You may, indeed, keep out ugly thoughts for a time. You may go on wantonly in sin, and worldliness, and self-will. And then, by way of falling deeper still, you may take up with some false sort of religion, which makes people fancy that they know God, and are one of His elect, while in works they deny Him, and their sinful heart is unchanged. Then your mouth indeed may be full of second-hand talk about the gospel. But what gospel? I call that a devil’s gospel, and not God’s gospel, which makes men fancy that they may continue in sin that grace may abound. I call any grace which leaves men in their sins the devil’s grace, and not God’s grace. Certainly it is not the gospel of the kingdom of God; for if it was, it would produce in men the fruits of that kingdom, righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit, instead of the fruits which we see too often, bigotry and self-conceit, bitterness, evil-speaking, and hard judgments, and joy in a most unholy and damnable spirit, not to mention covetousness and deceitfulness, or even in some cases wantonness and lust. And yet such men will often fancy that they belong especially to God, and doubt whether He will have mercy on any who do not exactly agree with them; while in reality God and His kingdom have utterly left their hearts, and they are as blind and dark as the beasts which perish. May God preserve us from that second death which comes on sinners, when, after a sinful youth, their terrified souls begin to cry out in fear at the sight of their sins; and they, instead of casting away their sins, keep their sins, or change old sins for more respectable and safe new ones, and drug their souls with false doctrines, as foolish nurses quiet children’s crying by giving them poisonous medicines. I know men who have fallen, I really fear at times, into that state of mind, and are like those Pharisees of whom our Lord said: “Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?” Even for them it is not too late: but, let them recollect, if the kingdom of God is within them, if they have any feelings of right and wrong left in them, that their covetousness, and lying, and slandering, and conceit, is fighting against God; that these are just what God desires to cast out of them; and that unless they give up their hearts to God, and let Him cast out their sins, and be converted, and become like little children, gentle, humble, teachable, friendly, and kind-hearted, obedient to their heavenly Father, God will cast them out of His kingdom among the things which offend, and bring a bad name on religion; among those very profligate and open sinners whom they are so ready to despise and curse.
XXXVIII.
THE LIGHT.
But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light: for whatsoever doth make manifest is light. Wherefore He saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.—Ephesians v. 13, 14.
St. Paul has been telling the Ephesians who they are; that they are God’s dear children. To whom they belong; to Christ who has given Himself for them. What they ought to do; to follow God’s likeness, and live in love. That they are light in the Lord; and are to walk as children of the light; and have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. As much as to say: Do not believe those who tell you that there is no harm in young people going wrong together before marriage, provided they intend to marry after all. Do not believe those who tell you that there is no harm in filthy words, provided you do not do filthy things; and no harm in swearing, provided you do not mean the curses which you speak. Do not believe those who tell you there is no harm in poaching another man’s game, provided you do not steal his poultry, or anything except his game. Do not believe those who tell you that there is no harm in being covetous, provided you do not actually cheat your neighbours; and that the sin lies, not in being covetous at all, but in being more covetous than the law will let you be.
Do not believe those who say to you that you may keep dark thoughts, spite, suspicion, envy, cunning, covetousness in your hearts day after day, year after year, provided you do not openly act on them so as to do your neighbours any great and notorious injury.
Plenty of people will tell you so, and try to deceive you with vain words, and give you arguments, and texts of scripture perhaps, to prove that sin is not sin, and that the children of light may do the works of darkness. But do not believe them, says St. Paul. They are deceivers, and their words are vain. These are the very things which bring down God’s wrath on His disobedient children. These are the bad ways which make young people, when they are married, despise, and distrust, and quarrel with each other, and live miserable lives together, as children of wrath, peevish, and wrathful, and discontented with each other, because they feel that God is angry with them, just as Adam in the garden, when he felt that he had sinned, and that God was wroth with him, laid the blame on his wife, and accused her, whom he ought to have loved, and protected, and excused.
These are the bad ways which make people ashamed when they meet a good and a respectable person, make them afraid of being overheard, afraid of being found out, fond of haunting low and out-of-the-way places where they will not be seen; fond of prowling and lurching out at night after their own sinful pleasures, because the darkness hides them from their neighbours, and seems to hide them from themselves, though it cannot hide them from God. These are the sins which make men silent, cunning, dark, sour, double-tongued, afraid to look anyone full in the face, unwilling to make friends, afraid of opening their minds to anyone, because they have something on their minds which they dare not tell their neighbours, which they dare not even tell themselves, but think about as little as they can help. Do you not know what I mean? Do you not often see it in others? Have you never felt it in yourselves when you have done wrong, that dark feeling within which shows itself in dark looks? You talk of a “dark-looking man,” or a “dark sort of person;” and you mean, do you not, a man whom you cannot make out, who does not wish you to make him out; who keeps his thoughts and his feelings to himself, and is never frank or free, except with bad companions, when the world cannot see him; who goes about hanging down his head, and looking out of the corners of his eyes, as if he were afraid of the very sunshine—afraid of the light. We know that such a man has something dark on his mind. We call him a “dark sort of man.” And we are right. We say of him what St. Paul says of him in this very epistle, when he says, that sin is darkness, and sinful works the deeds of darkness; and that goodness, and righteousness, and truth, are light, the very light of God and the Spirit of God. Our reason, our common sense, which is given us by God’s Spirit, the Spirit of light, makes us use the right words, the same words as St. Paul does, and call sin darkness.
But rather reprove these dark works, says St. Paul; that is, look at them, and see that they are utterly worthless and damnable. And how? “All things that are reproved,” he says, “are made manifest by the light. For whatsoever makes manifest is light.” Whatsoever makes manifest, that is, makes plain and clear. Whatsoever makes you see anything or person in heaven or earth as it really is; whatsoever makes you understand more about anything; whatsoever shows you more what you are, where you are, what you ought to do; whatsoever teaches you any single hint about your duty to God, or man, or the dumb beasts which you tend, or the soil which you till, or the business and line of life which you ought to follow; whatsoever shows you the right and the wrong in any matter, the truth and the falsehood in any matter, the prudent course and the imprudent course in any matter; in a word, whatsoever makes your mind more clear about any single thing in heaven or earth, is light. For, mind, St. Paul does not say, whatsoever is light makes things plain; but whatsoever makes things plain is light. That is saying a great deal more, thank God; for if he had said, whatsoever is light makes things clear, we should have been puzzled to know what was light; we should have been tempted to settle for ourselves what was light. And, God knows, people in all ages, and people of all religions, Christians as well as heathens, have been tempted to say so, and to misread this text, till they said: “Whatsoever agrees with our doctrine is light, of course, but all other teaching is darkness, and comes from the devil;” and so they oftentimes blasphemed against God’s Holy Spirit by calling good actions bad ones, just because they were done by people who did not agree with them, and fell into the same sin as the Pharisees of old, who said that the Lord cast out devils by Beelzebub the prince of the devils.
But St. Paul says, whatsoever makes anything clearer to you, is light. There is the gospel, and there is the good news of salvation again, coming out, as it does all through St. Paul’s epistles, at every turn, just where poor, sinful, dark man least expects it. For, what does St. Paul say in the very next verse? “Wherefore,” he says, “arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.” “Christ shall give thee light!” Oh blessed news! Christ gives us the light, and therefore we need not be afraid of it, but trust it, and welcome it. And Christ gives us the light, therefore we have not to hunt and search after it; for He will give it us. Let us think over these two matters, and see whether there is not a gospel and good news in them for all wretched, ignorant, sinful, dark souls, just as much as for those who are learned and wise, or bright and full of peace.
Christ gives us the light. This agrees with what St. John says, that “He is the light who lights every man who comes into the world.” And it agrees also with what St. James says: “Be not deceived, my beloved brethren. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from God, the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, nor shadow of turning.” And it agrees also with what the prophet says, that it is the Spirit of God which gives man understanding. And it agrees also with what the Lord Himself promised us when He was on earth, that He would send down on us the Spirit of God—the Spirit which proceeds alike from Him and from His Father, to guide us into all truth. Ay, my friends, if we really believe this, what a solemn and important thing education would seem to us! If we really believed that all light, all true understanding of any matter, came from the Lord Jesus Christ: and if we remember what the Lord Jesus’ character was; how He came to do good to all; to teach not merely the rich and powerful, but the poor, the ignorant, the outcast, the sinful: should we not say to ourselves, then: “If knowledge comes from Christ, who never kept anything to Himself, how dare we keep knowledge to ourselves? If it comes from Him who gave Himself freely for all, surely He means that knowledge should be given freely to all. If He and His Father, and our Father, will that all should come to the knowledge of the truth, how dare we keep the truth from anyone?” So we should feel it the will of our heavenly Father, the solemn command of our blessed Saviour, that our children, and not only they, but every soul around us, young and old, should be educated in the best possible way, and in any way whatsoever, rather than in none at all. The education of the poor would be, in our eyes, the most sacred duty. A school would be, in our eyes, as necessary and almost as sacred a thing as a church. And to neglect sending our children to school, or to leave our servants or work-people in ignorance, would seem to us an awful sin against the Father of lights; a rebellion against the Lord Jesus, who lights every man who comes into the world, and against our Father in heaven, who willeth not that one of these little ones should perish.