Westminster Sermons

So it is not all prayers for help that are heard, or deserve to be heard.  And indeed—I do not wish to be hard, but the truth must be spoken—there are too many people in the world who pray to God to help them, when they are in difficulties or in danger, or in fear of death and of hell, but never pray at any other time, or for any other thing.  They pray to be helped out of what is disagreeable.  But they never pray to be made good.  They are not good, and they do not care to become good.  All they care for, is to escape death, or pain, or poverty, or shame, when they see it staring them in the face: and God knows I do not blame them.  We are all children, and, like children, we cry out when we are hurt; and that is no sin to us.  But that is no part of godliness, not even of mere religion.

But worse—it is still more sad to have to say it, but it is true—most people’s notions of the next world, and of salvation, as they call it, are just as childish, material, selfish as their notions of this world.

They all wish and pray to be “saved.”  What do they mean?  To be saved from bodily pain in the next life, and to have bodily pleasure instead.  Pain and pleasure are the only gods which they really worship.  They call the former—hell.  They call the latter—heaven.  But they know as little of one as of the other; and their notions of both are equally worthy of—Shall I say it?  Must I say it?—equally worthy of the savage in the forest.  They believe that they must either go to heaven or to hell.  They have, of course, no wish to go to the latter place; for whatever else there is likely to be there—some of which might not be quite unpleasant or new to them, such as evil-speaking, lying, and slandering, envy, hatred, malice and all uncharitableness, bigotry included—there will be certainly there—they have reason to believe—bodily pain; the thing which they, being mostly comfortable people, dread most, and avoid most: contrary, you will remember, to the opinion of the blessed martyrs, who dreaded bodily pain least, and avoided it least, of all the ills which could befal them.  Wherefore they are, in the sight of God, and of all true men unto this day—the blessed martyrs.

But these people—and there are too many of them by hundreds of thousands—do not want to be blessed.  They only want to be comfortable in this world, and in the next.  As for blessedness, they do not even know what it means; and our Lord’s seven beatitudes, which begin—“Blessed are the poor in spirit”—are not at all to their mind; even, alas! alas! to the mind of many who call themselves religious and orthodox; at least till they are so explained away, that they shall mean anything, or nothing, save—I trust I am poor in spirit: and nevertheless I am right, and everyone who differs from me is wrong.

The plain truth is—when all fine words, whether said in prayers or sung in hymns, are stript off—that they do not wish to go to hell and pain; and therefore prefer, very naturally, though not very spiritually, to go to heaven and pleasure; and so sing of “crossing over Jordan to Canaan’s shore,” or of “Jerusalem the golden, with milk and honey blest,” and so forth, without any clear notion of what they mean thereby, save selfish comfort without end; they really know not what; they really care not where.  And that they may arrive there or at a far better place; and have their wish, and more than their wish: I for one heartily desire.  But whether they arrive there, or not; and indeed, whether they arrive at some place infinitely better or infinitely worse, depends on whether they will give up selfish calculations of loss and gain, selfish choosing between mere pain and pleasure: and choose this; choose, whatever it may cost them, between being good and being bad, or even being only half good; as little good as they can afford to be without the pains of hell into the bargain.

My friends—What if Christ should answer such people—I do not say that He does always answer them so, for He is very pitiful, and of tender mercy;—but what if He were to answer them, Save you?  Help you?  O presumptuous mortal, what have you done that Christ should save or help you?  You are afraid of being ruined.  Why should you not be ruined?  What good will it be to your fellow-men if you keep your money, instead of losing it?  You are making nothing but a bad use of your money.  Why should Christ help you to keep it, and misuse it still more?

You are afraid of death.  You do not wish to die.  But why should you not die?  Why should Christ save you from death?  Of what use is your life to Christ, or to any human being?  If you are living a bad life, your life is a bad thing, and does harm not only to yourself, but to your neighbours.  Why should Christ keep you alive to hurt and corrupt your neighbours, and to set a bad example to your children?  If you are not doing your duty where Christ has put you, you are of no use, a cumberer of the ground.  What reason can you shew why He should not take you away, and put some one in your place who will do his duty?  You are afraid of being lost—why should you not be lost?  You are offensive, and an injury to the universe.  You are an actual nuisance on Christ’s earth and in Christ’s Kingdom.  Why should He not—as He has sworn—cast out of His Kingdom all things which offend, and you among the rest?  Why should He not get rid of you, as you get rid of vermin, as you get rid of weeds; and cast you into the fire, to be burned up with all evil things?  Answer that: before you ask Christ to save you, and deliver you from danger, and from death, and from the hell which you so much—and perhaps so justly—fear.

And how that question is to be answered, I cannot see.

Certainly the selfish man cannot answer it.  The idle man cannot answer it.  The profligate man cannot answer it.  They are doing nothing for Christ; or for their neighbours, or for the human race; and they cannot expect Christ to do anything for them.

The only men who can answer it; the only men, it seems to me, who can have any hope of their prayers being heard, are those who, like the Psalmist, are trying to do something for Christ, and their neighbours, and the human race; who are, in a word, trying to be good.  Those, I mean, who have already prayed, earnestly and often, the first prayer, “Teach me, O Lord, Thy statutes, and I shall keep them to the end.”  They have—not a right: no one has a right against Christ, no, not the angels and archangels in heaven—not a right, but a hope, through Christ’s most precious and undeserved promises, that their prayers will be heard; and that Christ will save them from destruction, because they are, at least, likely to become worth saving; because they are likely to be of use in Christ’s world, and to do some little work in Christ’s kingdom.

They are God’s: they are soldiers in Christ’s army.  They are labourers in Christ’s garden.  They are on God’s side in the battle of life, which is the battle of Christ and of all good men, against evil, against sin and ignorance, and the numberless miseries which sin and ignorance produce.  They are not the profligate; they are not the selfish, the idle; they are not the frivolous, the insolent; they are not the wilfully ignorant who do not care to learn, and do not even—so brutish are they—think that there is anything worth learning in the world, save how to turn sixpence into a shilling, and then spend it on themselves.  Not such are those who may hope to have their prayers heard, because they are worth hearing, and worth helping.  But they are the people who say to themselves, not once in their lives, not once a week on Sundays, but every day and all day long—I must be good; I will be good.  I must be of use; I must be doing some work for God; and therefore I must learn.  I must learn God’s laws, and statutes, and commandments, about my station, and calling, and business in life.  Else how can I do it aright?  I dare no more be ignorant, than I dare be idle.  I must learn.  But how shall I learn?  Stupid I am, and ignorant, and the more I try to learn, the more I discover how stupid I am.  The more I do actually learn, the more I discover how ignorant I am.  There is so much to be learned; and how to learn it passes my understanding.  Who will teach me?  How shall I get understanding?  How shall I get knowledge?  And if I get them, how shall I be sure that they are true understanding, and true knowledge?  Mad people have understanding enough; and so have some who are not mad, but merely fools.  Wit enough they have, active and rapid brains: but their understanding is of no use, for it is only misunderstanding; and therefore the more clever they are, the more foolish they are, and the more dangerous to themselves and their fellow-creatures.  Knowledge, too—how shall I be sure that my knowledge, if I get it, is true knowledge, and not false knowledge, knowledge which is not really according to facts?  I see too many who have knowledge for which I care little enough.  Some know a thousand things which are of no use to them, or to any human being.  Others know a thousand things: but know them in a shallow, inaccurate fashion; and so cannot make use of them for any practical purpose.  Others know a thousand things: but know them all in a prejudiced and one-sided fashion; till they see things not as things are, but as they are not, and as they never will be; and therefore their knowledge, instead of leading them, misleads them, and they misjudge facts, misjudge men, and earth, and heaven, just as much as the man who should misjudge the sunlight of heaven and fancy it to be green or blue, because he looked at it through a green or blue glass.  How then shall I get true knowledge?  Knowledge which will be really useful, really worth knowing?  Knowledge which I shall know accurately, and practically too, so that I can use it in daily life, for myself and my fellow-men?  Knowledge, too, which shall be clear knowledge, not warped or coloured by my own fancies, passions, prejudices, but pure, and calm, and sound; Siccum Lumen, “Dry Light,” as the greatest of English Philosophers called it of old?

To all such, who long for light, that by the light they may see to live the life, God answers, through His only-begotten Son, The Word who endureth for ever in heaven:—

“Ask, and ye shall receive; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you.  For if ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, much more will your heavenly Father give His Holy Spirit to those who ask Him.”

Yes, ask for that Holy Spirit of God, that He may lead you into all truth; into all truth, that is, which is necessary for you to know, in order to see your way through the world, and through your duty in the world.  Ask for that Holy Spirit; that He may give you eyes to see things as they are, and courage to feel things as they are, and to do your work in them, and by them, whether they be pleasant or unpleasant, prosperous or adverse.  Ask Him; and He will give you true knowledge to know what a serious position you are in, what a serious thing life is, death is, judgment is, eternity is; that you may be no trifler nor idler, nor mere scraper together of gain which you must leave behind you when you die: but a truly serious man, seriously intent on your duty; seriously intent on working God’s work in the place and station to which He has called you, before the night comes in which no man can work.

If a man is doing that; if he is earnestly trying to learn what is true, in order that he may do what is right; then he has—I do not say a right—but at least a reason, or a shadow of reason, when he cries to God in his trouble—

“I am Thine, oh save me, for I have sought thy commandments.”

“I am Thine.”  Not merely God’s creature: the very birds, and bees, and flowers are that; and do their duty far better than I—God forgive me—do mine.

“I am Thine.”  Not merely God’s child: the sinners and the thoughtless are that, though—God help them—they care not for Him, nor for His laws, nor for themselves and their glorious inheritance as children of God.

And I too am God’s child: but I trust that I am more.  I am God’s school-child.  O Lord Jesus Christ, I claim Thy help as my schoolmaster, as well as my Lord and Saviour.  I am the least of Thy school-children; and it may be the most ignorant and most stupid.  I do not pretend to be a scholar, a divine, a philosopher, a saint.  I am a very weak, foolish, insufficient personage; sitting on the lowest form in Thy great school-house, which is the whole world; and trying to spell out the mere letters of Thy alphabet, in hope that hereafter I may be able to make out whole words, and whole sentences, of Thy commandments, and having learnt them, do them.  For if Thou wilt but teach me Thy statutes, O Lord, then I will try to keep them to the end.  For I long to be on Thy side, and about Thy work.  I long to help—if it be ever so little—in making myself better, and my neighbours better.  I long to be useful, and not useless; a benefit, and not a nuisance; a fruit-bearing tree, and not a noxious weed, in Thy garden; and therefore I hope that Thou wilt not cut me down, nor root me up, nor let foul creatures trample me under foot.  Have mercy on me, O Lord, in my trouble, for the sake of the truth which I long to learn, and for the good which I long to do.  Poor little weak plant though I may be, I am still a plant of Thy planting, which is doing its best to grow, and flower, and bear fruit to eternal life; and Thou wilt not despise the work of Thine own hands, O Lord, who died that I might live?  Thou wilt not let me perish?  I have stuck unto Thy testimonies: O Lord, confound me not.

Therefore remember this.  If you wish to have reasonable hope when you have to pray—“Lord, save me:” pray first, and pray continually—“Teach me, O Lord, Thy statutes, and I will keep them to the end.”

SERMON XIII.  THE ONE ESCAPE

Psalm cxix. 67

Before I was troubled, I went wrong: but now have I kept Thy Word.

Let me speak this afternoon once more about the 119th Psalm, and the man who wrote it.

And first: he was certainly of a different opinion from nine persons out of ten, I fear from ninety-nine out of a hundred, of every country, every age, and every religion.

For, he says—Before I was troubled, I went wrong: but now have I kept Thy Word.  Whereas nine people out of ten would say to God, if they dared—Before I was troubled, I kept Thy Word.  But now that I am troubled; of course I cannot help going wrong.

He makes his troubles a reason for doing right.  They make their troubles an excuse for doing wrong.

Is it not so?  Do we not hear people saying, whenever they are blamed for doing what they know to be wrong—I could not help it?  I was forced into it.  What would you have a man do?  One must live; and so forth.  One finds himself in danger, and tries to lie himself out of it.  Another finds himself in difficulties, and begins playing ugly tricks in money matters.  Another finds himself in want, and steals.  The general opinion of the world is, that right-doing, justice, truth, and honesty, are very graceful luxuries for those who can afford them; very good things when a man is easy, prosperous, and well off, and without much serious business on hand: but not for the real hard work of life; not for times of ambition and struggle, any more than of distress and anxiety, or of danger and difficulty.  In such times, if a man may not lie a little, cheat a little, do a questionable stroke of business now and then; how is he to live?  So it is in the world, so it always was; and so it always will be.  From statesmen ruling nations, and men of business “conducting great financial operations,” as the saying is now, down to the beggar-woman who comes to ask charity, the rule of the world is, that honesty is not the best policy; that falsehood and cunning are not only profitable, but necessary; that in proportion as a man is in trouble, in that proportion he has a right to go wrong.

A right to go wrong.  A right to make bad worse.  A right to break God’s laws, because we are too stupid or too hasty to find out what God’s laws are.  A right, as the wise man puts it, to draw bills on nature which she will not honour; but return them on a man’s hands with “No effects” written across them, leaving the man to pay after all, in misery and shame.  Truly said Solomon of old—The foolishness of fools is folly.

But the Psalmist, because he was inspired by the Spirit of God, was of quite the opposite opinion.  So far from thinking that his trouble gave him a right to go wrong, he thought that his trouble laid on him a duty to go right, more right than he had ever gone before; and that going right was the only possible way of getting out of his troubles.

“Take from me,” he cries, “the way of lying, and cause Thou me to make much of Thy law.

“I have chosen the way of truth, and Thy judgments have I laid before me.

“Incline mine heart unto Thy testimonies, and not unto covetousness.

“Oh turn away mine eyes, lest they behold vanity, and quicken Thou me in Thy way.

“Thy word is my comfort in my trouble; for Thy word hath quickened me.

“The proud have had me exceedingly in derision, yet have I not shrunk from Thy law.

“For I remembered Thine everlasting judgments, O God, and received comfort.

“Thy statutes have been my songs, in the house of my pilgrimage.

“I have thought upon Thy name, O Lord, in the night-season, and have kept Thy law.”

This was the Psalmist’s plan for delivering himself out of trouble.  A very singular plan, which very few persons try, either now, or in any age.  And therefore it is, that so many persons are not delivered out of their troubles, but sink deeper and deeper into them, heaping new troubles on old ones, till they are crushed beneath the weight of their own sins.

What the special trouble was, in which the Psalmist found himself, we are not told.  But it is plain from his words, that it was just that very sort of trouble, in which the world is most ready to excuse a man for lying, cringing, plotting, and acting on the old devil’s maxim that “Cunning is the natural weapon of the weak.”  For the Psalmist was weak, oppressed and persecuted by the great and powerful.  But his method of defending himself against them was certainly not the way of the world.

Princes, he says, sat and spoke against him.  But; instead of fawning on them, excusing himself, entreating their mercy: he was occupied in God’s statutes.

The proud had him exceedingly in derision—as I am afraid too many worldly men, poor as well as rich, working men as well as idlers, would do now—seeing him occupied in God’s statutes, when he might have been occupied in winning money, and place, and renown for himself.

But he did not shrink from God’s law.  If it was true, he could afford to be laughed at for obeying it.

The congregation of the ungodly robbed him.  But he did not forget God’s law.  If they did wrong, that was no reason why he should do wrong likewise.

The proud imagined a lie against him.  But he would keep God’s commandments with his whole heart, instead of breaking God’s commandments, and justifying their slander, and making their lie true.

Still, it went very hard with him.  His honour and his faith were sorely tried.  He was dried up like a bottle in the smoke.  It seems to have been with him at times a question of life and death; till he had hardly any hope left.  He had to ask, almost in despair—How many are the days of Thy servant?  When wilt Thou be avenged of them that persecute me?  The proud dug pits for him, contrary to the law of God; contrary to honour and justice; and almost made an end of him upon earth.  The ungodly laid wait to destroy him.

But against them all he had but one weapon, and one defence.  However much afraid he might be of his enemies, he was still more afraid of doing wrong.  His flesh, he said, trembled for fear of God; and he was afraid of God’s judgments.  Therefore his only safety was, in pleasing God, and not men.  I deal, he says, with the thing that is lawful and right.  Oh give me not over to my oppressors.  Make Thy servant to delight in what is good, that the proud do me no wrong.  If he could but keep right, he would be safe at last.

I will consider Thy testimonies, O Lord.  I see that all things come to an end.  Bad times, and bad chances, and still more bad men, and bad ways for escaping out of trouble—they all come to an end.  But Thy commandment is exceeding broad.  Exceeding broad.  There are depths below depths of meaning in that true saying; depths which you will find true, if you will but read your Bibles, and obey your Bibles.  For in them, I tell you openly, you will find rules to guide you in every chance and change of this mortal life.  Truly said the good man that there were in the Bible “shallows where a lamb may drink, and deeps wherein an elephant may swim.”

There are no possible circumstances, good or bad, pleasant or unpleasant, in which you can find yourselves, be you rich or poor, young or old, without finding in the Bible sound advice, and a clear rule, as to how God would have you behave under those circumstances.  For God’s commandments are exceeding broad, and take in all cases of conscience, all details of duty; saying to each and every one of us, at every turn—“This is the way, walk ye in it.”

At least this is the teaching, this is the testimony, this is the life-experience, of a true hero, namely, the man who wrote the 119th Psalm; a hero according to God, but not according to the world, and the pomp and glory of the world.

No great statesman was he, nor conqueror, nor merchant, nor financier passing millions of money through his hands yearly; and all fancying that they, and not God, govern the nations upon earth, and decide the fate of empires.

He was a man who made no noise in the world: though the world, it seems, made a little noise at him in his time, as it does often bark and yell at those who will not go its way; as it barked at poor Christian, when he went through Vanity Fair, and would not buy its wares, or join in its frivolities.  Such a man was this Psalmist; for whom the world had nothing but scorn first, and then forgetfulness.  We do not know his name, or where he lived.  We do not even know, within a few hundred years, when he lived.  I picture him to myself always as a poor, shrivelled, stooping, mean-looking old man; his visage marred more than any man, and his figure more than the sons of men; no form nor comeliness in him, nor beauty that men should desire him; despised and rejected of men: a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief, even as his Master was after him.

And all that he has left behind him—as far as we can tell—is this one psalm which he wrote, as may be guessed from its arrangement, slowly, and with exceeding care, as the very pith and marrow of an experience spread over many painful years of struggle and of humiliation.

I say of humiliation.  For there is not a taint of self-conceit, not even of self-satisfaction, in him.  He only sees his own weakness, and want of life, of spirit, of manfulness, of power.  His soul cleaveth to the dust.  He is tempted, of course, again and again, to give way; to become low-minded, cowardly, time-serving, covetous, worldly.  But he dares not.  He feels that his only chance is to keep his honour unspotted; and he cries—Whatever happens,—I must do right.  I must learn to do right.  Teach me to do right.  Teach me, O Lord, teach me; and strengthen me, O Lord, strengthen me, and then all must come right at last.  That was his cry.  And, be you sure, he did not cry in vain.

For this man had one precious possession; which he determined not to lose, not though he died in trying to hold it fast; namely, the Eternal Spirit of God; the Spirit of Righteousness, and Truth, and Justice, which leads men into all truth.  By that Spirit he saw into the Eternal Laws of God.  By that Spirit he saw who made and who administers those Eternal Laws, even the Eternal Word of God, who endureth for ever in heaven.  By that Spirit he saw that his only hope was to keep those eternal laws.  By that Spirit he vowed to keep them.  By that Spirit he had strength to keep them.  By that Spirit, when he failed he tried again; when he fell he rose and fought on once more, to keep the commandments of the Lord.

And where is he now?  Where is he now?  Where those will never come—let false preachers and false priests flatter them as they may—who fancy that they can get to heaven without being good and doing good.  Where those will never come, likewise, who, when they find themselves in trouble, try to help themselves out of it by false and mean methods; and so begin worshipping the devil, just when they have most need to worship God.  He is where the fearful and unbelievers and all liars can never come.  He is with the Word of the Lord, who endureth for ever in heaven.