Now it is this, my brethren, that _we_ want. The world-spirit can rebuke as sharply as the Spirit which was in John; the world-spirit can be severe upon the great when it is jealous. The worldly man cannot bear to hear of another"s success, he cannot endure to hear another praised for accomplishments, or another succeeding in a profession, and the world can fasten very bitterly upon a neighbour"s faults, and say, "It is not lawful." We expect that in the world. But that this should creep among religious men, that _we_ should be bitter--that we, _Christians_, should suffer jealousy to enthrone itself in our hearts--that we should find fault from spleen, and not from love--that we should not be able to be calm and gentle, and sweet-tempered, when we decrease, when our powers fail--_that_ is the shame. The love of Christ is intended to make such men as John, such high and heavenly characters. What is our Christianity worth if it cannot teach us a truthfulness, an unselfishness, and a generosity beyond the world"s?
We are to say something in the second place of the apparent failure of Christian life.
The concluding sentence of this verse informs us that John was shut up in prison. And the first thought which suggests itself is, that a magnificent career is cut short too soon. At the very outset of ripe and experienced manhood the whole thing ends in failure. John"s day of active usefulness is over; at thirty years of age his work is done; and what permanent effect have all his labours left? The crowds that listened to his voice, awed into silence by Jordan"s side, we hear of them no more. Herod heard John gladly, did much good by reason of his influence. What was all that worth? The prophet comes to himself in a dungeon, and wakes to the bitter conviction, that his influence had told much in the way of commanding attention, and even winning reverence, but very little in the way of gaining souls; the bitterest, the most crushing discovery in the whole circle of ministerial experience. All this was seeming failure.
And this, brethren, is the picture of almost all human life. To some moods, and under some aspects, it seems, as it seemed to the psalmist, "Man walketh in a vain shadow and disquieteth himself in vain." Go to any churchyard, and stand ten minutes among the grave-stones; read inscription after inscription recording the date of birth, and the date of death, of him who lies below, all the trace which myriads have left behind, of their having done their day"s work on G.o.d"s earth,--that is failure or--seems so. Cast the eye down the columns of any commander"s despatch after a general action. The men fell by thousands; the officers by hundreds. Courage, high hope, self-devotion, ended in smoke--forgotten by the time of the next list of slain: that is the failure of life once more. Cast your eye over the shelves of a public library--there is the hard toil of years, the product of a life of thought; all that remains of it is there in a worm-eaten folio, taken down once in a century. Failure of human life again. Stand by the most enduring of all human labours, the pyramids of Egypt. One hundred thousand men, year by year, raised those enormous piles to protect the corpses of the buried from rude inspection. The spoiler"s hand has been there, and the bodies have been rifled from their mausoleum, and three thousand years have written "failure" upon that. In all that, my Christian brethren, if we look no deeper than the surface, we read the grave of human hope, the apparent nothingness of human labour.
And then look at this history once more. In the isolation of John"s dying hour, there appears failure again. When a great man dies we listen to hear what he has to say, we turn to the last page of his biography first, to see what he had to bequeath to the world as his experience of life. We expect that the wisdom, which he has been hiving up for years, will distil in honeyed sweetness then. It is generally not so. There is stupor and silence at the last. "How dieth the wise man?" asks Solomon: and he answers bitterly, "As the fool."
The martyr of truth dies privately in Herod"s dungeon. We have no record of his last words. There were no crowds to look on. We cannot describe how he received his sentence. Was he calm? Was he agitated?
Did he bless his murderer? Did he give utterance to any deep reflections on human life? All that is shrouded in silence. He bowed his head, and the sharp stroke fell flashing down. We know that, we know no more--apparently a n.o.ble life abortive.
And now let us ask the question distinctly, Was all this indeed failure? No, my Christian brethren, it was sublimest victory. John"s work was no failure; he left behind him no sect to which he had given his name, but his disciples pa.s.sed into the service of Christ, and were absorbed in the Christian church. Words from John had made impressions, and men forgot in after years _where_ the impressions first came from, but the day of judgment will not forget. John laid the foundations of a temple, and others built upon it He laid it in struggle, in martyrdom. It was covered up like the rough masonry below ground, but when we look round on the vast Christian Church, we are looking at the superstructure of John"s toil.
There is a lesson for us in all that, if we will learn it. Work, true work, done honestly and manfully for Christ, _never_ can be a failure.
Your own work, my brethren, which G.o.d has given you to do, whatever that is, let it be done truly. Leave eternity to show that it has not been in vain in the Lord. Let it but be work, it will tell. True Christian life is like the march of a conquering army into a fortress which has been breached; men fall by hundreds in the ditch. Was their fall a failure? Nay, for their bodies bridge over the hollow, and over them the rest pa.s.s on to victory. The quiet religious worship that we have this day--how comes it to be ours? It was purchased for us by the constancy of such men as John, who freely gave their lives. We are treading upon a bridge of martyrs. The suffering was theirs--the victory is ours. John"s career was no failure.
Yet we have one more circ.u.mstance which _seems_ to tell of failure. In John"s prison, solitude, misgiving, black doubt, seem for a time to have taken possession of the prophet"s soul. All that we know of those feelings is this:--John while in confinement sent two of his disciples to Christ, to say to Him, "Art thou He that should come, or do we look for another?" Here is the language of painful uncertainty. We shall not marvel at this, if we look steadily at the circ.u.mstances. Let us conceive John"s feelings. The enthusiastic child of Nature, who had roved in the desert, free as the air he breathed, is now suddenly arrested, and his strong restless heart limited to the four walls of a narrow dungeon. And there he lay startled. An eagle cleaving the air with motionless wing, and in the midst of his career brought from the black cloud by an arrow to the ground, and looking round with his wild, large eye, stunned, and startled there; just such was the free prophet of the wilderness, when Herod"s guards had curbed his n.o.ble flight, and left him alone in his dungeon.
Now there is apparent failure here, brethren; it is not the thing which we should have expected. We should have expected that a man who had lived so close to G.o.d all his life, would have no misgivings in his last hours. But, my brethren, it is not so. It is the strange truth that some of the highest of G.o.d"s servants are tried with darkness on the dying bed. Theory would say, when a religious man is laid up for his last struggles, now he is alone for deep communion with his G.o.d. Fact very often says, "No--now he is alone, as his Master was before him, in the wilderness to be tempted of the devil."
Look at John in imagination, and you would say, "Now his rough pilgrimage is done. He is quiet, out of the world, with the rapt foretaste of heaven in his soul." Look at John in fact. He is agitated, sending to Christ, not able to rest, grim doubt wrestling with his soul, misgiving for one last black hour whether all his hope has not been delusion.
There is one thing we remark here by the way. Doubt often comes from inactivity. We cannot give the philosophy of it, but this is the fact, Christians who have nothing to do but to sit thinking of themselves, meditating, sentimentalising, are almost sure to become the prey of dark, black misgivings. John struggling in the desert needs no proof that Jesus is the Christ. John shut up became morbid and doubtful immediately. Brethren all this is very marvellous. The history of a human soul _is_ marvellous. We are mysteries, but here is the practical lesson of it all. For sadness, for suffering, for misgiving, there is no remedy but stirring and doing.
Now look once more at these doubts of John"s. All his life long John had been wishing and expecting that the kingdom of G.o.d would come. The kingdom of G.o.d is Right triumphant over Wrong, moral evil crushed, goodness set up in its place, the true man recognised, the false man put down and forgotten. All his life long John had panted for that; his hope was to make men better. He tried to make the soldiers merciful, and the publicans honest, and the Pharisees sincere. His complaint was, Why is the world the thing it is? All his life long he had been appealing to the invisible justice of Heaven against the visible brute force which he saw around him. Christ had appeared, and his hopes were straining to the utmost. "Here is the Man!" And now behold, here is no Kingdom of Heaven at all, but one of darkness still, oppression and cruelty triumphant, Herod putting G.o.d"s prophet in prison, and the Messiah quietly letting things take their course.
Can that be indeed Messiah? All this was exceedingly startling. And it seems that then John began to feel the horrible doubt whether the whole thing were not a mistake, and whether all that which he had taken for inspiration were not, after all, only the excited hopes of an enthusiastic temperament. Brethren, the prophet was well nigh on the brink of failure.
But let us mark--that a man has doubts--_that_ is not the evil; all earnest men must expect to be tried with doubts. All men who feel, with their whole souls, the value of the truth which is at stake, cannot be satisfied with a "perhaps." Why, when all that is true and excellent in this world, all that is worth living for, is in that question of questions, it is no marvel if we sometimes wish, like Thomas, to see the prints of the nails, to know whether Christ be indeed our Lord or not. Cold hearts are not anxious enough to doubt.
Men who love will have their misgivings at times; that is not the evil. But the evil is, when men go on in that languid, doubting way, content to doubt, proud of their doubts, morbidly glad to talk about them, liking the romantic gloom of twilight, without the manliness to say--I must and will know the truth. That did not John. Brethren, John appealed to Christ. He did exactly what we do when we pray--and he got his answer. Our Master said to his disciples, Go to my suffering servant, and give him proof. Tell John the things ye see and hear--"The blind see, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, to the poor the Gospel is preached." There is a deep lesson wrapped up in this. We get a firm grasp of truth by prayer. Communion with Christ is the best proof of Christ"s existence and Christ"s love. It is so even in human life. Misgivings gather darkly round our heart about our friend in his absence; but we seek his frank smile, we feel his affectionate grasp: our suspicions go to sleep again. It is just so in religion. No man is in the habit of praying to G.o.d in Christ, and then doubts whether Christ is He "that should come." It is in the power of prayer to realize Christ, to bring him near, to make you feel His life stirring like a pulse within you. Jacob could not doubt whether he had been with G.o.d when his sinew shrunk. John could not doubt whether Jesus was the Christ when the things He had done were pictured out so vividly in answer to his prayer. Let but a man live with Christ anxious to have his own life destroyed, and Christ"s life established in its place, losing himself in Christ, that man will have all his misgivings silenced. These are the two remedies for doubt--Activity and Prayer.
He who works, and _feels_ he works--he who prays, and _knows_ he prays, has got the secret of transforming life-failure into life-victory.
In conclusion brethren, we make three remarks which could not be introduced into the body of this subject. The first is--Let young and ardent minds, under the first impressions of religion, beware how they pledge themselves by any open profession to more than they can perform. Herod warmly took up religion at first, courted the prophet of religion, and then when the hot fit of enthusiasm had pa.s.sed away, he found that he had a clog round his life from which he could only disengage himself by a rough, rude effort. Brethren whom G.o.d has touched, it is good to count the cost before you begin. If you give up present pursuits _impetuously_, are you sure that present impulses will last? Are you quite certain that a day will not come when you will curse the hour in which you broke altogether with the world? Are you quite sure that the revulsion back again, will not be as impetuous as Herod"s, and your hatred of the religion which has become a clog, as intense as it is now ardent?
Many things doubtless there are to be given up--amus.e.m.e.nts that are dangerous, society that is questionable. What we give up, let us give up, not from quick feeling, but from principle. Enthusiasm is a lovely thing, but let us be calm in what we do. In that solemn, grand thing--Christian life--one step backward is religious death.
Once more we get from this subject the doctrine of a resurrection.
John"s life was hardness, his end was agony. That is frequently Christian life. Therefore, says the apostle, if there be no resurrection the Christian"s choice is wrong; "If in this life only we have hope in Christ, then are we of all men most miserable." Christian life is not visible success--very often it is the apparent opposite of success. It is the resurrection of Christ working itself out _in_ us; but it is very often the Cross of Christ imprinting itself on us very sharply. The highest prize which G.o.d has to give here is martyrdom.
The highest style of life is the Baptist"s--heroic, enduring, manly love. The n.o.blest coronet which any son of man can wear is a crown of thorns. Christian, _this_ is not your rest. Be content to feel that this world is not your home. Homeless upon earth, try more and more to make your home in heaven, above with Christ.
Lastly we have to learn from this, that devotedness to Christ is our only blessedness. It is surely a strange thing to see the way in which men crowded round the austere prophet, all saying, "Guide us, we cannot guide ourselves." Publicans, Pharisees, Sadducees, Herod, whenever John appears, all bend before him, offering him homage and leadership. How do we account for this? The truth is, the spirit of man groans beneath the weight of its own freedom. When a man has no guide, no master but himself, he is miserable; we want guidance, and if we find a man n.o.bler, wiser than ourselves, it is almost our instinct to prostrate our affections before that man, as the crowds did by Jordan, and say, "Be my example, my guide, my soul"s sovereign." That pa.s.sionate need of worship--hero-worship it has been called--is a primal, universal instinct of the heart. Christ is the answer to it. Men will not do; we try to find men to reverence thoroughly, and we cannot do it. We go through life, finding guides, rejecting them one after another, expecting n.o.bleness and finding meanness; and we turn away with a recoil of disappointment.
There is no disappointment in Christ. Christ can be our souls"
sovereign. Christ can be our guide. Christ can absorb all the admiration which our hearts long to give. We want to worship men.
These Jews wanted to worship man. They were right--man is the rightful object of our worship; but in the roll of ages there has been but one man whom we can adore without idolatry,--the Man Christ Jesus.
THE END.
_Spottiswoode & Co., Printers, New-street Square, London_
A SELECTION FROM THE NOTICES
OF
MR. ROBERTSON"S SERMONS,
AND OF THE
LIFE AND LETTERS OF F.W. ROBERTSON.
BY THE REV. STOPFORD A. BROOKE, M.A.
[BLACKWOOD"S MAGAZINE, August, 1862.]
"For while hapless Englishmen complain in the papers, and in private, in many a varied wail, over the sermons they have to listen to, it is very apparent that the work of the preacher has not fallen in any respect out of estimation. Here is a book which has gone through as great a number of editions as the most popular novel. It bears Mudie"s stamp upon its dingy boards, and has all those marks of arduous service which are only to be seen in books which belong to great public libraries. It is thumbed, dog"s-eared, pencil-marked, worn by much perusal. Is it then a novel? On the contrary, it is a volume of sermons. A fine, tender, and lofty mind, full of thoughtfulness, full of devotion, has herein left his legacy to his country. It is not rhetoric or any vulgar excitement of eloquence that charms so many readers to the book, so many hearers to this preacher"s feet. It is not with the action of a Demosthenes, with outstretched arms and countenance of flame, that he presses his gospel upon his audience. On the contrary, when we read those calm and lofty utterances, this preacher seems seated, like his Master, with the mult.i.tude palpitating round, but no agitation or pa.s.sion in his own thoughtful, contemplative breast. The Sermons of Robertson, of Brighton, have few of the exciting qualities of oratory. Save for the charm of a singularly pure and lucid style, their almost sole attraction consists in their power of instruction, in their faculty of opening up the mysteries of life and truth. It is pure teaching, so far as that ever can be administered to a popular audience, which is offered to us in these volumes."
[EDINBURGH CHRISTIAN MAGAZINE.]
"They are Sermons of a bold, uncompromising thinker--of a man resolute for the truth of G.o.d, and determined in the strength of G.o.d"s grace to make that truth clear, to brush away all the fine-spun sophistries and half-truths by which the cunning sins of men have hidden it.... There must be a great and true heart, where there is a great and true preacher. And in that, beyond everything else, lay the secret of Mr. Robertson"s influence. His Sermons show evidence enough of acute logical power. His a.n.a.lysis is exquisite in its subtleness and delicacy.... With Mr. Robertson style is but the vehicle, not the subst.i.tute for thought.
Eloquence, poetry, scholarship, originality--his Sermons show proof enough of these to put him on a level with the foremost men of his time. But, after all, their charm lies in the warm, loving, sympathetic heart, in the well-disciplined mind of the true Christian, in his n.o.ble scorn of all lies, of all things mean and crooked, in his brave battling for right, even when wrong seems crowned with success, in his honest simplicity and singleness of purpose, in the high and holy tone--as if, amid the discord of earth, he heard clear, though far off, the perfect harmony of heaven; in the fiery earnestness of his love for Christ, the devotion of his whole being to the goodness and truth revealed in him."
[CHURCH OF ENGLAND MONTHLY REVIEW.]
"It is hardly too much to say, that had the Church of England produced no other fruit in the present century, this work alone would be amply sufficient to acquit her of the charge of barrenness.... The reputation of Mr. Robertson"s Sermons is now so wide-spread, that any commendation of ours may seem superfluous.
We will therefore simply, in conclusion, recommend such of our readers as have not yet made their acquaintance, to read them carefully and thoughtfully, and they will find in them more deeply suggestive matter than in almost any book published in the present century."
[MORNING POST.]
"They are distinguished by masterly exposition of Scriptural truths and the true spirit of Christian charity."
[BRITISH QUARTERLY.]
"These Sermons are full of thought and beauty, and admirable ill.u.s.trations of the ease with which a gifted and disciplined mind can make the obscure transparent, the difficult plain. There is not a Sermon that does not furnish evidence of originality without extravagance, of discrimination without tediousness, and of piety without cant or conventionalism."
[ECLECTIC REVIEW.]
"We hail with unaffected delight the appearance of these volumes.
The Sermons are altogether out of the common style. They are strong, free, and beautiful utterances of a gifted and cultivated mind. Occasionally, the expression of theological sentiment fails fully to represent our own thought, and we sometimes detect tendencies with which we cannot sympathize: but, taken as a whole, the discourses are fine specimens of a high order of preaching."