Sermon 3 (Posthumous Works)
The Troubled Heart
Comforted
This sermon was
an early one preached at Cavers, probably, and long before he knew that peace
of mind that can only come from full knowledge of the completed saving work of
Christ. He still rests on "works" and fails to understand, as yet, that Christ
has done it all for us, and we need no qualifications to come to Him. The
quoted "works" come after this!
It is still a good example of his early work, however, and shows how his devout mind could still "kneel and adore".
SERMON III. JOHN XIV. 1.
"Let not
your heart be troubled. Ye believe in God, believe also in me.
It
is remarkable that all the images employed to represent human life are
significant of weakness, instability, and suffering - a pilgrimage, a dark and
toilsome journey, a wilderness of tears, a scene of vanity, a tale of which the
remembrance vanishes, a flower which every blast of heaven can wither into
decay. From the helplessness of infancy to the decrepitude of age the life of
man is an endless scene of care and of anxiety - at one time agitated by the
sufferings of a disappointed ambition, at another labouring under the infirmity
of disease, at another depressed by the hardships of society, at another
humbled under the frown of pride and insolence, at another afflicted by the
awful desolations which death makes among friends and among families. The grave
is said to be a refuge from the pains and sufferings of mortality; but without
the light of the gospel how cold and how dreary are its consolations - what a
dread uncertainty is the region which lies beyond it! The body is laid in the
churchyard; but where is the departed spirit? The hones are mingling with the
dust of the ground; but can the life and sensibility of the mind be
extinguished? The flesh is a prey to worms; but will you say that intelligence
can die, or that the soul of man can wither into nothing? Good heavens! is
there some distant land to which the ghosts of our fathers repair? Do they lift
the voice of joy, or weep in gloomy remembrance over the days that are past?
Does felicity reign in the abode of spirits, or do they mourn that immortality
which condemns them to never-ending years of pain and of solitude? Is the
continuation of life on the other side of the grave a continuation of that
wretchedness which distresses the present existence of mortals? These are
momentous questions, but who is there to satisfy our anxiety? No visitation of
light or knowledge from the tomb - no midnight whisper of departed friend to
tell us the secret of our path; all is doubt and apprehension and impenetrable
silence. Our hearts are troubled within us, and seek for a comforter - and a
Comforter hath come; the day-spring from on high hath visited us; the secrets
of futurity have been laid open; a celestial splendour now sits on the
habitations of darkness; a great deliverer hath appeared, who is the healing of
the nations, and the salvation of all the ends of the earth. He comes with
tidings of comfort: "In my Fathers' house are many mansions. Let not your heart
be troubled; ye believe in God, believe also in me."
In the
prosecution of the following discourse I shall attempt to prove that there is
no trouble to which the heart of man is exposed that a belief in the doctrines
of the gospel is not calculated to purify or to alleviate. But in preaching the
consolations of religion there is one caution that cannot be too frequently
impressed upon the minds of Christians. These consolations can only be
addressed to the sincere - to him who can appeal for the honesty of his
principles to something more substantial than the words of holiness that drop
from his tongue, or to the tears of penitential sorrow that flow from his eyes
- to him who can appeal to the purity of his life, to the integrity of his
bargains, to his deeds of active and disinterested beneficence, to the fair and
open generosity of his proceedings, to that unspotted innocence of character
which no breath of suspicion can defile, no calumny can impeach. It is only to
a character like this that we can address the consolations of the gospel, and
these consolations are the most exalted privilege of humanity. They are the
great remedy against its sufferings. They give triumph and elevation to the
wretched, strength to the infirm, and comfort to the bed of agony and disease.
This is a world of tears; but the gospel tells us that he who soweth in tears
shall reap in joy. It points out to us the peace of a blessed eternity, and
supports the spirit of the afflicted by the triumphant anticipation of better
days. Many are the evils which darken and distress the pilgrimage of the
virtuous. But it is a pilgrimage which leads them to heaven, to those mansions
of felicity where they shall rest from their labours, and all their sorrows be
forgotten. The consolations of the gospel sustain the heart of the unfortunate;
they enlighten the last days of the old man who mourns in all the helplessness
of age; they tell him that the eye of his Redeemer is upon him, and that He
will soon translate him to an inheritance of unfading joy. The gospel is a
dispensation of comfort. It is the good mans' anchor. It bids him rejoice even
in the gloomiest hours of affliction. It chases despair from his bosom, and
though surrounded with all the dreary vicissitudes of this world, he can rise
to the throne of mercy in songs of praise and of gratitude. Such are the
triumphs of our Redeemers' love - such the debt of gratitude that man owes to
his Saviour - to Him who has opened the path to immortality, and given the
inheritance of angels to the frail children of guilt and disobedience - to Him
who has cheered the awful desolation of the grave, and revealed to us the
triumphs of that eternal day which lies beyond it - to Him who came down to
earth with the tidings of salvation, and taught His disciples to believe in the
resurrection of the upright. Our Saviour felt the sufferings of humanity, and
He therefore knew what consolations to apply. He felt the vanity of this
worlds' pleasures, and He secures to us a treasure in heaven. He felt the
cruelty of this worlds' hatred, and He has propitiated for us the friendship of
that mighty and unseen Being whose eye is continually upon us, and whose
benevolence will never desert us. He felt the painful severity of this worlds'
injustice, and lie has revealed to us a day of triumph and of deliverance, when
He will come to exalt the upright, and to vindicate the wrongs of suffering
innocence.
When our Saviour addressed His disciples in the words of
the text, their prospects were dreary and disconsolate. They saw enemies
multiply on every side - the storm of persecution gathering; they saw the
bigotry of a deluded people in arms to oppose them; they saw their numbers
weakened every hour by the desertion of the people; they saw themselves
withering rapidly away into a feeble and unprotected remnant; they saw the
rulers of the country in fury against them, and brooding ever their awful
purposes of vengeance. Such were the last days of the meek and patient Jesus -
deserted by all but a chosen few who still persevered in the fidelity of their
attachment, and rallied round to support Him amid the storm of persecuting
violence. Yes! the disciples of our Saviour have left us a noble example of
friendship and independence. theirs was the pure and generous intrepidity of
the upright. It was the sacred elevation of principle. It was the manly and
commanding attitude of virtue. It was what I would call the sublime of human
character; the serenity of conscious rectitude; a mind enthroned on the firm
and immovable basis of integrity, and that can maintain its tranquillity while
tempests rage, and the blackness of despair gathers around it. What an
interesting picture ! - our Saviour surrounded with the little band of
disciples that still remained to Him among the wreck of His adherents,
sustaining the fortitude of their spirits in the hour of terror. 0 religion!
how sublime thy triumphs - how glorious thy victories! What a sacred
independence dost thou inspire! What a noble superiority over the passions and
weaknesses of mortality! What intrepidity in the day of trial and of danger!
What calm and inward elevation even amid the terrors of martyrdom ! We do not
now live under these terrors; but there is no generation in the history of man
that is exempted from affliction. There is a sorrow in the heart of man which
nothing but religion can alleviate; a trouble that can find no refuge but in
the consolations of piety; a disquietude that can only rest in the hope of
heaven; a darkness which can find no relief but in the faith of the gospel and
in the light of our Redeemers' countenance.
Let me confine myself to a
few of the more striking examples from the catalogue of human afflictions.
There is the infirmity of disease - a sickness which all the administration of
earthly medicine cannot alleviate; a disorder that bears down upon its unhappy
victim, and carries him through years of pain and of languishing to the grave
of silence. There are some into whose gloomy chambers the light of day never
enters; who moan out a dreary existence in the agony of distress; on whom the
hand of Providence lies heavy, and whom disease in the severity of her
visitations has numbered among the children of the wretched. What an
aggravation to the miseries of such a state when it is embittered by the
hardships of poverty; when the man of sickness can meet with no cordial to
sustain him, and no attendance to administer to his necessities; when he has
nothing to trust to but the reluctant charity of a neighbour whom decency has
compelled to come forward with the offering of his services; when he lies
stretched on a bed of restlessness with no child to weep over him - no friend
to support him in the last hours of his pilgrim age - surely you will say such
a man is born to an inheritance of melancholy and despair. But there is no
melancholy which the religion of Jesus cannot enlighten: no despair which His
consolatory voice cannot revive into confidence and joy. Christianity is ever
present to soothe the agonies of the wretched; and in the last struggles of the
dying man you may see the picture of its triumph. He sees death approach him
with an untroubled heart. He believes in God, and he believes in Jesus His
messenger. The grave is to him a refuge from suffering, and the passport to a
triumphant immortality. To him the silence of the tomb is welcome. He lies down
in quietness, but he will again awaken to the light of an everlasting day.
Another example of trouble and distress in the history of man is the
treachery and injustice of neighbours. In preaching the consolations of
religion it is a most unprofitable display of eloquence to dwell upon scenes of
romantic and imaginary distress. Such pictures as those are the mere amusements
of a poetical fancy, and can serve no substantial purpose of comfort or
instruction. If we wish religion to be useful, we must dwell on its application
to actual and everyday occurrences. We must descend to all the realities of
human life. We must accompaily our hearers into their houses, their families,
and their business. We must make them feel that religion is something more than
the dream of fanaticism, or the idle abstraction of a visionary. We must make
them feel its weight and its importance, and shrink from no familiarity however
unwarranted by the example of our great patterns and directors in pulpit
eloquence, or however offensive to the pride of a morbid and fastidious
delicacy. Any other views of religion are vain unprofitable. They only serve to
disguise the human and to throw a false and delusive colouring over the walks
of life. They resemble those works of fiction which may entertainment to the
fancy or amuse the splendours the reader by the splendours of ornamental
eloquence, while they leave no lesson behind them, and can be transferred to no
purpose of substantial improvement. It is under these impressions that I bring
forward the injustice of neighbours as standing high in the catalogue of human
afflictions.
We have all felt it to be of real and frequent
occurrence, and it is certainly one of the most painful feelings to which you
can expose a mind of pure and delicate integrity. I know nothing more
calculated to provoke the indignation of an honest mind than to see the
simplicity of an upright character surrounded by the low arts of knavery and
imposition - trampled upon by the villany of those whom gratitude ought to have
secured to his interest - laughed at and insulted because he has too little
suspicion to guard against the tricks of a sneaking duplicity, and too much
generosity to distrust that man who comes to him under the disguise of smooth
words and an open countenance. The loss which the injured man sustains from the
injustice of his neighbour forms but a small part of his vexation. When a loss
is the mere effect of accident or misfortune, it may not deprive us of a
moments' sleep, or cost us a moments' uneasiness. But when the same or an
inferior loss is the effect of injustice, it comes home to the feelings with a
severity which to some minds is most painfully tormenting. The loss is of
little importance; but who can bear to have the generosity of an open and
unsuspecting confidence insulted - who can bear to be surrounded with
falsehood, artifice, and intrigue - who can bear that most grievous of all
disappointments, the treachery of one who has practised on our simplicity, and
on whose integrity we placed a fond and implicit reliance-who can bear to be
placed in a theatre where malignity and injustice are in arms against us, where
we can meet with no affection to enlighten the solitude of our bosom, no
friendship in which to repose the defence of our reputation and interest. To a
man whose heart rises in all the warmth of affectionate sincerity the treachery
of violated friendship is insupportable. He feels himself placed in a
wilderness where all is dark, and cheerless, and solitary. He resigns himself
to all the horrors of a disordered melancholy, and his spirit sinks within him
under the reflection of this worlds' injustice. But let not his heart be
troubled, he has a friend in heaven. The Eternal Son of God will never desert
him. The angels of mercy smile upon his footsteps, and hail his approach to
their peaceful mansions. There charity never ends. There he will celebrate in
songs of triumph the joys of truth and of righteousness. He will inherit the
affection of the good, and join in those eternal prayers which rise to the
throne of mercy from one blessed and united family.
Another example of
trouble and distress in the history of man is that anxiety which every parent
must feel under the embarrassment of a numerous and unprovided offspring. He
has much to care for. This is a world of vice, and disease, and misfortune. The
death of a child may bring affliction, but what is worse, the corruption of a
child may bring infamy and disgrace upon his family. The love of parents never
leaves their children. From the cry of feeble infancy to the strength and the
independence of manhood, it follows after them, and shares in all their joys
and in all their anxieties. They go abroad into the world, and the hearts of
their parents go abroad along with them. The warmth of a mothers' affection can
never desert them: she hears the howling of the midnight storm, and prays that
Heaven would watch over the safety of her children.
Happy the day of
their return, when the old man gets his sons and his daughters around him. They
are his staff in the years of his infirmity. Sweet to his soul is the hour of
family devotion - when he rises in gratitude to heaven for giving peace to his
last days - when he prays God that He would take care of his children, that
they may live to carry him to the burial-place of his fathers, and that they
may all rise again to rejoice for ever in our Redeemer's kingdom.
"Then kneeling down to heavens' eternal King -
The Saint, the Father,
and the husband prays;
Hope springs exulting on triumphant wing,
That
thus they all shall meet in better days."
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