But how are such souls recompensed in the earth? Oh! my friends, is not a man recompensed in the earth whenever he can lift up his heart above the earth?—whenever he can lift up his heart unto the Lord, and behold His glory above all the earth? Does not this earth look brighter to him then? The world of man looks brighter to him, in spite of all its sins and sorrows, for he sees the Lord ruling it, the Lord forgiving it, the Lord saving it. He sees, by the eye of faith, the Lord fulfilling His own promise—“where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them”; and he takes heart and hope for the poor earth, and says, The earth is not deserted; mankind is not without a Father, a Saviour, a Teacher, a King. Bad men and bad spirits are not the masters of the world; and men are not as creeping things, as the fishes of the sea, which have no ruler over them. For Christ has not left His church. He reigns, and will reign, till He has put all enemies under His feet, and cast out of His kingdom all that offend, and whatsoever loveth and maketh a lie; and then the heavenly treasure will be the only treasure; for whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are true, pure, lovely, and of good report, if there be any valour, and if there be any praise, those things, and they alone, will be left in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Is not that man recompensed in the earth? Must he not rise each morning to go about his daily work with a more cheerful heart, saying, with Jeremiah, in like case, “Upon this I awaked, and beheld, and my sleep was sweet to me?”
Yes, I see in experience that the righteous man is recompensed in the earth, every day, and all day long. In proportion as a man’s mind is heavenly, just so much will he enjoy this beautiful earth, and all that is therein. I believe that if a man walks with God, then he can walk nowhither without seeing and hearing what the ungodly and bad man will never see and hear, because his eyes are blinded, and his heart hardened from thinking of himself, his own selfish wants, his own selfish sins. Which, for instance, was the happier man—which the man who was the more recompensed in the earth this very day—the poor man who went for his Sunday walk into the country, thinking of little but the sins and the follies of the week past, and probably of the sins and the follies of the week to come; or the man who went with a clear conscience, and had the heart to thank God for the green grass, and the shining river, and the misty mountains sleeping far away, and notice the song of the birds, and the scent of the flowers, as a little child might do, and know that his Father in heaven had made all these?
Yes, my friends, Christ is very near us, though our eyes are holden by our own sins, and therefore we see Him not. But just in proportion as a man walks with God, just in proportion as the eyes of his soul are opened by the Spirit of God, he recovers, I believe, the privilege which Adam lost when he fell. He hears the Word of the Lord walking among the trees of the garden in the cool of the day; and instead of trying, like guilty Adam, to hide himself from his Maker, answers, with reverence and yet with joy, Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth.
Nay, I would go further still, and say, Is not the righteous man recompensed on the earth every time he hears a strain of noble music? To him who has his treasure in heaven, music speaks about that treasure things far too deep for words. Music speaks to him of whatsoever is just, true, pure, lovely, and of good report, of whatsoever is manful and ennobling, of whatsoever is worthy of praise and honour. Music, to that man, speaks of a divine order and a divine proportion; of a divine harmony, through all the discords and confusions of men; of a divine melody, through all the cries and groans of sin and sorrow. What says a wiser and a better man than I shall ever be, and that not of noble music, but of such as we may hear any day in any street? “Even that vulgar music,” he says, “which makes one man merry, another mad, strikes in me a deep fit of devotion, and a profound contemplation of God, the first composer. There is something more of divinity in it than the ear discovers. It is an hieroglyphical and shadowed lesson of the whole world, and of the creatures of God. Such a melody to the ear as the whole world, well understood, would afford to the understanding.” That man, I insist, was indeed recompensed on the earth, when music, which is to the ungodly and unrighteous the most earthly of all arts, which to the heathens and the savages, to frivolous and profligate persons, only tempts to silly excitement or to brutal passion, was to him as the speech of angels, a remembrancer to him of that eternal and ever-present heaven, from which all beauty, truth, and goodness are shed forth over the universe, from the glory of the ever-blessed Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Does any one say—These things are too high for me; I cannot understand them? My dear friends, are they not too high for me likewise? Do you fancy that I understand them, though my reason, as well as Holy Scripture, tells me that they are true? I understand them no more than I understand how I draw a single breath, or think a single thought. But it is good for you, and for me, and for every man, now and then, to hear things which we do not understand; that so we may learn our own ignorance, and be lifted up above ourselves, and renounce our fancied worldly wisdom, and think within ourselves:—Would it not be wiser to confess ourselves fools, and take our Lord’s advice, and be converted, and become as little children? For otherwise, our Lord says, we shall in nowise enter into this very kingdom of heaven of which I have been telling you. For this is one of the things which God hides from the wise and prudent, and yet revealeth unto babes. Yes, that is the way to understand all things, however deep—to become as little children. A little child proves that all I say is true, and that it knows that all I say is true. Though it cannot put its feelings into words, it acts on them by a mere instinct, which is the gift of God. Why does a little child pick flowers? Why does a little child dance when it hears a strain of music? And deeper still, why does a little child know when it has done wrong? Why does it love to hear of things beautiful and noble, and shrink from things foul and mean, if what I say is not true? The child does so, because it is nearer heaven, not further off, than we grown folk.
Ah! that we would all lay to heart what one said of old, who walked with God:—
“Dear soul, could’st thou become a child,
Once more on earth, meek, undefiled,
Then Paradise were round thee here,
And God Himself for ever near.”
SERMON XXX. THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN
Chapel Royal, St James’. 1873.
St. Matt. xxii. 2-7. “The kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain king, which made a marriage for his son, and sent forth his servants to call them that were bidden to the wedding: and they would not come. Again, he sent forth other servants, saying, Tell them which are bidden, Behold, I have prepared my dinner: my oxen and fatlings are killed, and all things are ready: come unto the marriage. But they made light of it, and went their ways, one to his farm, another to his merchandise: And the remnant took his servants, and entreated them spitefully, and slew them. But when the king heard thereof, he was wroth: and he sent forth his armies, and destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city.”