Loe raamatut: «Westminster Sermons», lehekülg 18
SERMON XXVI. GOD AND MAMMON
Matthew vi. 24
Ye cannot serve God and Mammon.
This is part of the Gospel for this Sunday; and a specially fit text for this day, which happens to be St Matthew’s Day.
On this day we commemorate one who made up his mind, once and for all, that whoever could serve God and money at once, he could not: and who therefore threw up all his prospects in life—which were those of a peculiarly lucrative profession, that of a farmer of Roman taxes—in order to become the wandering disciple of a reputed carpenter’s son. He became, it is true, in due time, an Apostle, an Evangelist, and a Martyr; and if posthumous fame be worth the ambition of any man, Matthew the publican—Saint Matthew as we call him—has his share thereof, because he discovered, like a wise man, that he could not serve God and money; and therefore, when Jesus saw him sitting at the receipt of custom, and bade him “Follow Me,” he rose up, and left his money-bags, and followed Him, whom he afterwards discovered to be no less than God made man. “Ye cannot serve God and Mammon.” It is very difficult to make men believe these words. So difficult, that our Lord Himself could not make the Jews believe them, especially the rich and comfortable religious people among them. When He told them that they could not serve two masters; that they could not worship God and money at the same time, the Pharisees, who were covetous, derided Him. They laughed to scorn the notion that they could not be very religious, and respectable, and so forth, and yet set their hearts on making money all the while. They thought that they could have their treasure on earth and in heaven also; and they went their way, in spite of our Lord’s warnings; and made money, honestly no doubt, if they could, but if not, why then dishonestly; for money must be made, at all risks.
St Paul warned them, by his disciple Timothy, of their danger. He told them that the love of money is the root of all evil; and that those who will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition.
St James warned them even more sternly; and told the rich men among the Jews of his day to weep and howl for the miseries which were coming on them. They had heaped up treasure for the last days, when it would be of no use to them. They were fattening their hearts—he told them—against a day of slaughter.
But they listened to St Paul and St James no more than they did to our Lord. After the fall of Jerusalem, even more than before, they became the money-makers and the money-lenders of the whole world. And what befel them? Their wealth stirred up the envy and the suspicion of the Gentiles. They were persecuted, robbed, slaughtered, again and again for the sake of their money. And yet they would not give up their ruinous passion. Throughout all the middle ages, here in England, just as much as on the Continent, they lent money at exorbitant interest; and then their debtors, to escape payment, turned on them for not being Christians; accused them of poisoning the wells, and what not; massacred them, burnt them alive, and committed the most horrible atrocities; fulfilling the warnings of our Lord and His Apostles, only too terribly and brutally, again and again.
Do I say this to make any man dislike or despise the Jews? God forbid. The Jews have noble qualities in them, by which they have prospered, and for the sake of which—as I believe—God’s blessing rests on them to this day. They have prospered: not by their love of money, not even by their extraordinary courage, persistence, and intellectual power; but by their keeping two at least of the commandments, as no other people on earth has kept them. They have kept the second commandment; and hated idolatry, and any approach to it, with a stern and noble hatred, which would God that all who call themselves Christians would imitate. They have kept, likewise, the fifth commandment; and have honoured their parents, as no other people on earth have done, except it may be the Chinese, who prosper still, in spite of many sins. Their family affections are so intense, their family life is so pure and sound, that they put to shame too many Christians; and where the family life is sound, the heart of a people is sure to be sound likewise; and all will come right with them at last: and meanwhile the days of the Jews will be long in whatsoever land the Lord their God shall give them, till the day of which St Paul prophesied, when the veil shall be taken off their hearts, and they shall acknowledge that Christ, whom their forefathers crucified in their blindness, for their King, and Lord, and God; and so all Israel shall be saved. Amen. Amen.
And meanwhile, who are we that we should complain of the Jews now, or the Jews of our Lord’s time, for being too fond of money? Is anything more certain, than that we English are becoming given up, more and more, to the passion for making money at all risks, and by all means fair or foul? Our covetousness is—alas! that it should be so—become a by-word among foreign nations; while our old English commercial honesty—which was once our strength, and protected us from, and all but atoned for, our covetousness—is going fast; and leaving us, feared indeed for our power; but suspected for our chicanery; and odious for our arrogance.
And it is most sad, but most certain, that we are like those Pharisees of old in this also, that we too have made up our mind that we can serve God and Mammon at once; that the very classes among us who are most utterly given up to money-making, are the very classes which, in all denominations, make the loudest religious profession; that our churches and chapels are crowded on Sundays by people whose souls are set, the whole week through, upon gain and nothing but gain; who pretend to reverence Scripture, while they despise the warning of Scripture, that the love of money is the root of all evil.
Have we not seen in our own days persons of the highest religious profession, whose names were the foremost on every charitable subscription list, so devoured by this mad love for money for its own sake, that though they had already more money than they could spend, or enjoy in any way soever, save by saying to themselves—I have got it, I have got it—they must needs, in the mere lust for becoming richer still, ruin themselves and others by frantic speculations? Have we not seen—but why should I defile myself, and you, and this holy place by telling you what I have seen; and what I hope, and hope alas! in vain, that I shall never see again, among those who must needs serve God and Mammon? Has not the love of money become such a chronic disease among us, that we can actually calculate, now, when the disease will come to a head; and relieve itself for a while: though alas! only for a while?
About every eleven years, I am informed, we are to expect a commercial crisis; panics, bankruptcies, and misery and ruin to hundreds; a sort of terrible but beneficent thunderstorm, which clears the foul atmosphere of our commercial system at the expense, alas! not merely of the guilty, but of the innocent; involving the widow and the orphan, the poor and the simple, in the same fate as the rich and powerful whom they have trusted to their own ruin. And yet we boast of our civilization and of our Christianity; and hardly one, here and there, lays the lesson to heart, but each man, like a moth about a candle, unwarned by the fate of his fellows, fancies that he at least can flutter round the flames and not be burned; that whoever else cannot serve God and Mammon, he can do it; and holds, by virtue of his superior prudence, a special dispensation from the plain warnings of Holy Scripture.
But every reasonable man knows what advantages money, and nothing but money, will obtain, not only for a man himself but for his children; and answers me—If I wish to rise in life, if I wish my children to rise in life, how can I do it, without making money?
God forbid that I should check an honourable ambition, and a desire to rise in life. We all ought to rise in life, and to rise far higher than most of us are likely to rise. But I ask you to consider very seriously what you mean by rising in life.
Do you mean by rising in life, merely becoming a richer man; living in a larger house, eating, drinking, clothing, better; having more servants, carriages, plate? Is that to be the highest triumph of all your labours? Is that your notion of rising in life? If it is, you are not singular in your notion. There are thousands who call themselves civilized and Christians, and yet have no higher notion of what man’s highest good may be. But do you mean by rising in life, simply becoming a nobler, because a better man? For if you mean that latter, I seriously advise you to hearken to what the Creator and Governor of all heaven and earth, Jesus Christ our Lord, has told you on that matter, when He said—“Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.”
Seek ye first the kingdom of God. Alas! this money-making generation talks a great deal about religion and saving their souls, being quite indifferent to the serious question—whether their souls are worth saving or not: but as for the kingdom of God, of which our Lord and His Apostles speak so often, they have forgotten altogether what it is. They talk too, a great deal, about the righteousness of Christ: but they have forgotten also what the righteousness of Christ, which is also the righteousness of God, is like.
The kingdom of God; the government of God; the laws and rules by which Christ, King of kings, and King, too, of every nation and man on earth, whether they know it or not, governs mankind, that is what you have to seek, because it is there already. You are in Christ’s kingdom. If you wish to prosper in it, find out what its laws are. That will be true wisdom. For in keeping the commandments of God, and in obeying His laws; in that alone is life; life for body and soul; life for time and for eternity.
And the righteousness of God, which is the righteousness of Christ;—find out what that is, and pray to Christ to give it to you; for so alone will you be what a man should be, created after God in righteousness and true holiness, and renewed into the image and likeness of God. You will find plenty of persons now, as in all times, who will tell you that you need not do that; that all you need, for this world or the world to come, is some righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees; calling that—oh shame that such a glorious and eternal truth should be so caricatured and degraded by man—justification by faith: while all they mean is, justification not by faith, but by mere assent; assenting to certain doctrines; keeping certain religious watch-words in your mouth, and, over and above, leading a tolerably respectable life. But what says our Lord? “Except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven.” Not merely—not dwell in it for ever, but not even enter it, not even get through the very gate, and cross the very threshold, of it. The merely assenting, merely respectable, even the so-called religious and orthodox life will not let you into the kingdom of heaven, either in this life or the life to come. No. That requires the noble life, the pure life, the just life, the gentle life, the generous life, the heroic life, the Godlike life, which is perfect even as our Father in heaven is perfect, because He lets His sun shine on the evil and on the good, and His rain fall on the just and on the unjust. But how will this help you to rise in life? Our Lord Himself answers—and our Lord should surely know—“Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” Have faith in God, and in His promise; and your faith in God shall be rewarded. You shall find that your heavenly Father knows that you have need of all these things; and has arranged His kingdom, and the whole universe, accordingly. The very good things of this world—wealth, honour, power, and the rest, for the sake of which worldly men quarrel, and envy, and slander, and bully, and cringe, and commit all basenesses and crimes—all these shall come to you of their own accord by the providence of your Father in heaven and by His everlasting Laws, if you will but learn and do God’s will, and lead the Christlike and the Godlike life. Honour and power, wealth and prosperity, as much of them as is justly good for you, and as much of them as you deserve—that is, earn and merit by your own ability and self-control—shall come to you by the very laws of the universe and by the very providence of God. You shall find that godliness hath the promise of this life, as well as of the life which is to come. You shall find that God’s kingdom is a well-made and well-ordered kingdom; and that His laws are life, and are far more worth trusting in than the maxims of that ill-made and ill-ordered world of man, which you all renounced at your baptism. You shall find that the promises of Scripture are no dreams, but actual practical living truths, which come true, and fulfil themselves, in the lives and histories of men.
Choose, young men; choose now; and make up your minds which way you will rise in life; by merely getting money; or by getting wisdom and honour and virtue. The Psalmists of old, yea our Lord Himself, tell you what will happen in each case. If you want only to be rich, why then be rich; if you are clever enough. The Lord may give you what you want, in this evil world. He may give you your portion in this life, and fill you with His hid treasure. He may let you heap up money which you do not know how to spend, and be a laughing-stock to others while you live; and after you die, your children will probably squander what you have hoarded; while you will carry away nothing when you die, neither will your pomp follow you: and take care lest you wake, after all, like Dives in the torment, to hear the fearful but most reasonable words—“Son, thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and therefore thou art tormented.” Those words too, I fear, will come true, in this very generation, of many a wretched soul who while he lived counted himself a happy man; and had all men speaking well of him, because he did well unto himself. On whose souls may God have mercy.
Choose, young men: choose; now in the golden days of youth, and strength, and honour, ere you have laid a yoke on your own shoulders—even the yoke of money-worship;—not light and easy, like the yoke of Christ, but heavier and heavier as the years roll on, while you, with fading intellect, fading hopes, and it may be fading credit, and certainly fading power of any rational enjoyment, have still, like the doomed souls in Dante’s Inferno, to roll up hill the money-bags which are perpetually slipping back. I have seen that, and more than once or twice; and it is, I think, the saddest sight on earth—save one. Choose, I say again, then, young men, before you have spread a net round your own feet, which, as in disturbed dreams, grows and tangles more and more each time you move—even the net of greed and craft, which men set for their neighbours; and are but too apt, ere all is done, to be taken in themselves; the net of truly bad society, of the society of men who have set their hearts on making money, somehow or other; and with whom, if you cast in your lot, you may descend—O God, I know full well what I am saying—to depths from which your young spirits now would shrink; till your higher nature be subdued to the element in which it works; and the poet’s curse on all who bind themselves to natures lower than their own come true of you—
Thou shall lower to their level, day by day,
All that once was fine within thee growing coarse to sympathize with clay.
Or you may choose—God grant that you may choose—the other path; the path of the law of Christ, and of the Spirit of Christ; the kingdom of God and His righteousness. And then shall come true of you, as far as God shall see good for your immortal soul, those other promises—
“Come, ye children, and hearken unto me, and I will teach you the fear of the Lord. What man is he that loves life, and would fain see good days? Let him keep his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no deceit. Let him eschew evil and do good; let him seek peace and pursue it. For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and His ears are open to their prayers. . . For the Lord ordereth a good man’s going, and maketh his way acceptable to Himself. Though he fall he shall not be cast away, for the Lord upholdeth him with His hand . . . I have been young, and now am old, and yet never saw I the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging their bread. Flee from evil, and do the thing that is good, and dwell for evermore. For the Lord loveth the thing that is righteous. He forsaketh not His that be godly, but they are preserved for ever.”
Choose that; the better part which shall not be taken from you; for it is according to the true laws of political and social economy, which are the laws of the Maker of the Universe, and of the Redeemer of Mankind. And then, whether or not you leave your children wealth, you will, at all events, leave them an example by which they, and their children’s children, must prosper to the world’s end. And your prayer will be, more and more, as you grow old and weary with the hard work of life—
“I will go forth in the strength of the Lord God, and make mention of His righteousness only. Thou, O God, hast taught me from my youth up until now. Therefore will I tell of Thy wondrous works. Forsake me not, O Lord, in my old age, when I am grey-headed, till I have shewn Thy strength unto this generation; and Thy power unto those that are yet to come.”
To which end may Christ bring us all, of His infinite mercy. Amen.
SERMON XXVII. THE BEATIFIC VISION
Psalm lvii
A Psalm of David when he fled from Saul in the cave.
Be merciful unto me, O God, be merciful unto me, for my soul trusteth in Thee, and under the shadow of Thy wings shall be my refuge, until this tyranny be over-past. I will call unto the most high God, even unto the God that shall perform the cause which I have in hand. He shall send from heaven, and save me from the reproof of him that would eat me up. God shall send forth His mercy and truth: my soul is among lions. And I lie even among the children of men, that are set on fire, whose teeth are spears and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword. Set up Thyself, O God, above the heavens, and Thy glory above all the earth. They have laid a net for my feet, and pressed down my soul: they have digged a pit before me, and are fallen into the midst of it themselves. My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed: I will sing, and give praise. Awake up, my glory; awake, lute and harp: I myself will awake right early. I will give thanks unto Thee, O Lord, among the people, and I will sing unto Thee among the nations. For the greatness of Thy mercy reacheth unto the heavens, and Thy truth unto the clouds. Set up Thyself, O God, above the heavens, and Thy glory above all the earth.
Some people now-a-days would call this poetry; and so it is. But what poetry! They would call it a Hebrew song, a Hebrew lyric; and so it is. But what a song! There is something in us, if we be truly delicate and high-minded people, which will surely make us feel a deep difference between it and common poetry, or common songs; which made our forefathers read or chant it in church, and use it, as many a pious soul has ere now, in private devotion.
David did not compose it in church or in temple. He never meant it, perhaps, to be sung in public worship. He little dreamed that we, and millions more, in lands of which he had never heard, should be repeating his words in a foreign tongue in our most sacred acts of worship. He was thinking, when he composed it, mainly of himself and his own sorrows and dangers. He intends, he says, to awake early, and sing it to lute and harp. Perhaps he had composed it in the night, as he lay either in the cave of Adullam or Engedi, hiding from Saul among the cliffs of the wild goats; and meant to go forth to the cave’s mouth, and there, before the sun rose over the downs, he would, to translate his words exactly, “awake the dawning” with his song in the free air and the clear sky, singing to his little band of men.
And to some one more than man, my friends. For his poetry was poetry concerning God. His song was a song to God. He does not sing of his own sorrows to himself, as too many poets have done ere now. He does not sing to his men; though he no doubt wished them to hear him, and learn from him, and gain faith and comfort and courage from his song. He sings of his sorrows to God Himself; to the God who made heaven and earth; the God who is above the heavens, and His glory above all the earth.
This is the secret, the virtue, the charm of the song; that it sings to God. This is why it has passed into many lands, into many languages, through hundreds and hundreds of years, and is as fresh, and mighty, and full of meaning and of power, now, here, to us in England, as it was to David, when he was a poor outlaw, wandering in the hills of the little country of Judæa, more than 2000 years ago.
The poet says,
A thing of beauty is a joy for ever,
and this psalm is most beautiful, and a joy for ever to delicate and noble intellects. But more, a thing of truth is a help for ever. And this psalm is most true, and a help for ever to all sorrowing and weary hearts. For the Spirit of truth it was, who put this psalm into David’s heart and brain; and taught him to know and say what was true for him, and true for all men; what was true then, and will be true for ever.
And what in it is true for ever? The very figures, the metaphors of the psalm are true for ever. “Under the shadow of Thy wings shall be my refuge”—that is a noble figure; can we not feel its beauty? And more. Do none of us know that it is true? David did not believe any more than we do, that God had actual wings. But David knew—and it may be some of us know too—that God does at times strangely and lovingly hide us; keep us out of temptation; keep us out of harm’s way; as it is written, “Thou shall hide them privately in Thy presence from the provoking of all men. Thou shall keep them in Thy tabernacle from the strife of tongues.” Ah, my dear friends, in such a time as this, when the strife of tongues is only too loud, have you never had reason to thank God for being, by some seemingly mere accident, kept out of the strife of tongues and out of your chance of striving too, and of making a fool of yourself like too many others? The image of the mother bird, hiding her brood under her wings, seemed to David just to express that act of God’s fatherly love, in words which will be true for ever, as long as a brooding bird is left on the earth, to remind us of David’s song; and of One greater than David, too, who said—“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered thy children, as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and thou wouldest not.” God grant that we all may do, when our time comes, that which those violent conceited Jews would not do; and therefore paid the awful penalty of their folly.
And the darker and more painful figures of the psalm: are they not true still? Is not a man’s soul, even in this just and peaceful land, and far oftener in lands which are still neither just nor peaceful—Is not a man’s soul, I say, sometimes among lions?—among greedy, violent, tyrannous persons, who are ready to entangle him in a quarrel, shout him down, ay, or shoot him down; literally ready to eat him up? Are not the children of men still too often set on fire; on fire with wild party cries, with superstitions which they do not half understand, with brute excitements which pander to their basest passions, running like fire from head to head, and heart to heart, till whole classes, whole nations sometimes, are on fire, ready like fire to consume and destroy all they touch; and like fire, to consume and destroy themselves likewise?
Are there none now, too, whose teeth are spears and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword? Such use the pen now, rather than the tongue: but they know, as well as those whom David met, how to handle the spears and arrows of slander, and the sharp sword of insult. Are there none left, who set nets for their neighbours’ feet, by gambling, swindling, puffing, by tricks of trade and tricks of party?—none who, like the Scribes of old, try to entangle men in their talk, and make them offenders for a word; and who, like David’s enemies, fall now and then into the very pit which they have digged, and ruin themselves in trying to ruin others?
My friends, such men will be, as long as there is sin upon the earth. Their weapons are very different now from what they were in David’s time: but their hearts are the same as they were then. “The works of the flesh they do, which are manifest;” and a very ugly list they make; as all who read St Paul’s Epistles know full well.
But such men have their wages. God is merciful in this; that He rewards every man according to his work. And He is merciful to the whole human race, in rewarding such men according to their work. To the flesh they sow, and of the flesh they shall reap corruption. Of old it was written—“The wages of sin are death;” and that, like all God’s words, is a Gospel and good news to poor human beings. For if the wages of sin were not death, what end could there be to sin, and therefore to misery?
But while such men exist, how shall a man escape them? How shall he defend himself from them? Not by craft and falsehood, not by angry replies, not by fighting them with their own weapons. The honest man is no match for them with those. The man who has a conscience is no match for the man who has none. The man who has no conscience does what he wills; everything is fair to him in war; and there—in his unscrupulousness—lies his evil strength. The man who has a conscience dares not do what he likes. His scruples—in plain words, his fear of God—hamper him, and put him at a disadvantage, which will always defeat him, as often as he borrows the devil’s tools to do God’s work withal.
He must give up those weapons, as David threw off Saul’s armour, when he went to fight the giant. It was strong enough, doubt not: but he could not go in it, he said; he was not accustomed to it. He would take simpler weapons, to which he was accustomed; and fight his battle with them, trusting not in armour, but in the name of the living God.
In the name of the living God. That is the only sure weapon, and the only sure defence. In that David trusted, when he went to fight the giant. In that he trusted, when he was hid in the cave. And because he trusted in God, he prayed to God. He spoke to God. Remember that, and understand how much it means. David, the simple yeoman’s son, the outlaw, the wanderer, despised and rejected by men, one who was no scholar either, who very probably could neither read nor write, and knew neither sciences nor arts, save how to play, in some simple way, upon his harp—this man found out that, however oppressed, miserable, ignorant he was in many respects, he had a right to speak face to face with the Almighty and Infinite God, who had made heaven and earth. He found out that that great God cared for him, protected him, and would be true to him, if only he would be true to God and to himself. What a discovery was that! Worth all the wealth and power, ay, worth all the learning and science in the world.—To have found the pearl of great price, the secret of all secrets; I, David, may speak to God.
Ah, my friends, consider the meaning of that. Consider it, I say. For when that great thought has once flashed across a man’s mind, he is a new creature thenceforth. He need speak to no father-confessor or director; to no saints or angels; to no sages or philosophers. For he can speak to God Himself, and he need speak to no one else. Nay, at times he dare speak to no one else. If he can tell his story to God, why tell it to any of God’s creatures?
He is in the presence of God Himself, God his Father, God his Saviour, God his Comforter; Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. God is listening to him. To God he can tell all his sorrows, all his wrongs, all his doubts, all his sins, all his weaknesses, as David told his; and God will hear him; and instead of striking him dead for his presumption or for his sinfulness, will comfort him; comfort him with a feeling of peace, of freedom, of being right, and of being safe, such as he never had before; till all the troubles and dangers of this life shall seem light to him. Let the world rage. Let the foolish people deal foolishly, and the treacherous ones treacherously. For if God be with a man, who can be against him? He has no fears left now. He has nothing to do, save to thank God for his boundless condescension; and to trust on. To trust on. If he has set his heart on the Lord, he need not fear what man will do to him. If his heart is fixed; if he is sure that God cares for him, he will, as it were by instinct, sing and give praise to God, as the bird sings when the rain is past, and the sun shines out once more.
But I think that when a man has reached that state of mind, as David reached it, he will rise, as David rose, to a higher state of mind still. He will rise, as David rises in this psalm, from thoughts about his own soul, to thoughts about God. In one word, he will rise from religion to that which is above even religion, namely theology.
