III. Now this is the advice I give you:--
_a_. Be sure that blame is just before you cast it.
_b_. Be merciful in attributing blame even when it is deserved.
First:--Be sure that you have real cause to cast blame, be sure that you are not committing a great injustice, and doing another a grievous injury which is unmerited.
"Do to others as you would they should do to you." Consider how miserable you would feel were you the subject of unmerited blame.
Secondly:--Be merciful in attributing blame even when it is deserved.
Remember that you yourself are not guiltless. There are things that you have done which deserve censure quite as much as those things you blame in others. One day a woman, taken in adultery, was brought before Christ, and the Jews desired to stone her to death because of her sin. Then our Lord said, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her." And when they heard it, being convicted by their own consciences, they went out, one by one, beginning at the eldest even unto the last.
I say to you: when you are inclined to cast blame, even when just, think, "Am I without sin, that I should judge and condemn another?"
XLVI.
_PETTY DISHONESTY._
9th Sunday after Trinity.
S. Luke xvi, 3, 4.
"What shall I do?--I am resolved what to do."
INTRODUCTION.--The dishonest Steward in to-day"s Gospel shows us the natural tendency of the human heart when in a sc.r.a.pe--to have recourse to dishonesty to escape from it. He knows that he is about to be turned out of his stewardship because he has been wasteful--not dishonest, but wasteful. He has not been a prudent and saving steward, but a sort of happy-go-lucky man who has not kept the accounts carefully, and has been content so long as he has not lost much money.
So soon as he sees himself about to be turned out of his stewardship, he is wakened out of his easy-going ways with a shock, and he says to himself, "Here am I in a predicament! I shall lose my livelihood, and am not likely to get another situation; I am too old to work with my hands for my living, and I have too much self-respect to try. What can I do?--I am resolved what to do. I will cheat my master."
SUBJECT.--I believe that a very similar process goes on now-a-days in a great many hearts. Bad times come. What is to be done? There is nothing for it but to be just a little bit dishonest. Honesty won"t pay. So the manufacturer weaves bad silk, and makes shoddy cloth, and the wine-merchant doctors his wine, and the brewer his ale, and the milkman puts water into his milk, and the b.u.t.terman sells b.u.t.ter made of Thames mud, and the calico is dressed with chalk, and the ready-made clothes come to pieces because the thread"s ends are not fastened, and the farm work is half done, and the whole trade and commerce of the country is one great system of adulteration and petty cheating.
I. Abraham was a very scrupulous man. In all his dealings he was perfectly just and honourable. Once five kings came into the valley of the Jordan, and made a sudden onslaught on the towns there; they carried away all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah, and thoroughly sacked the cities. They did not only that, but they carried off as well a great number of the inhabitants as captives. Then Abraham lent his servants to the king of Sodom to help him to recover the booty and liberate the captives, and there was a battle, the result of which was that the five kings were defeated, and all the spoil and the prisoners recovered. Then the King of Sodom offered Abraham the booty in repayment for his valuable services. He said, "Give me the persons, and take the goods to thyself." But Abraham answered, "No! I will not take from a thread even to a shoe-latchet, and I will not take any thing that is thine, lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abraham rich." Now, this was just an occasion when he might have fairly claimed remuneration from the recovered plunder, but no! he was far too scrupulous. He knew of what that plunder consisted--it was made up of the household goods of the inhabitants of the towns of Sodom and Gomorrah; of all the sticks of furniture, and clothes, and crockery, and household ornaments that the people valued. He would not deprive them of one, lest they should think that Abraham had enriched himself at their expense. He puts an extreme case,--lest some poor woman should lament that she had lost all her thread wherewith to mend her torn clothes, and say, "Ah! I had plenty of thread once, but Abraham has it now," or another should say, "I have no buckle to my shoe, Abraham has taken of the spoil, and my shoe-buckle he has got now."
Well, now listen to what follows immediately. This upright conduct of Abraham so pleased G.o.d, that we read, "After these things the word of the Lord came unto Abraham in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abraham: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward."
How many are there now who act like Abraham? How many who fear lest it should be said of them that they had been enriched by those whose money they had no right to take? There would be fewer failing banks, and the little stores of widows and orphans swallowed up, were the bankers more of the mind of Abraham. There would be fewer swindling speculations swallowing up the savings of the thrifty, if men shrank from taking that which is not lawfully and fairly their own.
II. All purchases, and all agreements for labour, are contracts. The purchaser asks for one thing, and of that thing a certain amount, and if for his money he is given another thing, or a smaller amount than that for which he has paid, then there is dishonesty. If you went to a shop and asked for a pound of tea, and were given something which was not tea, or tea which weighed less than a pound, you would be dealt with dishonestly. So if you go into another shop to buy flannel, and purchase three yards, and then when you come home and measure it, you find that it is six inches short, you would have been dealt with dishonestly. In both cases you would be exceedingly angry with the traders, and justly so. But consider, do you always act justly with your employers? When you are hired for a day"s work, do you give good work? And is the time just measure? Or is there much idling and talking when you are un.o.bserved?
Let there be honour and fairness all round. How would you like to be paid in clipped coin, that was not full weight? And yet you have no scruple in giving clipped time, and work in short weight. I speak plainly about this, for it is a crying evil of the day. There is everywhere apparent a lack of conscientiousness in the dealings of man with man. We used to do a large trade with our manufactures in Europe and the East, and now we have to a large extent lost it--because we have sent out bad material and sold it as good. It is a common complaint that men do not work now as well as of old in every department of industry. They rob their masters of time and labour, which they have contracted to give. Then the masters say, "What shall we do?--we are resolved what we will do, we will make up the loss by adulteration of our goods." Then purchasers discover this and refuse to buy, so the trade of the country declines.
III. Remember, then, in all your transactions, how Abraham dealt with the King of Sodom, and how G.o.d rewarded him for his honesty, and you may be very sure that G.o.d will not overlook you if you deal with others faithfully. The eye of G.o.d is over all, and He sees whether you fulfil your obligations honestly or not, and He will certainly bless abundantly those who recognise His presence. S. Paul bids all who serve others--we all do that in one way or another--do their duty, not with eye-service, as men-pleasers, but as though they were working for Christ, not as if they were doing the will of man, but the will of G.o.d, from the heart, "Knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord."
XLVII.
_THE CONSEQUENCES OF SIN._
10th Sunday after Trinity.
S. Luke xix, 42.
"If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes."
INTRODUCTION.--I spoke to you the other day about the measure of sin, and showed you that there was a certain limit allotted to every man, beyond which he could not go and still expect forgiveness, a point in the downward course at which the Holy Spirit will cease to strive to hold him back. We see in this day"s Gospel that there is also a Day of Grace, a period, that is, during which G.o.d is ready to give pardon and strength and guidance, and that if this Day of Grace be wasted, then those things belonging to our eternal peace which were offered are withdrawn, or hidden from the eyes. This is, in fact, the same thing as what I said about the measure of sin; after a time of sin and neglect, the opportunity for redeeming the past is lost beyond recall, and that time is measured out by the amount of the transgressions of the person or the people with whom G.o.d is dealing.
SUBJECT.--I am not, however, going to speak to you again on this subject from another aspect, but of sin itself, and the consequences it brings. Those consequences we overlook. We believe that G.o.d for Christ"s sake pardons sin and wipes away transgressions, but we forget altogether that He does not deliver us from the consequences of sin, or, at least, not from all of them.
I. Sin is the transgression of G.o.d"s commandment. And it entails three consequences. 1. It separates from G.o.d. 2. It entails punishment. 3. It leaves a stain.
G.o.d has given His Commandments for the good of men. They are the maxims by which they must rule their conduct, in order that the world may go on in peace and orderliness, and that they may remain in communion with Him. Sin is the violation of this law, the break-up of order, the disturbance of peace, and the interruption of communion.
II. _It separates from G.o.d_. When mortal sin has been committed, the flow of divine grace is arrested, just as when something gets into a pipe it chokes it, so that the stream of water can no longer run till the stoppage is removed. Thus the presence of mortal sin in the conscience at once cuts off from the favour of G.o.d, and prevents growth in the spiritual life. The sinner is guilty in the sight of G.o.d, and if he die in unpardoned deadly sin, stands in great danger of being lost.
Now, here it is that Christ intervenes. He reconciles the sinner to the Father, and He takes away the barrier which separates them. He removes the stoppage which interferes with the flow of Grace. In one word, He removes the guilt. That is the work of the Atonement. For this Christ died. But for the Cross of Calvary, man, once alienated from G.o.d by sin, must remain in alienation. "Christ," says S. Paul, "having made peace through the blood of the Cross, hath reconciled all things unto Himself. And you, that were sometimes alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, now hath He reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in G.o.d"s sight."
_It entails suffering_. G.o.d"s law is that all sin must be punished--that is, where there is transgression, suffering must follow.
When a man squanders his fortune by extravagance, he may bitterly repent, but he continues to suffer for his folly. When a man has got drunk, he may be full of sorrow for what he has done, but he has a headache next day all the same. When a woman has lost her character, she may weep tears of bitter repentance, and G.o.d may pardon her as He pardoned Magdalen, but she can never recover her character, and must suffer the consequences of her act. In this world or in the next, all sin must be expiated by suffering. Christ by His death removed the guilt of sin, but not the suffering for sin. S. Peter bids us remember that suffering remains a consequence, for he exhorts us, "Forasmuch as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin." That is, the sin is wholly expiated only when the suffering it brings after it has been undergone.
_It leaves a stain or scar_. No man is the same after sinning as he was before. The sin may be forgiven and suffered for, but the scar remains on his soul. The soul as it leaves the hand of G.o.d is white and innocent, in its pa.s.sage through life it meets with many self-inflicted wounds, these wounds of the soul are sin. Thus it suffers till the wound is healed, and the medicine of the soul is the blood of Christ. The blood heals, but the scar remains. The soul, as seen by G.o.d and angels, is marked all over with the traces of the sins which have torn it. The baptized child is given a robe of innocence white as snow. Every sin is a stain upon it, and if you could see now, as angels see, your baptismal garment, you would find it spotted and smeared all over. Suppose I were to take this surplice and splash it over with ink, I might with much labour take out the ink stains, but never so entirely cleanse it that no trace remains. Or I might walk in it through the bushes, and get it torn with the thorns and brambles.
Then all the rents might be carefully darned up, but--the surplice would never look as sound and beautiful as when new.
This is precisely like the state of the soul after sin, it is torn and stained, and although the sins may be forgiven, and the stains washed, and the rents healed, yet to the end of life the marks remain of where they have been, the effects are uneffaced.
III. Now what are some of these effects? In the first place, every sin weakens the soul. It takes from it not only its innocence, but its power of resistance. Just as a wound weakens you by the loss of blood, so a sin weakens you by loss of resisting power. You are not so strong to fight against evil after sinning as you were before.
In the second place, you have become more careless and even hardened about sin than you were before. When you have a new coat or gown, you are very careful of it that it be not spotted and torn, but once it loses its first newness, you are not so particular, and the more spotted and torn it becomes, the less you care for the injuries done it, you say, "It is an old dress and very much used, another stain or patch does not matter." So with the soul, when you have become accustomed to sinning, you no longer dread sin.
CONCLUSION.--And now remember, in this thy day, the things that belong to thy peace, and dread sin for its consequences, lest by over much confidence you may exceed your measure, and then the chance of recovery will be gone from you for ever.
XLVIII.
_SELF-INSPECTION._
11th Sunday after Trinity.
S. Luke xviii., 13.
"The Publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, G.o.d, be merciful to me a sinner."