What have you to say against the pattern of a true and holy man as laid down in the Bible? The Bible would have you purecan you deny that you ought to be that? It would have you peaceablecan you deny that you ought to be that? The Bible would have you forgiving, honest, honourable, active, industrious. The Bible would have you generous, loving, charitable. Can you deny that that is right, however some of you may dislike it? The Bible would have you ask all you want from God, and ask forgiveness of God for every offence, great and small, against Him. Can you deny that that is right and reasonable? The Bible would have you live in continual remembrance that the great eye of God is on youin continual thankfulness to the blessed Saviour who died for you and has redeemed you by His own bloodwith daily and hourly prayer for Gods Spirit to set your heart and your understanding right on every point. Can you deny that that is all right and good and properthat unless the Bible be all a dream, and there be no Holy and Almighty God, no merciful Christ in heaven, this is the way and the only way to live? Ay, if there were no God, no Christ, no hereafter, it would be better for man to live as the Bible tells him, than to live as too many do. There would be infinitely less misery, less heart-burnings, less suffering of body and soul, if men followed Christs example as told us in the Bible. Even if this life were all, and there were neither punishment nor reward for us after deathdoes not our reason tell us that if all men and women were like Christ in gentleness, wisdom, and purity, the world as long as it lasted would be a heaven?
And do not your own hearts echo these thoughts at moments when they are quietest and purest and most happy too? Have you not said to yourselvesThose Bible words are good words. After all, if I were like that, I should be happier than I am now. Ah! my friends, listen to those thoughts when they come into your heartsthey are not your own thoughtsthey are the voice of One holier than youwiser than youOne who loves you better than you love yourselvesOne pleading with you, stirring you up by His Spirit, if it be but for a moment, to see the things which belong to your peace.
But what can you say for yourselves, if having once had these thoughts, having once settled in your own minds that the Gospel of God is right and you are wrong, if you persist in disobeying that gospelif you agree one minute with the inner voice, which says, Do this and live, do this and be at peace with God and man, and your own conscienceand then fall back the next moment into the same worldly, selfish, peevish, sense-bound, miserable life-in-death as ever?
The reason, my friends, I am afraid, with most of us is, sheer follynot want of cunning and cleverness, but want of heartwant of feelingwhat Solomon calls folly (Prov. i. 22-27), stupidity of soul, when he calls on the simple souls, How long ye simple ones will you love simplicity or silliness, and the scorners delight in their scorning (delight in laughing at what is good), and fools hate knowledgehate to think earnestly or steadily about anythingthe stupidity of the ass, who is too stubborn and thick-skinned to turn out of his way for any oneor the stupidity of the swine, who cares for his food and nothing furtheror worse than all, the stupidity of the ape, who cares for nothing but play and curiosity, and the vain and frivolous amusements of the moment.
All these tempers are common enough, and they may be joined with cleverness enough. What beast so clever as an ape? yet what beast so foolish, so mean, so useless? But this is the fault of stupidityit blinds our eyes to the world of spirits; it makes us forget God; it makes us see first what we can lay our hands on, and nothing more; it makes us forget that we have souls. Our glorious minds and thoughts, which should be stretching on through all eternity, are cramped down to thinking of nothing further than this little hour of earthly life. Our glorious hearts, which should be delighting in everything which is lovely, and generous, and pure, and beautiful, and God-likeay, delighting in God Himselfare turned in upon themselves, and set upon our own gain, our own ease, our own credit. In short, our immortal souls, made in Gods image, become no use to us by this stupiditythey seem for mere salt to keep our bodies from decaying.
Whose work is that? The devils. But whose fault is it? Do you suppose that the devil has any right in you, any power in you, who have been washed in the waters of baptism and redeemed by Christ from the service of the devil, and signed with His Cross on your foreheads, unless you give him power? Not he. Mens sins open the door to the devil, and when he is in, he will soon trample down the good seed that is springing up, and stamp the mellow soil as hard as iron, so that nothing but his own seeds can grow there, and so keep off the dews of Gods spirit, and the working of Gods own gospel from making any impression on that hardened stupified soil.
Alas! poor soul. And thy misery is double, because thou knowest not that thou art miserable; and thy misery is treble, because thou hast brought it on thyself!
My friendsthere is an ancient fable of the Jews, which, though it is not true, yet has a deep and holy meaning, and teaches an awful lesson.
There lived, says an ancient Jewish Scribe, by the shores of the Dead Sea, a certain tribe of men, utterly given up to pleasure and covetousness, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life. To them the prophet Moses was sent, and preached to them, warning them of repentance and of judgment to cometrying to awaken their souls to high and holy thoughts, and bring them back to the thought of God and heaven. And they, poor fools, listened to Him, admired his preaching, agreed that it all sounded very goodbut that he went too farthat it was too difficultthat their present way of life was very pleasantthat they saw no such great need of change, and so on, one excuse after another, till they began to be tired of Moses, and gave him to understand that he was impertinent, troublesomethat they could see nothing wise in himnothing great; how could they? So Moses went his way, and left them to go theirs. And long after, when some travellers came by, says the fable, they found these foolish people were all changed into dumb beasts; what they had tried to be, now they really were. They had made no use of their souls, and now they had lost them; they had given themselves up to folly, and now folly had taken to her own; they had fancied, as people do every day, that this world is a great play-ground, wherein every one has to amuse himself as he likes best, or at all events a great shop and gambling-house, where the most cunning wins most of his neighbours money; and now according to their faith it was to them. They had forgotten God and spiritual things, and now they were hid from their eyes. And these travellers found them sitting, playing antics, quarrelling for the fruits of the fieldmere beastsreaping as they had sown, and filled full with the fruit of their own devices.
Only every Sabbath day, says the fable, there came over these poor wretches an awful sense of a piercing Eye watching them from abovea dim feeling that they had been something better and nobler oncea faint recollection of heavenly things which they once knew when they were little childrena blind dread of some awful unseen ruin, into which their miserable empty beast-life was swiftly and steadily sweeping them down;and then they tried to think and could notand tried to remember and could notand so they sat there every Sabbath day, cowering with fear, uneasy and moaning, and half-remembered that they once had souls!