Twenty-Five Village Sermons

Did you ever think such thoughts as these?  If you did not, not much matter, for you have all acted, more or less, in your better moments as if you had them.  There are more things in a man’s heart, thank God, than ever come into his head.  Many a man does a noble thing by instinct, as we say, without ever thinking whether it is a noble thing or not—without thinking about it at all.  Many a man, thank God, is led at times, by God’s Spirit, without ever knowing whose Spirit it is that leads him.

But he ought to know it, for it is willing, reasonable service which God wants of us.  He does not care to use us like tools and puppets.  And why?  He is not merely our Maker, He is our Father, and He wishes us to know and feel that we are His children—to know and feel that we all have come from Him; to acknowledge Him in all our ways, to thank Him for all, to look up lovingly and confidently to Him for more, as His reasonable children, day by day, and hour by hour.  Every good gift we have comes from Him; but He will have us know where they all come from.

Let us go through now a few of these good gifts, which we call natural, and see what the Bible says of them, and from whom they come.

First, now, that common gift of strength and courage.  Who gives you that?—who gave it David?  For He that gives it to one is most likely to be He that gives it to another.  David says to God, “Thou teachest my hands to war, and my fingers to fight; by the help of God I can leap over a wall: He makes me strong, that my arms can break even a bow of steel:”—that is plain-spoken enough, I think.  Who gave Samson his strength, again?  What says the Bible?  How Samson met a young lion which roared against him, and he had nothing in his hand, and the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him, and he tore the lion as he would have torn a kid.  And, again, how when traitors had bound him with two new cords, the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him, and the cords which were on his arms became as flax that was burnt with fire, and fell from off his hands.  And, for God’s sake, do not give in to that miserable fancy that because these stories are what you call miraculous, therefore they have nothing to do with you—that Samson’s strength came to him miraculously by God’s Spirit, and yet yours comes to you a different way.  The Bible is written to tell you how all that happens really happens—what all things really are; God is working among us always, but we do not see Him; and the Bible just lifts up, once and for all, the veil which hides Him from us, and lets us see, in one instance, who it is that does all the wonderful things which go on round us to this day, that when we see any thing like it happen we may know whom to thank for it.

The Great Physician healed the blind and the lame in Judea; and why?—to shew us who heals the blind and the lame now—to shew us that the good gift of medicine and surgery, and the physician’s art, comes down from Him who cured the paralytic and cleansed the lepers in Judea—to whom all power is given in heaven and earth.

So, again, with skill in farming and agriculture.  From whom does that come?  The very heathens can tell us that, for it is curious, that among the heathen, in all ages and countries, those men who have found out great improvements in tilling the ground have been honoured and often worshipped as divine men—as gods, thereby shewing that the heathen, among all their idolatries, had a true and just notion about man’s practical skill and knowledge—that it could only come from Heaven, that it was by the inspiration and guidance of God above that skill in agriculture arose.  What says Isaiah of that to the very same purpose?  “Doth the ploughman plow all day to sow? doth he open and break the clods of his ground?  When he hath made plain the face thereof, doth he not cast abroad the vetches, and cast in the principal wheat and the appointed barley and the rye in their place?  For his God doth instruct him to discretion, and doth teach him.  This also,” says Isaiah, “cometh from the Lord of Hosts, who is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working.”  Would to God you would all believe it!

Again; wisdom and prudence, and a clear, powerful mind,—are not they parts of God’s likeness?  How is God’s Spirit described in Scripture?  It is called the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of prudence and might.  Therefore, surely, all wisdom and understanding, all prudence and strength of mind, are, like that Spirit, part of God’s image; and where did we get God’s image?  Can we make ourselves like God?  If we are like him, He must have formed that likeness; and He alone.  The Spirit of God, says the Scripture, giveth us understanding.

Or, again; good-nature and affection, love, generosity, pity,—whose likeness are they?  What is God’s name but love?  God is love.  Has not He revealed Himself as the God of mercy, full of long-suffering, compassion, and free forgiveness; and must not, then, all love and affection, all compassion and generosity, be His gift?  Yes.  As the rays come from the sun, and yet are not the sun, even so our love and pity, though they are not God, but merely a poor, weak image and reflection of Him, yet from Him alone they come.  If there is mercy in our hearts, it comes from the fountain of mercy.  If there is the light of love in us, it is a ray from the full sun of His love.

Or honesty, again, and justice,—whose image are they but God’s?  Is He not The Just One—the righteous God?  Is not what is just for man just for God?  Are not the laws of justice and honesty, by which man deals fairly with man, His laws—the laws by which God deals with us?  Does not every book—I had almost said every page—in the Bible shew us that all our justice is but the pattern and copy of God’s justice,—the working out of those six latter commandments of His, which are summed up in that one command, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself?”

Now here, again, I ask: If justice and honesty be God’s likeness, who made us like God in this—who put into us this sense of justice which all have, though so few obey it?  Can man make himself like God?  Can a worm ape his Maker?  No.  From God’s Spirit, the Spirit of Right, came this inborn feeling of justice, this knowledge of right and wrong, to us—part of the image of God in which He created man—part of the breath or spirit of life which He breathed into Adam.  Do not mistake me.  I do not say that the sense, and honesty, and love in us, are God’s Spirit—they are the spirit of man, but that they are like God’s Spirit, and therefore they must be given us by God’s Spirit to be used as God’s Spirit Himself uses them.  How a man shall have his share of God’s Spirit, and live in and by God’s Spirit, is another question, and a higher and more blessed one; but we must master this question first—we must believe that our spirits come from God, then, perhaps, we shall begin to see that our spirits never can work well unless they are joined to the Spirit of God, from whom they came.  From whom else, I ask again, can they come?  Can they come from our bodies?  Our bodies?  What are they?—Flesh and bones, made up of air and water and earth,—out of the dead bodies of the animals, the dead roots and fruits of plants which we eat.  They are earth—matter.  Can matter be courageous?  Did you ever hear of a good-natured plant, or an honest stone?  Then this good-nature, and honesty, and courage of ours, must belong to our souls—our spirits.  Who put them there?  Did we?  Does a child make its own character?  Does its body make its character first?  Can its father and mother make its character?  No.  Our characters must come from some spirit above us—either from God or from the devil.  And is the devil likely to make us honest, or brave, or kindly?  I leave you to answer that.  God—God alone, my friends, is the author of good—the help that is done on earth, He doeth it all Himself: every good gift and every perfect gift cometh from Him.

Now some of you may think this a strange sort of sermon, because I have said little or nothing about Jesus Christ and His redemption in it, but I say—No.

You must believe this much about yourselves before you can believe more.  You must fairly and really believe that God made you one thing before you can believe that you have made yourselves another thing.  You must really believe that you are not mere machines and animals, but immortal souls, before you can really believe that you have sinned; for animals cannot sin—only reasonable souls can sin.  We must really believe that God made us at bottom in His likeness, before we can begin to find out that there is another likeness in us besides God’s—a selfish, brutish, too often a devilish likeness, which must be repented of, and fought against, and cast out, that God’s likeness in us may get the upper hand, and we may be what God expects us to be.  We must know our dignity before we can feel our shame.  We must see how high we have a right to stand, that we may see how low, alas! we have fallen.

Now you—I know many such here, thank God—to whom God has given clear, powerful heads for business, and honest, kindly hearts, I do beseech you—consider my words, Who has given you these but God?  They are talents which He has committed to your charge; and will He not require an account of them?  He only, and His free mercy, has made you to differ from others; if you are better than the fools and profligates round you, He, and not yourselves, has made you better.  What have you that you have not received?  By the grace of God alone you are what you are.  If good comes easier to you than to others, He alone has made it easier to you; and if you have done wrong,—if you have fallen short of your duty, as all fall short, is not your sin greater than others? for unto whom much is given of them shall much be required.  Consider that, for God’s sake, and see if you, too, have not something to be ashamed of, between yourselves and God.  See if you, too, have not need of Jesus Christ and His precious blood, and God’s free forgiveness, who have had so much light and power given you, and still have fallen short of what you might have been, and what, by God’s grace, you still may be, and, as I hope and earnestly pray, still will be.

And you, young men and women—consider;—if God has given you manly courage and high spirits, and strength and beauty—think—God, your Father, has given them to you, and of them He will surely require an account; therefore, “Rejoice, young people,” says Solomon, “in your youth, and let your hearts cheer you in the days of your youth, and walk in the ways of your heart and in the sight of your eyes.  But remember,” continues the wisest of men,—“remember, that for all these things God shall bring you into judgment.”  Now do not misunderstand that.  It does not mean that there is a sin in being happy.  It does not mean, that if God has given to a young man a bold spirit and powerful limbs, or to a young woman a handsome face and a merry, loving heart, that He will punish them for these—God forbid! what He gives He means to be used: but this it means, that according as you use those blessings so will you be judged at the last day; that for them, too, you will be brought to judgment, and tried at the bar of God.  As you have used them for industry, and innocent happiness, and holy married love, or for riot and quarrelling, and idleness, and vanity, and filthy lusts, so shall you be judged.  And if any of you have sinned in any of these ways,—God forbid that you should have sinned in all these ways; but surely, surely, some of you have been idle—some of you have been riotous—some of you have been vain—some of you have been quarrelsome—some of you, alas! have been that which I shall not name here.—Think, if you have sinned in any one of these ways, how can you answer it to God?  Have you no need of forgiveness?  Have you no need of the blessed Saviour’s blood to wash you clean?  Young people!  God has given you much.  As a young man, I speak to you.  Youth is an inestimable blessing or an inestimable curse, according as you use it; and if you have abused your spring-time of youth, as all, I am afraid, have—as I have—as almost all do, alas! in this fallen world, where can you get forgiveness but from Him that died on the cross to take away the sins of the world?

SERMON V

FAITH

Habakkuk, ii. 4

“The just shall live by faith.”

This is those texts of which there are so many in the Bible, which, though they were spoken originally to one particular man, yet are meant for every man.  These words were spoken to Habakkuk, a Jewish prophet, to check him for his impatience under God’s hand; but they are just as true for every man that ever was and ever will be as they were for him.  They are world-wide and world-old; they are the law by which all goodness, and strength, and safety, stand either in men or angels, for it always was true, and always must be true, that if reasonable beings are to live at all, it is by faith.

And why?  Because every thing that is, heaven and earth, men and angels, are all the work of God—of one God, infinite, almighty, all-wise, all-loving, unutterably glorious.  My friends, we do not think enough of this,—not that all the thinking in the world can ever make us comprehend the majesty of our Heavenly Father; but we do not remember enough what we do know of God.  We think of God, watching the world and all things in it, and keeping them in order as a shepherd does his sheep, and so far so good; but we forget that God does more than this,—we forget that this earth, sun, and moon, and all the thousand thousand stars which cover the midnight sky,—many of them suns larger than the sun we see, and worlds larger than the world on which we stand, that all these, stretching away millions of millions of miles into boundless space,—all are lying, like one little grain of dust, in the hollow of God’s hand, and that if He were to shut His hand upon them, He could crush them into nothing, and God would be alone in the universe again, as He was before heaven and earth were made.  Think of that!—that if God was but to will it, we, and this earth on which we stand, and the heaven above us, and the sun that shines on us, should vanish away, and be no-where and no-thing.  Think of the infinite power of God, and then think how is it possible to live, except by faith in Him, by trusting to Him utterly.

If you accustom yourselves to think in the same way of the infinite wisdom of God, and the infinite love of God, they will both teach you the same lesson; they will shew you that if you were the greatest, the wisest, the holiest man that ever lived, you would still be such a speck by the side of the Almighty and Everlasting God that it would be madness to depend upon yourselves for any thing while you lived in God’s world.  For, after all, what can we do without God?  In Him we live, and move, and have our being.  He made us, He gave us our bodies, gave us our life; what we do He lets us do, what we say He lets us say; we all live on sufferance.  What is it but God’s infinite mercy that ever brought us here or keeps us here an instant?  We may pretend to act without God’s leave or help, but it is impossible for us to do so; the strength we put forth, the wit we use, are all His gifts.  We cannot draw a breath of air without His leave.  And yet men fancy they can do without God in the world!  My friends, these are but few words, and poor words, about the glorious majesty of God and our littleness when compared with Him; but I have said quite enough, at least, to shew you all how absurd it is to depend upon ourselves for any thing.  If we are mere creatures of God, if God alone has every blessing both of this world and the next, and the will to give them away, whom are we to go to but to Him for all we want?  It is so in the life of our bodies, and it is so in the life of our spirits.  If we wish for God’s blessings, from God we must ask them.  That is our duty, even though God in His mercy and long-suffering does pour down many a blessing upon men who never trust in Him for them.  To us all, indeed, God gives blessings before we are old enough to trust in Him for them, and to many He continues those blessings in after-life in spite of their blindness and want of faith.  “He maketh His sun to shine on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.”  He gives—gives—it is His glory to give.  Yet strange! that men will go on year after year, using the limbs, and eating the food, which God gives them, without ever believing so much as that God has given them, without so much as looking up to heaven once and saying, “God, I thank Thee!”  But we must remember that those blessings will not last for ever.  Unless a man has lived by faith in God with regard to his earthly comforts, death will come and put an end to them at once; and then it is only those who have trusted in God for all good things, and thanked Him accordingly in this life, who shall have their part in the new heavens and the new earth, which will so immeasurably surpass all that this earth can give.

And it is the same with the life of our spirits; in it, too, we must live by faith.  The life of our spirits is a gift from God the Father of spirits, and He has chosen to declare that unless we trust to Him for life, and ask Him for life, He will not bestow it upon us.  The life of our bodies He in His mercy keeps up, although we forget Him; the life of our souls He will not keep up: therefore, for the sake of our spirits, even more than of our bodies, we must live by faith.  If we wish to be loving, pure, wise, manly, noble, we must ask those excellent gifts of God, who is Himself infinite love, and purity, wisdom and nobleness.  If we wish for everlasting life, from whom can we obtain it but from God, who is the boundless, eternal, life itself?  If we wish for forgiveness for our faults and failings, where are we to get it but from God, who is boundless love and pity, and who has revealed to us His boundless love and pity in the form of a man, Jesus Christ the Saviour of the world?

And to go a step further; it is by faith in Christ we must live—in Christ, a man like ourselves, yet God blessed for ever.  For it is a certain truth, that men cannot believe in God or trust in Him unless they can think of Him as a man.  This was the reason why the poor heathen made themselves idols in the form of men, that they might have something like themselves to worship; and those among them who would not worship idols almost always ended in fancying that God was either a mere notion, or else a mere part of this world, or else that He sat up in heaven neither knowing nor caring what happened upon earth.  But we, to whom God has given the glorious news of His Gospel, have the very Person to worship whom all the heathen were searching after and could not find,—one who is “very God,” infinite in love, wisdom, and strength, and yet “very man,” made in all points like ourselves, but without sin; so that we have not a High Priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but one who is able to help those who are tempted, because He was tempted Himself like us, and overcame by the strength of His own perfect will, of His own perfect faith.  By trusting in Him, and acknowledging Him in every thought and action of our lives, we shall be safe, for it is written, “The just shall live by faith.”

These things are true, and always were true.  All that men ever did well, or nobly, or lovingly, in this world, was done by faith—by faith in God of some sort or other; even in the man who thinks least about religion, it is so.  Every time a man means to do, and really does, a just or generous action, he does it because he believes, more or less clearly, that there is a just and loving God above him, and that justice and love are the right thing for a man—the law by which God intended him to walk: so that this small, dim faith still shews itself in practice; and the more faith a man has in God and in God’s laws, the more it will shew itself in every action of his daily life; and the more this faith works in his life and conduct, the better man he is;—the more he is like God’s image, in which man was originally made;—and the more he is like Christ, the new pattern of God’s image, whom all men must copy.

So that the sum of the matter is this, without Christ we can do nothing, by trusting in Christ we can do every thing.  See, then, how true the verse before my text must be, that he whose soul is lifted up in him is not upright; for if a man fancies that his body and soul are his own, to do what he pleases with them, when all the time they are God’s gift;—if a man fancies that he can take perfect care of himself, while all the time it is God that is keeping him out of a thousand sins and dangers;—if a man fancies that he can do right of himself, when all the time the little good that he does is the work of God’s Spirit, which has not yet left him;—if a man fancies, in short, that he can do without God, when all the time it is in God that he lives, and moves, and has his being, how can such a man be called upright?  Upright! he is utterly wrong;—he is believing a lie, and walking accordingly; and, therefore, instead of keeping upright, he is going where all lies lead; into all kinds of low and crooked ways, mistakes, absurdities, and at last to ruin of body and soul.  Nothing but truth can keep a man upright and straight, can keep a man where God has put him, and where he ought to be; and the man whose heart is puffed up by pride and self-conceit, who is looking at himself and not at God, that man has begun upon a falsehood, and will soon get out of tune with heaven and earth.  For consider, my friends: suppose some rich and mighty prince went out and collected a number of children, and of sick and infirm people, and said to them, “You cannot work now, but I will give you food, medicine, every thing that you require, and then you must help me to work; and I, though you have no right to expect it of me, will pay you for the little work you can do on the strength of my food and medicine.”—Is it not plain that all those persons could only live by faith in their prince, by trusting in him for food and medicine, and by acknowledging that that food and medicine came from him, and thanking him accordingly?  If they wished to be true men, if they wished him to continue his bounty, they would confess that all the health and strength they had belonged to him of right, because his generosity had given it to them.  Just in this position we stand with Christ the Lord.  When the whole world lay in wickedness, He came and chose us, of His free grace and mercy, to be one of His peculiar nations, to work for Him and with Him; and from the time He came, all that we and our forefathers have done well has been done by the strength and wisdom which Christ has given us.  Now suppose, again, that one of the persons of whom I spoke was seized with a fit of pride—suppose he said to himself, “My health and strength does not come from the food and medicine which the prince gave me, it comes from the goodness of my own constitution; the wages which I am paid are my just due, I am a free man, and may choose what master I like.”  Suppose any one of your servants treated you so, would you not be inclined to answer, “You are a faithless, ungrateful fellow; go your ways, then, and see how little you can do without my bounty?”  But the blessed King in heaven, though He is provoked every day, is more long-suffering than man.  All He does is to withdraw His bounty for a moment, to take this world’s blessings from a man, and let him find out how impossible it is for him to keep himself out of affliction—to take away His Holy Spirit for a moment from a man, and let him see how straight he rushes astray, and every way but the right; and then, if the man is humbled by his fall or his affliction, and comes back to his Lord, confessing how weak he is and promising to trust in Christ and thank Christ only for the future, then our Lord will restore His blessings to him, and there will be joy among the angels of God over one sinner that repents.  This was the way in which God treated Job when, in spite of all his excellence, his heart was lifted up.  And then, when he saw his own folly, and abhorred himself, and repented in dust and ashes, God restored to him sevenfold what He had taken from him—honour, wisdom, riches, home, and children.  This is the way, too, in which God treated David.  “In my prosperity,” he tells us, “I said, I shall never be moved; thou, Lord, of Thy goodness hast made my hill so strong”—forgetting that he must be kept safe every moment of his life, as well as made safe once for all.  “Thou didst turn Thy face from me, and I was troubled.  Then cried I unto Thee, O Lord, and gat me to my Lord right humbly.  And THEN,” he adds, “God turned my heaviness into joy, and girded me with gladness,” (Psalm xxx.)  And again, he says, “Before I was troubled I went wrong, but now I have kept Thy word,” (Psalm cxix.)  And this is the way in which Christ the Lord treated St. Peter and St. Paul, and treats, in His great mercy, every Christian man when He sees him puffed up, to bring him to his senses, and make him live by faith in God.  If he takes the warning, well; if he does not, he remains in a lie, and must go where all lies lead.  So perfectly does it hold throughout a man’s whole life, that he whose soul is lifted up within him is not upright; but that the just must live by faith.

Now there is one objection apt to rise in men’s minds when they hear such words as these, which is, that they take such a “low view of human nature;” it is so galling to our pride to be told that we can do nothing for ourselves: but if we think of the matter more closely, and, above all, if we try to put it into practice and live by faith, we shall find that there is no real reason for thus objecting.  This is not a doctrine which ought to make us despise men; any doctrine that does, does not come of God.  Men are not contemptible creatures—they are glorious creatures—they were created in the image of God; God has put such honour upon them that He has given them dominion over the whole earth, and made them partakers of His eternal reason; and His Spirit gives them understanding to enable them to conquer this earth, and make the beasts, ay, and the very winds and seas, and fire and steam, their obedient servants; and human nature, too, when it is what God made it, and what it ought to be, is not a contemptible thing: it was noble enough for the Son of God to take it upon Himself—to become man, without sinning or defiling Himself; and what was good enough for Him is surely good enough for us.  Wickedness consists in unmanliness, in being unlike a man, in becoming like an evil spirit or a beast.  Holiness consists in becoming a true man, in becoming more and more like the likeness of Jesus Christ.  And when the Bible tells us that we can do nothing of ourselves, but can live only by faith, the Bible puts the highest honour upon us which any created thing can have.  What are the things which cannot live by faith?  The trees and plants, the beasts and birds, which, though they live and grow by God’s providence, yet do not know it, do not thank Him, cannot ask Him for more strength and life as we can, are mere dead tools in God’s hands, instead of living, reasonable beings as we are.  It is only reasonable beings, like men and angels, with immortal spirits in them, who can live by faith; and it is the greatest glory and honour to us, I say again, that we can do so—that the glorious, infinite God, Maker of heaven and earth, should condescend to ask us to be loyal to Him, to love Him, should encourage us to pray to Him boldly, and then should condescend to hear our prayers—we, who in comparison of Him are smaller than the gnats in the sunbeam in comparison of men!  And then, when we remember that He has sent His only Son into the world to take our nature upon Him, and join us all together into one great and everlasting family, the body of Christ the Lord, and that He has actually given us a share in His own Almighty Holy Spirit that we may be able to love Him, and to serve Him, and to be joined to Him, the Almighty Father, do we not see that all this is infinitely more honourable to us than if we were each to go on his own way here without God—without knowing anything of the everlasting world of spirits to which we now belong?  My friends, instead of being ashamed of being able to do nothing for ourselves, we ought to rejoice at having God for our Father and our Friend, to enable us to “do all things through Him who strengthens us”—to do whatever is noble, and loving, and worthy of true men.  Instead, then, of dreaming conceitedly that God will accept us for our own sakes, let us just be content to be accepted for the sake of Jesus Christ our King.  Instead of trying to walk through this world without God’s help, let us ask God to help and guide us in every action of our lives, and then go manfully forward, doing with all our might whatsoever our hands or our hearts see right to do, trusting to God to put us in the right path, and to fill our heads with right thoughts and our hearts with right feeling; and so our faith will shew itself in our works, and we shall be justified at the last day, as all good men have ever been, by trusting to our Heavenly Father and to the Lord Jesus Christ, and the guidance of His Holy Spirit.

SERMON VI

THE SPIRIT AND THE FLESH

Galatians, v. 16

“I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh.  For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary the one to the other.”

The more we think seriously, my friends, the more we shall see what wonderful and awful things words are, how they mean much more than we fancy,—how we do not make words, but words are given to us by one higher than ourselves.  Wise men say that you can tell the character of any nation by its language, by watching the words they use, the names they give to things, for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks, and by our words, our Lord tells us, we shall be justified and condemned.

It is God, and Christ, the Word of God, who gives words to men, who puts it into the hearts of men to call certain things by certain names; and, according to a nation’s godliness, and wisdom, and purity of heart, will be its power of using words discreetly and reverently.  That miracle of the gift of tongues, of which we read in the New Testament, would have been still most precious and full of meaning if it had had no other use than this—to teach men from whom words come.  When men found themselves all of a sudden inspired to talk in foreign languages which they had never learnt, to utter words of which they themselves did not know the meaning, do you not see how it must have made them feel that all language is God’s making and God’s giving?  Do you not see how it must have made them feel what awful, mysterious things words were, like those cloven tongues of fire which fell on the apostles?  The tongues of fire signified the difficult foreign languages which they suddenly began to speak as the Spirit gave them utterance.  And where did the tongues of fire come from?  Not out of themselves, not out of the earth beneath, but down from the heaven above, to signify that it is not from man, from man’s flesh or brain, or the earthly part of him, that words are bred, but that they come down from Christ the Word of God, and are breathed into the minds of men by the Spirit of God.  Why do I speak of all this?  To make you feel what awful, wonderful things words are; how, when you want to understand the meaning of a word, you must set to work with reverence and godly fear—not in self-conceit and prejudice, taking the word to mean just what suits your own notions of things, but trying humbly to find out what the word really does mean of itself, what God meant it to mean when He put it into the hearts of wise men to use that word and bring it into our English language.  A man ought to read a newspaper or a story-book in that spirit; how much more, when he takes up the Bible!  How reverently he ought to examine every word in the New Testament—this very text, for instance.  We ought to be sure that St. Paul, just because he was an inspired apostle, used the very best possible words to express what he meant on so important a matter; and what are the best words?  The clearest and the simplest words are the best words; else how is the Bible to be the poor man’s book?  How, unless the wayfaring man, though simple, shall not err therein?  Therefore we may be sure the words in Scripture are certain to be used in their simplest, most natural, most everyday meaning, such as the simplest man can understand.  And, therefore, we may be sure, that these two words, “flesh” and “spirit,” in my text, are used in their very simplest, straightforward sense; and that St. Paul meant by them what working-men mean by them in the affairs of daily life.  No doubt St. Peter says that there are many things in St. Paul’s writings difficult to be understood, which those who are unlearned and unstable wrest to their own destruction; and, most true it is, so they do daily.  But what does “wresting” a thing mean?  It means twisting it, bending it, turning it out of its original straightforward, natural meaning, into some new crooked meaning of their own.  This is the way we are all of us too apt, I am afraid, to come to St. Paul’s Epistles.  We find him difficult because we won’t take him at his word, because we tear a text out of its right place in the chapter—the place where St. Paul put it, and make it stand by itself, instead of letting the rest of the chapter explain its meaning.  And then, again, people use the words in the text as unfairly and unreasonably as they use the text itself, they won’t let the words have their common-sense English meaning—they must stick a new meaning on them of their own.  ‘Oh,’ they say, ‘that text must not be taken literally, that word has a spiritual signification here.  Flesh does not mean flesh, it means men’s corrupt nature;’ little thinking all the while that perhaps they understand those words, spiritual, and corrupt, and nature, just as ill as they do the rest of the text.

How much better, my friends, to let the Bible tell its own story; not to be so exceeding wise above what is written, just to believe that St. Paul knew better how to use words than we are likely to do,—just to believe that when he says flesh he means flesh.  Everybody agrees that when he says spirit he means spirit, why, in the name of common sense, when he says flesh should he not mean flesh?  For my own part I believe that when St. Paul talks of man’s flesh, he means by it man’s body, man’s heart and brain, and all his bodily appetites and powers—what we call a man’s constitution; in a word, the animal part of man, just what a man has in common with the beasts who perish.

To understand what I mean, consider any animal—a dog, for instance—how much every animal has in it what men have,—a body, and brain, and heart; it hungers and thirsts as we do, it can feel pleasure and pain, anger and loneliness, and fear and madness; it likes freedom, company, and exercise, praise and petting, play and ease; it uses a great deal of cunning, and thought, and courage, to get itself food and shelter, just as human beings do: in short, it has a fleshly nature, just as we have, and yet, after all, it is but an animal, and so, in one sense, we are all animals, only more delicately made than the other animals; but we are something more, we have a spirit as well as a flesh, an immortal soul.  If any one asks, what is a man? the true answer is, an animal with an immortal spirit in it; and this spirit can feel more than pleasure and pain, which are mere carnal, that is, fleshly things; it can feel trust, and hope, and peace, and love, and purity, and nobleness, and independence, and, above all, it can feel right and wrong.  There is the infinite difference between an animal and a man, between our flesh and our spirit; an animal has no sense of right and wrong; a dog who has done wrong is often terrified, but not because he feels it wrong and wicked, but because he knows from experience that he will be punished for doing it: just so with a man’s fleshly nature;—a carnal, fleshly man, a man whose spirit is dead within him, whose spiritual sense of right and wrong, and honour and purity, is gone, when he has done a wrong thing is often enough afraid; but why?  Not for any spiritual reason, not because he feels it a wicked and abominable thing, a sin, but because he is afraid of being punished for it, because he is afraid that his body, his flesh will be punished by the laws of the land, or by public opinion, or because he has some dim belief that this same body and flesh of his will be burnt in hell-fire; and fire, he knows by experience, is a painful thing—and so he is afraid