven’s treasures more than earth’s; eternal glories more than temporal? Do we delight above all things in spiritual pursuits? If any other person, any other thing presents itself as a candidate for our best affections, is it rejected because the place is already filled? Is it disliked, if opposed to religion? Is it but moderately esteemed and distantly entertained, when though not opposed to it, is not religion itself? If otherwise, then religion costs us not our best affections, and so of our hearts we offer unto God of that which doth cost us nothing.
Again, religion should cost us much labour, much self-denial, much zeal and patience, more than anything else. Does it? Is there nothing for which we toil more, and endure more, and encounter more; nothing which we pursue more constantly and zealously? Do we take more pains to please God than man? Do we make more strenuous endeavours to become good Christians than to become apt scholars, profound philosophers, able and respected politicians, successful tradesmen, accomplished members of society? Would we, and do we rather rise early, and late take rest, go without our usual meals, undertake fatiguing journeys, contend with difficulties, suffer reproaches for religion than for anything else? Do we bear the inconvenience of a warm church more cheerfully than that of a close shop, a crowded hall of business or pleasure? Do we venture forth on religious errands, in cold, and wet, and forbidding weather, more readily than we do for anything else? In what do we wear out our strength and energies, run our greatest risks, and consume our time? Is it, directly or indirectly, in religion; or is it in business or in pleasure? For what do we renounce all needless occupations, for what do we get through as speedily as may be our necessary work? Is it to have time and strength for religion, or for what? The answer, my brethren, which your consciences honestly give to these questions, and many like them that might be asked, will help to determine what religion costs you in this respect, and whether or no, you offer unto God only of that which doth cost you nothing.
Again, religion should cost much of our substance. In one sense, it should cost us all our substance, i.e. we should never spend one mite on a sinful or doubtful pleasure or business, or in contributing to an unhallowed end. Much, indeed, we must lay out in the sustenance of our natural life, in the prosecution of our worldly calling, in the support and advancement of our families, in the maintenance of our social position. Something, too, we are allowed to spend on our innocent recreations and those of others. But that which is to cost us most, on which we are to spend all that we can, and to yearn to be able to spend more, is on God; directly, by spreading the knowledge of His name, by promoting His service, by building fit temples for His worship, and adorning them suitably to our devotion and His glory; indirectly, by ministering to His representatives, the poor, and afflicted, and helpless, and ignorant.
What, my brethren, let me ask in all plainness, for I speak for God, and God’s representatives—the poor—what does religion cost you in this respect? Are you sure that you have left no Lazaruses to perish of hunger? no pining sick to die for want of the nutriment or attention which you could have afforded? no children to grow up in ignorance and blasphemy whom you could have maintained at school, and helped to make enlightened, serious, holy men and women? Have you looked to these things, yourselves? or have you ungrudgingly, liberally supported those who do? Have you ascertained that the sick and visiting funds of your parish are able to meet the many demands upon them? that there is no difficulty in maintaining the necessary staff of the poor’s best guardians, the clergy? that the alms-boxes will hold no more, or that there is no demand on their contents? Have you done all this before you have laden your tables with rich viands and costly wines, and bought expensive toys and ornaments, and gone on unnecessary excursions, and paid much for amusements? Or have you consulted self first, and fed, and decked, and petted, and amused self, and then been ready (not, perhaps, even then, forward, but waiting to be asked) to give up something of what self could conveniently spare, for crying, grievous necessities—sparing God your leavings, that which you did not want, or, at least, could easily do without? Remember, brethren, I lay no charge against any one of you. I only, in faithfulness, put to you plain questions, which it is your duty to consider; and bid you speedily discover, from their consideration, what your religion costs you; whether, in your succour, temporal and spiritual, of those worse off than yourselves, you deny and inconvenience yourselves, giving what you cannot part with without feeling its loss and curtailing from other things on account of it (as you all ought to do); or whether you offer unto God, in this way, of that which doth cost you nothing.
Once more, religion should cost you much in the direct service of God; in providing amply for His wide and becoming worship. I pass by now, as duties which there are other opportunities of enforcing, the maintenance of missions, at home and abroad; the building and endowing of schools and churches, and many like things, that I may dwell for a few moments upon the costliness of the materials of our churches, and their furniture, and, let me add, their ornaments; for all which, if I understand the Bible, we Christians are bound to provide. In the descriptions given us in the Bible, of heaven and heavenly things, there is frequent mention and great display, as it were, of gold, and precious stones, and musical instruments, and beautiful robes, and the like. There are some who understand these descriptions literally, and who suppose that, being raised in material, though glorified bodies, the redeemed will inhabit a material heaven—either this earth transformed, or some other planet—and will be surrounded with glorious material objects, the most beautiful and precious of nature’s productions, fashioned like to art’s best accomplishments. If this is to be so, then it is urged, earth’s tabernacles, as the type of heaven, should be as nearly assimilated to heaven as possible; we should improve and furnish our plainer and barer churches as much as we can; we should build our new churches in the best, the handsomest style of art; and decorate and furnish them in the most substantially costly manner.
Without subscribing to this view (though there is really much to be said for it), I would humbly suggest that, since God, when He designed an earthly tabernacle, prescribed that it, and all in it, should be costly and ornamental; and that when He speaks of heaven He does so under the image of all that is accounted splendid and costly on earth, He either must have meant to require that we should erect and adorn our churches after this description, or He must have taken for granted that we should best understand spiritual beauties and excellencies by their comparison with what we account earthly beauties and excellencies, and that we should naturally honour and worship Him with the best of these within our reach. It seems, then, to be our duty, nay, to be natural to us, if we are in earnest, whichever view we take, to make our churches and their contents beauteous and costly, either as images of the future church in heaven, or as the nearest representations to it which we can furnish, and the best copies of God’s own pattern.
To this it has been objected, firstly, that the primitive Christians afford us no such example; and, secondly, that it seems unfitting, trifling, unseemly, to decorate the spiritual palace as we would an earthly mansion. The first objection falls to the ground, when we remember, that the early Christians were very poor, and, moreover, were obliged to hide themselves, and, therefore, to refrain from all that would attract attention; and that, as soon as they had the means and liberty, they made their churches very splendid, and furnished them very gorgeously. And the second objection is as soon disposed of. What is unfitting, trifling, unseemly, for the Master, is surely as much, and more so, for the disciple. If God is to dwell in tents, we ought not to dwell in ceiled houses; if gold, and precious stones, and beautiful arts are unfit for Him, then they are pre-eminently unfit for us. If we may not furnish His house with rich furniture, and put into it, for instance, the best musical instrument, we must not do so in our own houses. It is enough for us, that we should be as our Lord. We must not be above Him, or different from Him. We must not glory in what is unfit for Him. Be then our own abodes rude; let everything in them be homely, unadorned, inferior; banish from them all traces of the artist’s skill; or give all, and use all, more exceedingly upon and in the house of God.
One more argument for adorning and furnishing to the utmost, the house of God:—We must not offer unto God of that which doth cost us nothing of our substance. Now, all that we offer indirectly, no matter how much, how frequently, may yet cost us nothing—that is, it may be only the laying out of that for which we get an immediate equivalent. When you relieve the sick, rescue the tempted, raise the fallen, by the contribution of your substance, if you have not the reward of their gratitude, there is at least the felt human satisfaction of the act; and that would and has remunerated many an infidel. The sacrifice, therefore, in this case, ceases to be a sacrifice; it is a laying out for those who pay you again. But when you expend your substance largely on the direct service of God, hoping for nothing again, perhaps getting nothing, then you offer of that which costs you something; something for which you do not expect an equivalent. The exercise is a good one, and the duty is imperative. If you got your money’s worth, and your human satisfaction, for its outlay, then you would be offering to God of that which doth cost you nothing.
Let this consideration urge you, then, first, indeed to provide what is necessary for the service of God by yourselves; afterwards, what may help others in like manner to serve Him; and then, not by mulcting them, but by denying yourselves, to give some true gift, some free-will offering, which is costly in itself, and promises no present equivalent. Thus shall you overcome selfish and mere human feelings, and render dutiful, and grateful, and costly sacrifice unto the Lord your God.
My brethren, depart not with the notion that you have heard nothing of Christ this morning. It is a deep-rooted error that, under the law men were commanded to do, but under the Gospel they are forbidden; that then salvation was a work, but now it is only a contemplation. The contrary is the truth. Men might contemplate and wait idly and dreamily before their Redeemer came; they must be up and doing now that He has laid His hand upon them, and given them a lifelong, arduous, self-sacrificing work to do.
It is because Christ has purchased you wholly, body, and soul, and spirit, thoughts, words, and deeds, talents and substance, to be an entire and constant sacrifice unto Him; it is because He is watching over you, and working for and in you, to make you that sacrifice; it is because presently He will judge and deal with you, according as you have been, or have not been what He required, that I have enforced on you the pre-eminently Christian lesson of taking solemn, anxious heed, that you offer not unto the Lord your God of that which doth cost you nothing.
Philippians, iii., 13, 14.
“Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”
To have apprehended; to have attained unto the perfection of the knowledge of Christ; to have gone through the Christian’s appointed course of discipline and duties; to have acquired the acceptable and approved character; to have laid such a hold on salvation as could not be shaken off—this even Paul did not claim to have done. Divinely enlightened as he was, greatly zealous, blamelessly righteous, the chosen vessel of the Lord, he could not be satisfied with the past, he could not rest in the present, he could not calculate on the future. “If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead”—be made one of those who shall be raised in Christ to glory—“not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect. . . . I count not myself to have apprehended.”
Brethren, if Paul, with all his light, all his labours, all his holiness, all his love, felt that heaven, was, after all, not his sure inheritance, how can any among us count themselves to have secured it, to have become perfect? And yet, not a few do! I am not alluding now to those who are called Calvinists, to those who believe that salvation will infallibly be conferred on a few, chosen without regard to their former, or care for their after life; and that they who believe this doctrine are certainly of the chosen few (every Calvinist, according to his own creed, is sure of salvation)—to those who fancy that a peculiar flutter of strange feelings in the breast which they felt at a certain moment of some day or night, perhaps long past, was the impression of God’s seal upon them; a seal which cannot be broken, which has marked them God’s for ever; and that all they have to do in anticipation, in preparation for glory, is to talk and think about man’s depravity, and God’s electing grace. No! I am alluding to such as are most of you, brethren; who have probably never concerned yourselves about supposed absolute decrees, and irresistible grace, and final perseverance; who do not claim to be objects of any signal conversion; who have felt, and feel no ecstacy and rapture which betoken sure acceptance; and of you, I say, that many of you count yourselves to have apprehended, to know as much, to have done as much, to feel as much, to be as perfect, as you need, and to have a sure hope of salvation. None of you have a definite theory of this kind; none of you, if I took you apart and said, “Are you sure of heaven?” would dare to answer, “yes,” or to feel that you might answer, “yes;” but many of you, nevertheless, do persuade yourselves, that it is even so; many of you so spend your lives as though you had already apprehended, as though there were nothing which you had yet to attain.
Listen! You believe that there is another life after this. You believe that it may be one of glory, or one of shame and destruction. You believe that there are necessary qualifications for glory, without which it will not be conferred. You hope and expect to partake of the glory. You all know that the change from this life to the next may come at any moment, to any one of you. Still, the greater part of you make no effort to prepare farther for that change; but go on, day after day, year after year, doing the same deeds, thinking the same thoughts, feeling the same feelings, in the same way and measure as heretofore. Is it not so? And if it is, do you not justify yourselves—do you not at least compose yourselves in your present state—by asserting, or at any rate by not actively denying, that you have attained as much faith, and holiness and love, as you need to fit you for heaven. You have apprehended: at least you think so. Otherwise, how could you be contented? Believing in your heart of hearts that there is a heaven, how could you be satisfied if you did not think you would go to it; if you conceived it possible that the want of something which you have not yet, might shut you out from glory? As I speak to you thus, you feel disposed to protest against my words. You know you are not perfect. You frequently sigh over your lamentable imperfections. You feel that it is only unspeakable mercy which can make any allowance for you. You are not fit for heaven. You are not satisfied with yourselves. You have not attained. You have much to do. You intend to do much. Yes! this is your protest, and it is an honest one; you mean it, you feel it. But, brethren, I am not talking of what you mean and feel now; of the momentary stir of right feeling which takes place occasionally, in church when the minister of Christ rouses you; or at home or abroad, when God calls loudly to you by some unusual act of Providence; or on a sick bed, when physicians speak doubtfully, and friends wear ominously troubled looks; or at the grave-side, when one of your own age and circumstances of life, and like constitution, is being hidden out of sight. No! I am speaking of your usual feelings, and your every-day life; and I say, on their clear testimony, that many of you count yourselves to have apprehended.
You are at ease about heaven; you do not strive, you do not press forward as though it were yet to gain; you do not imagine that any striving, any pressing forward, is needed. What are the religious exercises of the many? A few words of private prayer, morning and evening; an attendance once on the Lord’s day at church; and now and then, perhaps, a participation of the holy communion. These are the chief, often the only, efforts for grace to attain and apprehend. No perpetual upraising of the soul in prayer; no delight in public worship; no frequent yearning for the communication of Christ through His appointed ordinances; no eager searching of His Word for light, and guidance, and comfort, and encouragement! What, again, are the strivings of the many to attain a heavenly character; to do the work which God has given them to do; to put aside the old man, with his affections and lusts; to walk in holy obedience? Alas! they are merely negative; forbearing to offend against the letter of the great commandments. No literal idolatry, no profane swearing, no Sabbath-breaking, no stealing, no deed of lust, no deliberate slander. This is their righteousness; and if, besides, they occasionally sigh, or utter a self-condemnation, on account of the frequently reiterated, uncurbed outbreaks and indulgences of what they call “infirmities,” they seem to themselves to have attained to exemplary excellence. No matter that all their usual feelings are earth-born, and earth-directed; that their affections are set on worldly things; that they continue, year after year, every whit as spiritually indolent, impatient, bad-tempered, sensual in thought, jealous, faithless, unloving, unholy. They might, indeed, be better in these respects; perhaps they ought to be; but it is not actually necessary. They have already attained what is absolutely needed. If not quite perfect (no man is) they are perfect enough; better than many others; as good as God will require.
Oh, if men do not think this, do they not act it and testify it in their lives? Does not their religion seem to be a mere occasional pastime? something to be taken up only in the intervals of life’s earnest work; a matter of no real moment; which does not demand more than ceremonious observance, leaving the thoughts, the affections, the energy free; offering nothing (worth the while) to be pursued with zeal, and industry, and self-denial; to progress and grow perfect in; having no claims upon us which are not sufficiently discharged in the way of mere routine?
I should wrong many of you, dear brethren, if I meant this charge to be universal. Of not a few of you, “we are persuaded better things, and things that accompany salvation, though we thus speak.” But, in a degree, even you answer to this description, or part of it; coming nearer, now and then, to contentment about your spiritual state than you should; forbearing, frequently, to press forward enough for what is not yet attained.
Well, then, we are all reproved by the apostle’s lowly estimation of his own past and present: “I count not myself to have apprehended.” Let us now seek to be instructed by his proposals for the future: “Forgetting the things that are behind, I reach forth.” First, then, we are to forget the things that are behind. In the figure which the apostle uses, that of a runner in a race, to forget what is behind is, not to pride ourselves upon, not to think of the progress we have already made. Paradox though it seem, the Christian religion often bids us both remember and forget the same thing; and it does so in this case. We are to remember the success which has attended us hitherto in the attempt to serve God, both to prompt our gratitude for the past, and to encourage us to persevere, as having hope that we may prevail. We are to forget it, so as not to presume on our goodness; not to rest satisfied with aught we have done, or to count ourselves as having in any measure attained to what God requires of us. There is much temptation to such self-satisfaction, and there is much danger in it. Few, if any of us, who have been earnestly endeavouring to work out our salvation, can fail to observe that we have accomplished something. We have come to feel an interest in spiritual things. Prayer, instead of being altogether a wearisome task, or a mere matter of routine, has begun to be an enjoyable exercise. The pursuit of godliness, instead of being altogether a hard task, requiring us to forego all that is pleasant, to encounter much that is trying, to do that for which we have no taste, has begun to bestow on us its reward, in fulfilling its promise of making glad the life that now is, in elevating us, though, perhaps, but little, towards the hope of the life which is to come. We like now (that is, we dislike less) the exercises of devotion. We more readily give up what once we clung to as the chiefest good. We begin to realise, that there is something worth striving for beyond; and we make efforts, though they may be feeble, to reach it, and lay hold on it. But, perceiving this change, this improvement in ourselves, we run the risk of coming to think, that we are not like other men; that we have come out, and are separate; that we are in the right way; that God approves us. And the natural effect of this perception, or rather the effect which Satan causes it to produce, is spiritual pride and spiritual indolence. “I love prayer, I cultivate holiness: what lack I yet? I have attained; I have apprehended Christ; knowing and loving Him, and laying fast hold on His salvation.”
Such a feeling once harboured in the breast, and thus interpreted, soon begins to deaden our spiritual energies. We cease to be holy as soon as we fancy ourselves holy. We relinquish effort as soon as we find that we have been using it. In the remembrance of the past, in the spiritual pride which it produces, we forget the future and unlearn humility. Therefore we are to forget the past of progress.
But, besides this, we are to forget what is behind of failure and trial, and former superiority. There is nothing so apt to beget despondency, to discourage further effort, as the review of unsuccess: “I have tried this before, and failed; it is of no use to try it again. Destiny, or innate corruption seems to thwart me and bind me down; it is vain to contend against it.” Thus it is that men persuade themselves to yield unresistingly to evil. When bidden to forsake it, when desiring to forsake it, instead of making the effort as though it were a first one, the beginning of a right course, in which, if they persevere, they may hope by God’s grace to do well, they recall to memory how they have failed before, and persuade themselves, from their remembrance, that in like manner they should surely fail again: and so they refuse to try. And so, too, the remembrance of former superiority discourages. “How pure, how temperate, how steady, how comparatively good was I once. Alas! that cannot be again. I cannot undo what I have done. I cannot recover what is lost. The past can never be the present.” No, it cannot, brethren, and therefore forget it. Do not seek to undo, to recover. Since that cannot be, aim at something else; and, that you may aim the more steadily, do not let your eye wander elsewhere. If you have left your father’s house, and wasted your substance in riotous living, it is too late to prevent you from being a prodigal; but it is not too late to become a returning prodigal. Forget your former independence; forget the going away into the far country. Remember, that your Father still lives; that He is a merciful, a pardoning Father; that His arms are spread out to enfold you; that there is still room, and welcome room, for you in His house. Forget what you have abandoned, and seek what you may yet have: not former innocence, not the inheritance of uninterrupted dutifulness, but reformed life, and fresh favour, a new place as a new character.
Once more, forget the things that are behind, as you start, as you run along the course from the world to heaven. Do not delay in considering what you have to give up; do not grudge the effort; do not turn aside your eyes to behold what you are leaving behind, what you are passing by the way. Temporal things, though so infinitely inferior to eternal, are near and palpable; while the spiritual are distant and indistinctly seen. If you ponder and weigh, if you count over too frequently the cost, your own carnal judgment, and Satan’s blinding influence, will check you at starting, or lure you aside. To look back, to gaze about you, to stand still for a moment, is perhaps to lose the race. “See,” says Satan, “what you are leaving, what you are passing. Here are riches, honour, friends, pleasure, ease.” You look, and the look leads you back, or makes you stumble, perhaps fall. “Onward, onward!” be this your cry; this your aim. Stay not in all the plain; look not behind you; look on; behold the goal; remember the prize. Think not of the past; regard not the present; aim at the future. Forgetting the things that are behind, reach forth unto those that are before.
I have anticipated the other lesson of wisdom; that of reaching forth; of concentrating all your thoughts, and all your energies, on what is held out to you by God in Christ. You are not to measure the distance you have come; you are not to brood over stumblings, and falls, and past slowness; you are not to recall the things that you have left, nor to look at those you are passing. You are to run on, as if the race were all before you; as if the course were an untrodden one; as if there were good hope of reaching the goal. And you are to look steadfastly at the goal, and run eagerly towards it. This is your position; this your course; these your hopes.
Gird up your loins then, lay aside every weight, the weight of worldly temptation, the weight of experienced failure, the weight of difficulties and troubles. Assured that the race may be run, assay to run it. Knowing that the prize is still proffered, attempt to gain it. Gather experience from the past, what to do, what to avoid. Redouble your efforts, quicken your pace, because the time is short, and much of it has been trifled away. Take hope from the future, because the lists are still open, because you are accepted candidates for the prize, because the king waits to crown you.
What does all this mean in plain language? Sinners! repent, cry for mercy, pray for grace, aim at godliness. Lovers of the world! unloose your affections from what is worthless and perishable; fix them upon what is above value and everlasting; let go what you have, cast it behind you, and seek what you have not. Loiterers! move on. Crawlers! rise upon your feet and run. There is no time for delay, for tardy pace. The Lord waits to crown you, but He will not wait long. Racers! race on, faster, more intent. Let your desires outstrip your feet. Quicken your feet, to come up to your desires. But a little, and the trial of your speed will be over, and the conquerors will be crowned, and all others be rejected.
Brethren, one and all, consider the prize of your high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Enlist heartily in its pursuit; shake off everything that hinders; shut your eyes against all that allures; seek guidance, strength, and perseverance, in prayer, study of God’s Word, and other holy ordinances. Use those graces in daily instant increasing efforts; animate yourselves more and more by anticipations of what is held out, by nearer and more constant beholding of it. Stay not, and pause not till the arms of acceptance enfold you, the Voice of approval greets you, “Well done,” and grateful, realised joy enables you to exclaim, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course, henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness.”