Now it is an illegitimate use of law. First. To expect by obedience to it to make out a t.i.tle to salvation.
By the deeds of the law, shall no man living be justified. Salvation is by faith: a state of heart right with G.o.d; faith is the spring of holiness--a well of life. Salvation is not the having committed a certain number of good acts. Destruction is not the having committed a certain number of crimes. Salvation is G.o.d"s Spirit in us, leading to good. Destruction is the selfish spirit in us, leading to wrong.
For a plain reason then, obedience to law cannot save, because it is merely the performance of a certain number of acts which may be done by habit, from fear, from compulsion. Obedience remains still imperfect. A man may have obeyed the rule, and kept the maxim, and yet not be perfect. "All these commandments have I kept from my youth up."
"Yet lackest thou one thing." The law he had kept. The spirit of obedience in its high form of sacrifice he had not.
Secondly. To use it superst.i.tiously.
It is plain that this was the use made of it by the Ephesian teachers.--v. 4. It seemed to them that _law_ was pleasing to G.o.d as restraint. Then unnatural restraints came to be imposed--on the appet.i.tes, fasting; on the affections, celibacy. This is what Paul condemns.--ch. iv., v. 8. "Bodily exercise profiteth little."
And again, this superst.i.tion showed itself in a false reverence--wondrous stories respecting angels--respecting the eternal genealogy of Christ--awful thoughts about spirits. The Apostle calls all these, very unceremoniously, "endless genealogies," v. 4, and "old wives" fables."--ch. iv., v. 7.
The question at issue is, wherein true reverence consists: according to them, in the multiplicity of the objects of reverence; according to St. Paul, in the character of the object revered ... G.o.d and Right the true object.
But you are not a whit the better for solemn and reverential feelings about a mysterious, invisible world. To tremble before a consecrated wafer is spurious reverence. To bend before the Majesty of Right is Christian reverence.
Thirdly. To use it as if the letter of it were sacred. The law commanded none to eat the shewbread except the priests. David ate it in hunger. If Abimelech had scrupled to give it, he would have used the law unlawfully.
The law commanded no manner of work. The apostles in hunger rubbed the ears of corn. The Pharisees used the law unlawfully, in forbidding that.
II. The lawful use of law.
1. As a restraint to keep outward evil in check ... "The law was made for sinners and profane." ... Ill.u.s.trate this by reference to capital punishment. No sane man believes that punishment by death will make a nation"s heart right, or that the sight of an execution can soften or ameliorate. Punishment does not work in that way. It is not meant for that purpose. It is meant to guard society.
The law commanding a blasphemer to be stoned, could not teach one Israelite love to G.o.d, but it could save the streets of Israel from scandalous ribaldry.
And therefore clearly understand, law is a mere check to bad men: it does not improve them; it often makes them worse; it cannot sanctify them. G.o.d never intended that it should. It saves society from the open transgression; it does not contemplate the amelioration of the offender.
Hence we see for what reason the apostle insisted on the use of the law for Christians. Law never can be abrogated. Strict rules are needed exactly in proportion as we want the power or the will to rule ourselves. It is not because the Gospel has come that we are free from the law, but because, and only so far, as we are in a Gospel state.
"It is for a righteous man" that the law is not made, and thus we see the true nature of Christian liberty. The liberty to which we are called in Christ, is not the liberty of devils, the liberty of doing what we will, but the blessed liberty of being on the side of the law, and therefore unrestrained by it in doing right.
Ill.u.s.trate from laws of coining, housebreaking, &c. We are not under them.--Because we may break them as we like? Nay--the moment we desire, the law is alive again to us.
2. As a primer is used by a child to acquire by degrees, principles and a spirit.
This is the use attributed to it in verse 5. "The end of the commandment is charity."
Compare with this, two other pa.s.sages--"Christ is the end of the law for righteousness," and "love is the fulfilling of the law." "Perfect love casteth out fear."
In every law there is a spirit; in every maxim a principle; and the law and the maxim are laid down for the sake of conserving the spirit and the principle which they enshrine.
St. Paul compares G.o.d"s dealing with man to a wise parent"s instruction of his child.--See the Epistle to the Galatians. Boyhood is under law; you appeal not to the boy"s reason, but his will, by rewards and punishments: Do this, and I will reward you; do it not, and you will be punished. So long as a man is under law, this is salutary and necessary, but only while under law. He is free when he discerns principles, and at the same time has got, by habit, the will to obey. So that rules have done for him a double work, taught him the principle and facilitated obedience to it.
Distinguish however.--In point of time, law is first--in point of importance, the Spirit.
In point of _time_, Charity is the "end" of the commandment--in point of _importance_, first and foremost.
The first thing a boy has to do, is to learn implicit obedience to rules. The first thing in importance for a man to learn is, to sever himself from maxims, rules, laws. Why? That he may become an Antinomian, or a Lat.i.tudinarian? No. He is severed from submission to the _maxim_ because he has got allegiance to the _principle_. He is free from the rule and the law because he has got the Spirit written in his heart.
This is the Gospel. A man is redeemed by Christ so far as he is not under the law; he is free from the law so far as he is free from the evil which the law restrains; he progresses so far as there is no evil in him which it is an effort to keep down; and perfect salvation and liberty are--when we,--who though having the first fruits of the Spirit, yet groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, "to wit, the redemption of our body"--shall have been freed in body, soul, and spirit, from the last traces of the evil which can only be kept down by force. In other words, so far as Christ"s statement is true of _us_, "The Prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me."
XX.
_Preached February 21, 1853._
THE PRODIGAL AND HIS BROTHER.
"And he said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; was lost, and is found."--Luke xv. 31, 32.
There are two cla.s.ses of sins. There are some sins by which man crushes, wounds, malevolently injures his brother man: those sins which speak of a bad, tyrannical, and selfish heart. Christ met those with denunciation. There are other sins by which a man injures himself. There is a life of reckless indulgence; there is a career of yielding to ungovernable propensities, which most surely conducts to wretchedness and ruin, but makes a man an object of compa.s.sion rather than of condemnation.
The reception which sinners of this cla.s.s met from Christ was marked by strange and pitying mercy. There was no maudlin sentiment on his lips. He called sin sin, and guilt guilt. But yet there were sins which His lips scourged, and others over which, containing in themselves their own scourge, His heart bled. That which was melancholy, and marred, and miserable in this world, was more congenial to the heart of Christ than that which was proudly happy. It was in the midst of a triumph, and all the pride of a procession, that He paused to weep over ruined Jerusalem. And if we ask the reason why the character of Christ was marked by this melancholy condescension it is that he was in the midst of a world of ruins, and there was nothing there to gladden, but very much to touch with grief. He was here to restore that which was broken down and crumbling into decay. An enthusiastic antiquarian, standing amidst the fragments of an ancient temple surrounded by dust and moss, broken pillar, and defaced architrave, with magnificent projects in his mind of restoring all this to _former_ majesty, to draw out to light from mere rubbish the ruined glories, and therefore stooping down amongst the dank ivy and the rank nettles; such was Christ amidst the wreck of human nature. He was striving to lift it out of its degradation. He was searching out in revolting places that which had fallen down, that He might build it up again in fair proportions a holy temple to the Lord.
Therefore He laboured among the guilty; therefore He was the companion of outcasts; therefore He spoke tenderly and lovingly to those whom society counted undone; therefore He loved to bind up the bruised and the broken-hearted; therefore His breath fanned the spark which seemed dying out in the wick of the expiring taper, when men thought that it was too late, and that the hour of _hopeless_ profligacy was come. It was that feature in His character, that tender, hoping, encouraging spirit of His which the prophet Isaiah fixed upon as characteristic.
"A bruised reed will He not break."
It was an ill.u.s.tration of this spirit which He gave in the parable which forms the subject of our consideration to-day. We find the occasion which drew it from Him in the commencement of this chapter, "Then drew near unto Him all the publicans and sinners for to hear Him. And the Pharisees and Scribes murmured, saying, This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them." It was then that Christ condescended to offer an excuse or an explanation of His conduct. And His excuse was this: It is natural, humanly natural, to rejoice more over that which has been recovered than over that which has been never lost. He proved that by three ill.u.s.trations taken from human life. The first ill.u.s.tration intended to show the feelings of Christ in winning back a sinner, was the joy which the shepherd feels in the recovery of a sheep from the mountain wilderness. The second was the satisfaction which a person feels for a recovered coin. The last was the gladness which attends the restoration of an erring son.
Now the three parables are alike in this, that they all describe more or less vividly the feelings of the Redeemer on the recovery of the lost. But the third parable differs from the other two in this, that besides the feelings of the Saviour, it gives us a mult.i.tude of particulars respecting the feelings, the steps, and the motives of the penitent who is reclaimed back to goodness. In the two first the thing lost is a coin or a sheep. It would not be possible to find any picture of remorse or gladness there. But in the third parable the thing lost is not a lifeless thing, nor a mute thing, but a being, the workings of whose human heart are all described. So that the subject opened out to us is a more extensive one--not merely the feelings of the finder, G.o.d in Christ, but besides that, the sensations of the wanderer himself.
In dealing with this parable, this is the line which we shall adopt.
We shall look at the picture which it draws of--1. G.o.d"s treatment of the penitent. 2. G.o.d"s expostulation with the saint. G.o.d"s treatment of the penitent divides itself in this parable into three distinct epochs. The period of alienation, the period of repentance, and the circ.u.mstances of a penitent reception. We shall consider all these in turn.
The first truth exhibited in this parable is the alienation of man"s heart from G.o.d. Homelessness, distance from our Father--that is man"s state by nature in this world. The youngest son gathered all together and took his journey into a _far_ country. Brethren, this is the history of worldliness. It is a state far from G.o.d; in other words, it is a state of homelessness. And now let us ask what that means. To English hearts it is not necessary to expound elaborately the infinite meanings which cl.u.s.ter round that blessed expression "home." Home is the one place in all this world where hearts are sure of each other.
It is the place of confidence. It is the place where we tear off that mask of guarded and suspicious coldness which the world forces us to wear in self-defence, and where we pour out the unreserved communications of full and confiding hearts. It is the spot where expressions of tenderness gush out without any sensation of awkwardness and without any dread of ridicule. Let a man travel where he will, home is the place to which "his heart untravelled fondly turns." He is to double all pleasure there. He is there to divide all pain. A _happy home_ is the single spot of rest which a man has upon this earth for the cultivation of his n.o.blest sensibilities.
And now my brethren, if that be the description of home, is G.o.d"s place of rest your home? Walk abroad and alone by night. That awful other world in the stillness and the solemn deep of the eternities above, is it your home? Those graves that lie beneath you, holding in them the infinite secret, and stamping upon all earthly loveliness the mark of frailty and change and fleetingness--are those graves the prospect to which in bright days and dark days you can turn without dismay? G.o.d in his splendours,--dare we feel with Him affectionate and familiar, so that trial comes softened by this feeling--it is my Father, and enjoyment can be taken with a frank feeling; my Father has given it me, without grudging, to make me happy? All that is having a home in G.o.d. Are we at home there? Why there is demonstration in our very childhood that we are not at home with that other world of G.o.d"s.
An infant fears to be alone, because he feels he is not alone. He trembles in the dark, because he is conscious of the presence of the world of spirits. Long before he has been told tales of terror, there is an instinctive dread of the supernatural in the infant mind. It is the instinct which we have from childhood that gives us the feeling of another world. And mark, brethren, if the child is not at home in the thought of that world of G.o.d"s, the deep of darkness and eternity is, around him--G.o.d"s home, but not his home, for his flesh creeps. And that feeling grows through life; not the fear--when the child becomes a man he gets over fear--but the dislike. The man feels as much aversion as the child for the world of spirits.
Sunday comes. It breaks across the current of his worldliness. It suggests thoughts of death and judgment and everlasting existence. Is that home? Can the worldly man feel Sunday like a foretaste of his Father"s mansion? If we could but know how many have come here to-day, not to have their souls lifted up heavenwards, but from curiosity, or idleness, or criticism, it would give us an appalling estimate of the number who are living in a far country, "having no hope and without G.o.d in the world."
The second truth conveyed to us in this parable is the unsatisfying nature of worldly happiness. The outcast son tried to satiate his appet.i.te with husks. A husk is an empty thing; it is a thing which looks extremely like food, and promises as much as food; but it is not food. It is a thing which when chewed will stay the appet.i.te, but leaves the emaciated body without nourishment. Earthly happiness is a husk. We say not that there is no satisfaction in the pleasures of a worldly life. That would be an overstatement of the truth. Something there is, or else why should men persist in living for them? The cravings of man"s appet.i.te may be stayed by things which cannot satisfy him. Every new pursuit contains in it a new hope; and it is long before hope is bankrupt. But my brethren, it is strange if a man has not found out long before he has reached the age of thirty, that everything here is empty and disappointing. The n.o.bler his heart and the more unquenchable his hunger for the high and the good, the sooner will he find that out. Bubble after bubble bursts, each bubble tinted with the celestial colours of the rainbow, and each leaving in the hand which crushes it a cold damp drop of disappointment. All that is described in Scripture by the emphatic metaphor of "sowing the wind and reaping the whirlwind," the whirlwind of blighted hopes and unreturned feelings and crushed expectations--that is the harvest which the world gives you to reap.
And now is the question asked, Why is this world unsatisfying?
Brethren, it is the grandeur of the soul which G.o.d has given us, which makes it insatiable in its desires--with an infinite void which cannot be filled up. A soul which was made for G.o.d, how can the world fill it? If the ocean can be still with miles of unstable waters beneath it, then the soul of man, rocking itself upon its own deep longings, with the Infinite beneath it, may rest. We were created once in majesty, to find enjoyment in G.o.d, and if our hearts are empty now, there is nothing for it but to fill up the hollowness of the soul with G.o.d.
Let not that expression--filling the soul with G.o.d--pa.s.s away without a distinct meaning. G.o.d is Love and Goodness. Fill the soul with goodness, and fill the soul with love, _that_ is the filling it with G.o.d. If we love one another, G.o.d dwelleth in us. There is nothing else that can satisfy. So that when we hear men of this world acknowledge, as they sometimes will do, when they are wearied with this phantom chase of life, sick of gaieties and tired of toil, that it is not in their pursuits that they can drink the fount of blessedness; and when we see them, instead of turning aside either broken-hearted or else made wise, still persisting to trust to expectations--at fifty, sixty, or seventy years still feverish about some new plan of ambition--what we see is this: we see a soul formed with a capacity for high and n.o.ble things, fit for the banquet table of G.o.d Himself, trying to fill its infinite hollowness with husks.
Once more, there is degradation in the life of irreligion. The things which the wanderer tried to live on were not husks only. They were husks which the swine did eat. Degradation means the application of a thing to purposes lower than that for which it was intended. It is degradation to a man to live on husks, because these are not his true food. We call it degradation when we see the members of an ancient family, decayed by extravagance, working for their bread. It is not degradation for a born labourer to work for an honest livelihood. It is degradation for them, for they are not what they might have been.
And therefore, for a man to be degraded, it is not necessary that he should have given himself up to low and mean practices. It is quite enough that he is living for purposes lower than those for which G.o.d intended him. He may be a man of unblemished reputation, and yet debased in the truest meaning of the word. We were sent into this world to love G.o.d and to love man; to do good--to fill up life with deeds of generosity and usefulness. And he that refuses to work out that high destiny is a degraded man. He may turn away revolted from everything that is gross. His sensuous indulgences may be all marked by refinement and taste. His house may be filled with elegance. His library may be adorned with books. There may be the sounds in his mansion which can regale the ear, the delicacies which can stimulate the palate, and the forms of beauty which can please the eye. There may be nothing in his whole life to offend the most chastened and fastidious delicacy; and yet, if the history of all this be, powers which were meant for eternity frittered upon time, the man is degraded--if the spirit which was created to find its enjoyment in the love of G.o.d has settled down satisfied with the love of the world, then, just as surely as the sensualist of this parable, that man has turned aside from a celestial feast to prey on garbage.
We pa.s.s on to the second period of the history of G.o.d"s treatment of a sinner. It is the period of his coming to himself, or what we call repentance. The first fact of religious experience which this parable suggests to us is that common truth--men desert the world when the world deserts them. The renegade came to himself when there were no more husks to eat. He would have remained away if he could have got them, but it is written, "no man gave unto him." And this, brethren, is the record of our shame. Invitation is not enough; we must be driven to G.o.d. And the famine comes not by chance. G.o.d sends the famine into the soul--the hunger, and thirst, and the disappointment--to bring back his erring child again.