The Noblest Art.
i. 17. Learn to do well.
I. To do well is a thing that requires to be learned. 1. It does not come to us naturally, as breathing and sleeping do. That which comes to us naturally is to do evil. This is manifest in every child: it needs no teaching to do evil, but it needs a great deal of teaching before it will habitually do well. Nor does proficiency in well-doing come to us even with our new birth. Then come new desires after righteousness, but the knowledge and practice of righteousness have to be learned.[1] At our new birth we are born “babes in Christ:” manhood in Christ is reached only by growth.[2] 2. It is not a thing we acquire unconsciously, as infants learn to see and hear, or as older persons acquire the accent of the country in which they reside, or as invalids gain health at the seaside. Living in a religious atmosphere will not of itself make us religious, nor will mere companionship with good men. Association with artists will not of itself make a man an artist; and association with Christians will not of itself make any man a Christian. Judas was in constant association with Christ himself for more than three years, and at the end of that period, instead of doing well, he committed he foulest of all crimes. To do well is an art, and, like every other art, it can be mastered only by deliberate efforts of the will.[3] This is the testimony both of Scripture and experience. (See [preceding outline.])
II. To do well is a thing that may be learned. Not all persons, however earnest their desires or persevering their efforts, can become poets, painters, statesman, orators. But to do well is an art in which all regenerate persons may become proficient, some with greater ease than others, but to none is the task impossible. There is no vice which a regenerate man may not lay aside, no excellence to which he may not attain.
III. To do well is a thing that must be learned. It is an imperative demand which God makes upon all His people. We cannot satisfy it by “ceasing to do evil.” It is not enough for the “branches” of the True Vine not to bring forth “wild grapes;” they must bear fruit—much fruit—to the glory of the Husbandman (John xv. 8). Not only must Christ’s followers be “blameless,” they must be conspicuous for excellence. “Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” These truths being settled in our minds, let us ask ourselves.
IV. How this noblest of arts may be acquired. 1. By setting before ourselves, and carefully studying, the noblest models. Thus do those who would become proficient in other arts: music, painting, sculpture, architecture, &c. Now the great Master in the art of well-doing was our Lord Jesus Christ: we must therefore study Him and His works. But as it is often a help to the discovery of the secrets of a great master’s excellences to study the works of his disciples, as thus our attention is sometimes directed to points we might otherwise overlook, and as by the contrast between him and them, even when they have done their best, we get a clearer view of his transcendent power—so it will be helpful to us to study the character of Christ’s noblest disciples,[4]—always, however, coming back to the study of His character, remembering that we shall succeed in doing well only in proportion as we become like Him. 2. By becoming imbued with the principles by which the great masters in this art were animated. Mere mechanical imitation is always a poor thing, and often a grotesque and pitiable thing; because circumstances are continually varying. What kind of an English home would the most exact reproduction of the most beautiful of all classic villas be? The architect who forgot that the climate of England is not like that of Rome or Athens would be accounted a fool. Yet many professed imitators of Christ have fallen into a similar mistake; they have imitated merely the outward circumstances of His life, and have forgotten that the essential thing it to have “the mind that was in Christ.” When we have that, all else will follow as a matter of course. Now the great principle which governed Christ and His noblest disciples was love—love to God and man: a docile love, which did not seek to please God in its way, but in His way, and evermore searched the Scriptures to discover upon what things God looks with delight. 3. By patient and persevering endeavours to embody in our practice the truths we have thus discovered. Only by such endeavours can the mastery in any art be won. 4. By fidelity in little things. The master’s ease is reached only by the student’s painstaking—by his careful endeavour to be right in each individual note, line, shade, stroke, word. It is thus, and thus only, that the habit of doing well is gained.
V. Let us remember certain things for our own encouragement. 1. We are not left to learn this art alone: we have the constant help of the most reasonable, patient, and successful of all teachers. We are disciples of Christ. How much that means! He does not expect us to become proficients in a few lessons. He remembers that the most advanced of us are only little children in His great school. If He sees in us the earnest desire and the resolute endeavour to learn, He is well satisfied.[5] He will most carefully adapt His methods of instruction to our individual capacity. He will lead us on to the goal step by step. Already in countless thousands of instances He has dealt successfully with most intractable materials: scholars who seemed hopelessly dull and inapt He has so instructed that they have passed the great examination that awaits us all at death; and they are now carrying on their studies in the great university of heaven. 2. In no other art does progress bring so much happiness: the testimony of a good conscience; consciousness of the approval of God; a pleasant retrospect, brightening hopes. 3. In no other art does proficiency ensure such rich rewards. Proficiency in any other art can but win for us the honours and joys of earth; proficiency in this will secure for us the honours and joys of heaven. It is one great doctrine of Scripture, that we are saved through our faith: it is another, that we are rewarded according to our works.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The process of being born again is like that which a portrait goes through under the hand of the artist. When a man is converted, he is but the outline sketch of a character which he is to fill up. He first lays in the dead colouring. Then come the work of laying in the colours, and he goes on, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, blending them, and heightening the effect. It is a life’s work; and when he dies he is still laying in and blending the colours, and heightening the effect. And if men suppose the work is done when they are converted, why should we expect anything but lopsided Christian character?—Beecher.
Who starts up a finished Christian? The very best men come from their graves, like Lazarus, “bound with grave-clothes,”—not like Jesus, who left the death-dress behind Him; and, alas! in their remaining corruptions all carry some of these cerements about with them, nor drop them but at the gate of heaven.—Guthrie.
[2] God deals in spiritual proceedings, as in natural, to extremes by the mean. We are not born old men; but first an infant, then a man, then old. We are conceived of immortal seed, born of the Spirit, so go on to perfection. There is first a seed, then a plant, then a tree. We go not at one jump into heaven, nor at one stroke kill the enemy.—Adams, 1643.
[3] Cast a sponge into water, and, the fluid filling its empty cells, it swells out before our eyes, increases more and more. There is no effort here, and could be none; for though once a living animal, the sponge is now dead and dry. But it is not as sponges fill with water, nor to use a Scripture figure often employed, and sometimes misapplied, as Gideon’s fleece was filled with dews, that God’s people are replenished with His grace. More is needed than simply to bring ourselves in contact with ordinances, to read the Bible, to repair on Sabbath to Church, to sit down in communion seasons at the Lord’s table.—Guthrie.
[4] God hath provided and recommended to us one example as a perfect standard of good practice—the example of our Lord. That indeed is the most universal, absolute, and assured pattern; yet doth it not supersede the use of other examples. Not only the valour and conduct of the general, but those of inferior officers, yea the resolution of common soldiers, doth serve to animate their fellows. The stars have their season to guide us as well as the sun; especially when our eyes are so weak as hardly to bear the day. Even considering our infirmity, inferior examples by their imperfection sometimes have a peculiar advantage. Our Lord’s most imitable practice did proceed from an immense virtue of Divine grace which we cannot arrive to; it is in itself so perfect and high, that we may not ever reach it: looking upon it may therefore sometimes dazzle and discourage our weakness. But other good men had assistance in measure such as we may hope to approach unto; they were subject to the difficulties which we feel; they were exposed to the perils of falling which we fear; we may therefore hope to march on in a reasonable distance after them; we may, by help of the same grace, come near in transcribing their less exact copy.—Barrow, 1630–1677.
[5] Gotthold observed a boy in a writing-school eyeing attentively the line placed before him, and labouring to write with equal correctness and beauty. Mark, said he to the bystanders, how all perfection is the offspring of imperfection, and how by frequent mistakes we learn to do well. It is not required of this boy that his penmanship shall equal that of the line. He satisfies his master by the pains he takes; for these are a ground of hope that he will progressively improve, and at last learn to write with rapidity and elegance. We also have a pattern to copy. It has been left us by the Lord Jesus Christ, and is His most perfect and holy life. And think not that He extracts more from us than the teacher does from the pupil. No, indeed; if He find us carefully studying His example, and diligent in our endeavours to imitate it, He exercises forbearance towards our faults, and by His grace and Spirit daily strengthens us to amend.—Scriver, 1629–1693.