And the standard in the third and fourth centuries after Christ, was truly and unquestionably an entirely different one from that recognised in the nineteenth century among ourselves.
Let me not be mistaken. I do not say that right and wrong are merely conventional, or merely chronological or geographical, or that they vary with lat.i.tude and longitude. I do not say that there ever was or ever can be a nation so utterly blinded and perverted in its moral sense as to acknowledge that which is wrong--seen and known to be wrong--as right; or on the other hand, to profess that which is seen and understood as right, to be wrong. But what I do say is this: that the form and aspect in which different deeds appear, so vary, that there will be for ever a change and alteration in men"s opinions, and that which is really most generous may seem most base, and that which is really most base may appear most generous. So for example, as I have already said, there are two things universally recognised--recognised as right by every man whose conscience is not absolutely perverted--charity and self-denial. The charity of G.o.d, the sacrifice of Christ--these are the two grand, leading principles of the Gospel; and in some form or other you will find these lying at the roots of every profession and state of feeling in almost every age.
But the form in which these appear, will vary with all the gradations which are to be found between the lowest savage state and the highest and most enlightened Christianity.
For example, in ancient Israel the law of love was expounded thus:--"Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy." Among the American Indians and at the Cape, the only homage perchance given to self-denial, was the strange admiration given to that prisoner of war who bore with unflinching fort.i.tude the torture of his country"s enemies. In ancient India the same principle was exhibited, but in a more strange and perverted manner. The homage there given to self-denial, self-sacrifice, was this--that the highest form of religion was considered to be that exhibited by the devotee who sat in a tree until the birds had built their nests in his hair--until his nails, like those of the King of Babylon, had grown like birds"
talons--until they had grown into his hands--and he became absorbed into the Divinity.
We will take another instance, and one better known. In ancient Sparta it was the custom to teach children to steal. And here there would seem to be a contradiction to our proposition--here it would seem as if right and wrong were matters merely conventional; for surely stealing can never be anything but wrong. But if we look deeper we shall see that there is no contradiction here. It was not stealing which was admired; the child was punished if the theft was discovered; but it was the dexterity which was admired, and that because it was a warlike virtue, necessary it may be to a people in continual rivalry with their neighbours. It was not that honesty was despised and dishonesty esteemed, but that honesty and dishonesty were made subordinate to that which appeared to them of higher importance, namely, the duty of concealment. And so we come back to the principle which we laid down at first. In every age, among all nations, the same broad principle remains; but the application of it varies. The conscience may be ill-informed, and in this sense only are right and wrong conventional--varying with lat.i.tude and longitude, depending upon chronology and geography.
The principle laid down by the Apostle Paul is this:--A man will be judged, not by the abstract law of G.o.d, not by the rule of absolute right, but much rather by the relative law of conscience. This he states most distinctly--looking at the question on both sides. That which seems to a man to be right is, in a certain sense, right to him; and that which seems to a man to be wrong, in a certain sense _is_ wrong to him. For example: he says in his Epistle to the Romans (v.
14.) that, "sin is not imputed when there is no law," in other words, if a man does not really know a thing to be wrong there is a sense in which, if not right to him, it ceases to be so wrong as it would otherwise be. With respect to the other of these sides however, the case is still more distinct and plain. Here, in the judgment which the apostle delivers in the parallel chapter of the Epistle to the Romans (the 14th), he says, "I know, and am persuaded of the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing unclean of itself: but to him that esteemeth anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean." In other words, whatever may be the abstract merits of the question--however in G.o.d"s jurisprudence any particular act may stand--to you, thinking it to be wrong, it manifestly _is_ wrong, and your conscience will gather round it a stain of guilt if you do it.
In order to understand this more fully, let us take a few instances.
There is a difference between _truth_ and _veracity_. Veracity--mere veracity--is a small, poor thing. Truth is something greater and higher. Veracity is merely the correspondence between some particular statement and facts--truth is the correspondence between a man"s whole soul and reality. It is possible for a man to say that which, unknown to him is false; and yet he may be true: because if deprived of truth he is deprived of it unwillingly. It is possible, on the other hand, for a man to utter veracities, and yet at the very time that he is uttering those veracities to be false to himself, to his brother, and to his G.o.d. One of the most signal instances of this is to be seen in the Book of Job. Most of what Job"s friends said to him were veracious statements. Much of what Job said for himself was unveracious and mistaken. And yet those veracities of theirs were so torn from all connection with fact and truth, that they became falsehoods; and they were, as has been said, nothing more than "orthodox liars" in the sight of G.o.d. On the other hand, Job, blundering perpetually, and falling into false doctrine, was yet a true man--searching for and striving after the truth; and if deprived of it for a time, deprived of it with all his heart and soul unwillingly. And therefore it was that at last the Lord appeared out of the whirlwind, to confound the men of mere veracity, and to stand by and support the honour of the heartily true.
Let us apply the principle further. It is a matter of less importance that a man should state true views, than that he should state views truly. We will put this in its strongest form. Unitarianism is false--Trinitarianism is true. But yet in the sight of G.o.d, and with respect to a man"s eternal destinies hereafter, it would surely be better for him earnestly, honestly, truly, to hold the doctrines of Unitarianism, than in a cowardly or indifferent spirit, or influenced by authority, or from considerations of interest, or for the sake of lucre, to hold the doctrines of Trinitarianism.
For instance:--Not many years ago the Church of Scotland was severed into two great divisions, and gave to this age a marvellous proof that there is still amongst us the power of living faith--when five hundred ministers gave up all that earth holds dear--position in the church they had loved; friendships and affections formed, and consecrated by long fellowship, in its communion; and almost their hopes of gaining a livelihood--rather than a.s.sert a principle which seemed to them to be a false one. Now my brethren, surely the question in such a case for us to consider is not this, merely--whether of the two sections held the abstract _right_--held the principle in its integrity--but surely far rather, this: who on either side was true to the light within, true to G.o.d, true to the truth as G.o.d had revealed it to his soul.
Now it is precisely upon this principle that we are enabled to indulge a Christian hope that many of those who in ancient times were persecutors, for example, may yet be justified at the bar of Christ.
Nothing can make persecution right--it is wrong, essentially, eternally wrong in the sight of G.o.d. And yet, if a man sincerely and a.s.suredly thinks that Christ has laid upon him a command to persecute with fire and sword, it is surely better that he should, in spite of all feelings of tenderness and compa.s.sion, cast aside the dearest affections at the command of his Redeemer, than that he should, in mere laxity and tenderness, turn aside from what seemed to him to be his duty. At least, this appears to be the opinion of the Apostle Paul. He tells us that he was "a blasphemer and a persecutor and injurious," that "he did many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth," that "being exceedingly mad against the disciples, he persecuted them even unto strange cities." But he tells us further that, "for this cause he obtained mercy, because he did it ignorantly in unbelief."
Now take a case precisely opposite. In ancient times the Jews did that by which it appeared to them that they would contract defilement and guilt--they spared the lives of the enemies which they had taken in battle. Brethren the eternal law is, that charity is right: and that law is eternally right which says, "Thou shalt love thine enemy." And had the Jews acted upon this principle they would have done well to spare their enemies: but they did it thinking it to be wrong, transgressing that law which commanded them to slay their idolatrous enemies--not from generosity, but in cupidity--not from charity, but from lax zeal. And so doing, the act was altogether wrong.
II. Such is the apostle"s exposition of the law of Christian conscience. Let us now, in the second place, consider the applications both of a personal and of a public nature, which arise out of it.
1. The first application is a personal one. It is this:--Do what _seems_ to _you_ to be right: it is only so that you will at last learn by the grace of G.o.d to see clearly what _is_ right. A man thinks within himself that it is G.o.d"s law and G.o.d"s will that he should act thus and thus. There is nothing possible for us to say--there is no advice for us to give, but this--"You _must_ so act." He is responsible for the opinions he holds, and still more for the way in which he arrived at them--whether in a slothful and selfish, or in an honest and truth-seeking manner; but being now his soul"s convictions, you can give no other law than this--"You must obey your conscience."
For no man"s conscience gets so seared by doing what is wrong unknowingly, as by doing that which appears to be wrong to his conscience. The Jews" consciences did not get seared by their slaying the Canaanites, but they did become seared by their failing to do what appeared to them to be right. Therefore, woe to you if you do what others think right, instead of obeying the dictates of your own conscience; woe to you if you allow authority, or prescription, or fashion, or influence, or any other human thing, to interfere with that awful and sacred thing--responsibility. "Every man," said the apostle, "must give an account of himself to G.o.d."
2. The second application of this principle has reference to others.
No doubt to the large, free, enlightened mind of the Apostle Paul, all these scruples and superst.i.tions must have seemed mean, trivial, and small indeed. It was a matter to him of far less importance that truth should be _established_ than that it should be arrived at truly--a matter of far less importance even, that right should be done, than that right should be done rightly. Conscience was far more sacred to him than even liberty--it was to him a prerogative far more precious to a.s.sert the rights of Christian conscience, than to magnify the privileges of Christian liberty. The scruple may be small and foolish, but it may be impossible to uproot the scruple without tearing up the feeling of the sanct.i.ty of conscience, and of reverence to the law of G.o.d, a.s.sociated with this scruple. And therefore the Apostle Paul counsels these men to abridge their Christian liberty, and not to eat of those things which had been sacrificed to idols, but to have compa.s.sion upon the scruples of their weaker brethren.
And this, for two reasons. The first of these is a mere reason of Christian feeling. It might cause exquisite pain to sensitive minds to see those things which appeared to them to be wrong, done by Christian brethren. Now you may take a parallel case. It may be, if you will, mere superst.i.tion to bow at the name of Jesus. It may be, and no doubt is, founded upon a mistaken interpretation of that pa.s.sage in the Epistle to the Philippians (ii. 10), which says that "at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow." But there are many congregations in which this has been the long-established rule, and there are many Christians who would feel pained to see such a practice discontinued--as if it implied a declension from the reverence due to "that name which is above every name." Now what in this case is the Christian duty? Is it this--to stand upon our Christian liberty? Or is it not rather this--to comply with a prejudice which is manifestly a harmless one, rather than give pain to a Christian brother?
Take another case. It may be a mistaken scruple; but there is no doubt that it causes much pain to many Christians to see a carriage used on the Lord"s day. But you, with higher views of the spirit of Christianity, who know that "the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath"--who can enter more deeply into the truth taught by our blessed Lord, that every day is to be dedicated to Him and consecrated to His service--upon the high principle of Christian liberty you can use your carriage--you can exercise your liberty. But if there are Christian brethren to whom this would give pain--then I humbly ask you, but most earnestly--What is the duty here? Is it not this--to abridge your Christian liberty--and to go through rain, and mud, and snow, rather than give pain to one Christian conscience?
To give one more instance. The words, and garb, and customs of that sect of Christians called Quakers may be formal enough; founded, no doubt, as in the former case, upon a mistaken interpretation of a pa.s.sage in the Bible. But they are at least harmless; and have long been a.s.sociated with the simplicity, and benevolence, and Christian humbleness of this body of Christians--the followers of one who, three hundred years ago, set out upon the glorious enterprise of making all men friends. Now would it be Christian, or would it not rather be something more than unchristian--would it not be gross rudeness and coa.r.s.e unfeelingness to treat such words, and habits, and customs, with anything but respect and reverence?
Further: the apostle enjoined this duty upon the Corinthian converts, of abridging their Christian liberty, not merely because it might give pain to indulge it, but also because it might even lead their brethren into sin. For, if any man should eat of the flesh offered to an idol, feeling himself justified by his conscience, it were well: but if any man, overborne by authority or interest, were to do this, not according to conscience, but against it, there would be a distinct and direct act of disobedience--a conflict between his sense of right and the gratification of his appet.i.tes, or the power of influence; and then his compliance would as much damage his conscience and moral sense as if the act had been wrong in itself.
In the personal application of these remarks, there are three things which we have to say. The first is this:--Distinguish I pray you, between this tenderness for a brother"s conscience and mere time-serving. This same apostle whom we here see so gracefully giving way upon the ground of expediency when Christian principles were left entire, was the same who stood firm and strong as a rock when any thing was demanded which trenched upon Christian principle. When some required as a matter of necessity for salvation, that these converts should be circ.u.mcised, the apostle says--"To whom we gave place by subjection, no, not for an hour!" It was not indifference--it was not cowardice--it was not the mere love of peace, purchased by the sacrifice of principle, that prompted this counsel--but it was Christian love--that delicate and Christian love which dreads to tamper with the sanct.i.ties of a brother"s conscience.
2. The second thing we have to say is this--that this abridgement of their liberty is a duty more especially inc.u.mbent upon all who are possessed of influence. There are some men, happily for themselves we may say, who are so insignificant that they can take their course quietly in the valleys of life, and who can exercise the fullest Christian liberty without giving pain to others. But it is the price which all who are possessed of influence must pay--that their acts must be measured, not in themselves, but according to their influence on others. So, my Christian brethren, to bring this matter home to every-day experience and common life, if the landlord uses his authority and influence to induce his tenant to vote against his conscience, it may be he has secured one voice to the principle which is right, or at all events, to that which seemed to him to be right: but he has gained that single voice at the sacrifice and expense of a brother"s soul. Or again--if for the sake of ensuring personal politeness and attention, the rich man puts a gratuity into the hand of a servant of some company which has forbidden him to receive it, he gains the attention, he ensures the politeness, but he gains it at the sacrifice and expense of a man and a Christian brother.
3. The last remark which we have to make is this:--How possible it is to mix together the vigour of a masculine and manly intellect with the tenderness and charity which is taught by the gospel of Christ! No man ever breathed so freely when on earth the air and atmosphere of heaven as the Apostle Paul--no man ever soared so high above all prejudices, narrowness, littlenesses, scruples, as he: and yet no man ever bound himself as Paul bound himself to the ignorance, the scruples, the prejudices of his brethren. So that what in other cases was infirmity, imbecility, and superst.i.tion, gathered round it in his case the pure high spirit of Christian charity and Christian delicacy.
And now, out of the writings, and sayings, and deeds of those who loudly proclaim "the rights of man" and the "rights of liberty," match us if you can with one sentence so sublime, so n.o.ble, one that will so stand at the bar of G.o.d hereafter, as this single, glorious sentence of his, in which he a.s.serts the rights of Christian conscience above the claims of Christian liberty--"Wherefore if meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend."
XVII.
_Preached May 16, 1852._
VICTORY OVER DEATH.
"The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law.
But thanks be to G.o.d which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."--1 Cor. xv. 56, 57.
On Sunday last I endeavoured to bring before you the subject of that which Scripture calls the glorious liberty of the Sons of G.o.d. The two points on which we were trying to get clear notions were these: what is meant by being under the law, and what is meant by being free from the law? When the Bible says that a man led by the Spirit is not under the law, it does not mean that he is free because he may sin without being punished for it, but it means that he is free because being taught by G.o.d"s Spirit to love what His law commands he is no longer conscious of acting from restraint. The law does not drive him, because the Spirit leads him.
There is a state brethren, when we recognize G.o.d, but do not love G.o.d in Christ. It is that state when we admire what is excellent, but are not able to perform it. It is a state when the love of good comes to nothing, dying away in a mere desire. That is the state of nature, when we are under the law, and not converted to the love of Christ.
And then there is another state, when G.o.d writes His law upon our hearts by love instead of fear. The one state is this, "I cannot do the things that I would"--the other state is this, "I will walk at liberty; for I seek Thy commandments."
Just so far therefore, as a Christian is led by the Spirit, he is a conqueror. A Christian in full possession of his privileges is a man whose very step ought to have in it all the elasticity of triumph, and whose very look ought to have in it all the brightness of victory. And just so far as a Christian suffers sin to struggle in him and overcome his resolutions, just so far he is under the law. And that is the key to the whole doctrine of the New Testament. From first to last the great truth put forward is--The law can neither save you nor sanctify you. The gospel can do both; for it is rightly and emphatically called the perfect law of liberty.
We proceed to-day to a further ill.u.s.tration of this subject--of Christian victory. In the verses which I have read out, the Apostle has evidently the same subject in his mind: slavery through the law: victory through the gospel. "The strength of sin," he says, "is the law." G.o.d giveth us the victory through Christ. And when we are familiar with St. Paul"s trains of thinking, we find this idea coming in perpetually. It runs like a coloured thread through embroidery, appearing on the upper surface every now and then in a different shape--a leaf, it may be, or a flower; but the same thread still, if you only trace it back with your finger. And this was the golden recurring thread in the mind of Paul. Restraint and law cannot check sin; they only gall it and make it struggle and rebel. The love of G.o.d in Christ, that, and only that can give man the victory.
But in this pa.s.sage the idea of victory is brought to bear upon the most terrible of all a Christian"s enemies. It is faith here conquering in death. And the apostle brings together all the believer"s antagonists--the law"s power, sin, and death the chief antagonist of all; and then, as it were on a conqueror"s battle field, shouts over them the hymn of triumph--"Thanks be to G.o.d, which giveth us the victory, through our Lord Jesus Christ." We shall take up these two points to dwell upon.
I. The awfulness which hangs round the dying hour.
II. Faith conquering in death.
That which makes it peculiarly terrible to die is a.s.serted in this pa.s.sage to be, guilt. We lay a stress upon this expression--the sting.
It is not said that sin is the only bitterness, but it is the sting which contains in it the venom of a most exquisite torture. And in truth brethren, it is no mark of courage to speak lightly of human dying. We may do it in bravado, or in wantonness; but no man who thinks can call it a trifling thing to die. True thoughtfulness must shrink from death without Christ. There is a world of untold sensations crowded into that moment, when a man puts his hand to his forehead and feels the damp upon it which tells him his hour is come.
He has been waiting for death all his life, and now it is come. It is all over--his chance is past, and his eternity is settled. None of us know, except by guess, what that sensation is. Myriads of human beings have felt it to whom life was dear; but they never spoke out their feelings, for such things are untold. And to every individual man throughout all eternity that sensation in its fulness can come but once. It is mockery brethren, for a man to speak lightly of that which he cannot know till it comes.
Now the first cause which makes it a solemn thing to die, is the instinctive cleaving of every thing that lives to its own existence.
That unutterable thing which we call our being--the idea of parting with it is agony. It is the first and the intensest desire of living things, to be. Enjoyment, blessedness, everything we long for, is wrapped up in being. Darkness and all that the spirit recoils from, is contained in this idea, not to be. It is in virtue of this unquenchable impulse that the world, in spite of all the misery that is in it, continues to struggle on. What are war, and trade, and labour, and professions? Are they all the result of struggling to be great? No, my brethren, they are the result of struggling _to be_. The first thing that men and nations labour for is existence. Reduce the nation or the man to their last resources, and only see what marvellous energy of contrivance the love of being arms them with.
Read back the pauper"s history at the end of seventy years--his strange sad history, in which scarcely a single day could ensure subsistence for the morrow--and yet learn what he has done these long years in the stern struggle with impossibility to hold his being where everything is against him, and to keep an existence, whose only conceivable charm is this, that it _is_ existence.
Now it is with this intense pa.s.sion for being, that the idea of death clashes. Let us search why it is we shrink from death. This reason brethren, we shall find, that it presents to us the idea of _not being_. Talk as we will of immortality, there is an obstinate feeling that we cannot master, that we end in death; and _that_ may be felt together with the firmest belief of a resurrection. Brethren, our faith tells us one thing, and our sensations tell us another. When we die, we are surrendering in truth all that with which we have a.s.sociated existence. All that we know of life is connected with a shape, a form, a body of materialism; and now that that is palpably melting away into nothingness, the boldest heart may be excused a shudder, when there is forced upon it, in spite of itself, the idea of ceasing for ever.
The second reason is not one of imagination at all, but most sober reality. It is a solemn thing to die, because it is the parting with all round which the heart"s best affections have twined themselves.
There are some men who have not the capacity for keen enjoyment. Their affections have nothing in them of intensity, and so they pa.s.s through life without ever so uniting themselves with what they meet, that there would be anything of pain in the severance. Of course, with them the bitterness of death does not attach so much to the idea of parting. But my brethren, how is it with human nature generally? Our feelings do not weaken as we go on in life; emotions are less shown, and we get a command over our features and our expressions; but the man"s feelings are deeper than the boy"s. It is length of time that makes attachment. We become wedded to the sights and sounds of this lovely world more closely as years go on.
Young men, with nothing rooted deep, are prodigal of life. It is an adventure to them, rather than a misfortune, to leave their country for ever. With the old man it is like tearing his own heart from him.
And so it was that when Lot quitted Sodom, the younger members of his family went on gladly. It is a touching truth; it was the aged one who looked behind to the home which had so many recollections connected with it. And therefore it is, that when men approach that period of existence when they must go, there is an instinctive lingering over things which they shall never see again. Every time the sun sets, every time the old man sees his children gathering round him, there is a filling of the eye with an emotion that we can understand. There is upon his soul the thought of parting, that strange wrench from all we love which makes death (say what moralists will of it) a bitter thing.
Another pang which belongs to death, we find in the sensation of loneliness which attaches to it. Have we ever seen a ship preparing to sail with its load of pauper emigrants to a distant colony? If we have we know what that desolation is which comes from feeling unfriended on a new and untried excursion. All beyond the seas, to the ignorant poor man, is a strange land. They are going away from the helps and the friendships and the companionships of life, scarcely knowing what is before them. And it is in such a moment, when a man stands upon a deck, taking his last look of his fatherland, that there comes upon him a sensation new, strange, and inexpressibly miserable--the feeling of being alone in the world.
Brethren, with all the bitterness of such a moment, it is but a feeble image when placed by the side of the loneliness of death. We die alone. We go on our dark mysterious journey for the first time in all our existence, without one to accompany us. Friends are beside our bed, they must stay behind. Grant that a Christian has something like familiarity with the Most High, _that_ breaks this solitary feeling; but what is it with the ma.s.s of men? It is a question full of loneliness to them. What is it they are to see? What are they to meet?
Is it not true, that, to the larger number of this congregation, there is no one point in all eternity on which the eye can fix distinctly and rest gladly--nothing beyond the grave, except a dark s.p.a.ce into which they must plunge alone?
And yet my brethren, with all these ideas no doubt vividly before his mind, it was none of them that the apostle selected as the crowning bitterness of dying. It was not the thought of surrendering existence.
It was not the parting from all bright and lovely things. It was not the shudder of sinking into the sepulchre alone. "The sting of death is _sin_."