Sermons Preached at Brighton / Third Series

by Frederick William Robertson

But let us examine more deeply this assertion, that our nature is kindred with that of God—for if man has not a nature kindred to God's, then a demand such as that, “Be ye the children of”—that is, like—“God,” is but a mockery of man. We say then, in the first place, that in the truest sense of the word man can be a creator. The beaver makes its hole, the bee makes its cell; man alone has the power of creating. The mason makes, the architect creates. In the same sense that we say God created the universe, we say that man is also a creator. The creation of the universe was the Eternal Thought taking reality. And thought taking expression is also a creation. Whenever therefore, there is a living thought shaping itself in word or in stone, there is there a creation. And therefore it is, that the simplest effort of what we call genius is prized infinitely more than the most elaborate performances which are done by mere workmanship, and for this reason: that the one is produced by an effort of power which we share with the beaver and the bee, that of making, and the other by a faculty and power which man alone shares with God.

Here however, you will observe another difficulty. It will be said at once—there is something in this comparison of man with God which looks like blasphemy, because one is finite and the other infinite—man is bounded, God boundless; and to speak of resemblance and kindred between these two, is to speak of resemblance and kindred between two natures essentially different. But this is precisely the argument which is brought by the Socinians against the doctrine of the incarnation; and we are bound to add that the Socinian argument is right, unless there be the similarity of which we have been speaking. Unless there be something in man's nature which truly and properly partakes of the divine nature, there could be no incarnation, and the demand for perfection would be a mockery and an impossibility.

Let us then endeavour to find out the evidences of this infinitude in the nature of man. First of all we find it in this—that the desires of man are for something boundless and unattainable. Thus speaks our Lord—“What shall it profit a man if he should gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” Every schoolboy has heard the story of the youthful prince who enumerated one by one the countries he meant to conquer year after year; and when the enumeration was completed, was asked what he meant to do when all those victories were achieved, and he replied—to sit down, to be happy, to take his rest. But then came the ready rejoinder—Why not do so now? But it is not every schoolboy who has paused to consider the folly of the question. He who asked his son why he did not at once take the rest which it was his ultimate purpose to enjoy, knew not the immensity and nobility of the human soul. He could not then take his rest and be happy. As long as one realm remained unconquered, so long rest was impossible; he would weep for fresh worlds to conquer. And thus, that which was spoken by our Lord of one earthly gratification, is true of all—“Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again.” The boundless, endless, infinite void in the soul of man can be satisfied with nothing but God. Satisfaction lies not in having, but in being. There is no satisfaction even in doing. Man cannot be satisfied with his own performances. When the righteous young ruler came to Christ, and declared that in reference to the life gone by, he had kept all the commandments and fulfilled all the duties required by the Law, still came the question—“What lack I yet?”

The Scribes and Pharisees were the strictest observers of the ceremonies of the Jewish religion, “touching the righteousness which is by the Law” they were blameless, but yet they wanted something more than that, and they were found on the brink of Jordan imploring the baptism of John, seeking after a new and higher state than they had yet attained to,—a significant proof that man cannot be satisfied with his own works. And again, there is not one of us who has ever been satisfied with his own performances. There is no man whose doings are worth anything, who has not felt that he has not yet done that which he feels himself able to do. While he was doing it, he was kept up by the spirit of hope; but when done the thing seemed to him worthless. And therefore it is that the author cannot read his own book again, nor the sculptor look with pleasure upon his finished work. With respect to one of the greatest of all modern sculptors, we are told that he longed for the termination of his earthly career, for this reason—that he had been satisfied with his own performance: satisfied for the first time in his life. And this expression of his satisfaction was but equivalent to saying that he had reached the goal, beyond which there could be no progress. This impossibility of being satisfied with his own performances is one of the strongest proofs of our immortality—a proof of that perfection towards which we shall for ever tend, but which we can never attain.

A second trace of this infinitude in man's nature we find in the infinite capacities of the soul. This is true intellectually and morally. With reference to our intellectual capacities, it would perhaps be more strictly correct to say that they are indefinite, rather than infinite; that is we can affix to them no limit. For there is no man, however low his intellectual powers may be, who has not at one time or another felt a rush of thought, a glow of inspiration, which seemed to make all things possible, as if it were merely the effect of some imperfect organization which stood in the way of his doing whatever he desired to do. With respect to our moral and spiritual capacities, we remark that they are not only indefinite, but absolutely infinite. Let that man answer who has ever truly and heartily loved another. That man knows what it is to partake of the infinitude of God. Literally, in the emphatic language of the Apostle John, he has felt his immortality—“God in him and he in God.” For that moment, infinitude was to him not a name, but a reality. He entered into the infinite of time and space, which is not measured by days, or months, or years, but is alike boundless and eternal.

Again, we perceive a third trace of this infinitude in man, in the power which he possesses of giving up self. In this, perhaps more than in anything else, man may claim kindred with God. Nor is this power confined to the best of mankind, but is possessed, to some extent at least, by all. There is no man, how low soever he may be, who has not one or two causes or secrets, which no earthly consideration would induce him to betray. There is no man who does not feel towards one or two at least, in this world, a devotion which all the bribes of the universe would not be able to shake. We have heard the story of that degraded criminal who, when sentence of death was passed upon him, turned to his accomplice in guilt, in whose favour a verdict of acquittal was brought in, and in glorious self-forgetfulness exclaimed—“Thank God, you are saved!” The savage and barbarous Indian whose life has been one unbroken series of cruelty and crime, will submit to a slow, lingering, torturing death, rather than betray his country. Now, what shall we say to these things? Do they not tell of an indestructible something in the nature of man, of which the origin is divine?—the remains of a majesty which, though it may be sullied, can never be entirely lost?

Before passing on let us observe, that were it not for this conviction of the divine origin, and consequent perfectibility of our nature, the very thought of God would be painful to us. God is so great, so glorious, that the mind is overwhelmed by, and shrinks from, the contemplation of His excellence, unless there comes the tender, ennobling thought that we are the children of God, who are to become like our Father in Heaven, whose blessed career it is to go on in an advance of love and duty towards Him, until we love Him as we are loved, and know Him almost as we are known.

II. We pass on, in the second place, to consider the Christian motive—“Even as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect.” Brethren, worldly prudence, miscalled morality, says—“Be honest; you will find your gain in being so. Do right; you will be the better for it—even in this world you will not lose by it.” The mistaken religionist only magnifies this on a large scale. “Your duty,” he says, “is to save your soul. Give up this world to have the next. Lose here, that you may gain hereafter.” Now this is but prudence after all—it is but magnified selfishness, carried on into eternity,—none the more noble for being eternal selfishness. In opposition to all such sentiments as these, thus speaks the Gospel—“Be ye perfect.” Why? “Because your Father which is in Heaven is perfect.” Do right, because it is Godlike and right so to do. Here however, let us be understood. We do not mean to say that the Gospel ignores altogether the personal results of doing right. This would be unnatural—because God has linked together well-doing and blessedness. But we do say that this blessedness is not the motive which the Gospel gives us. It is true the Gospel says—“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth; blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy; blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.” But when these are made our motives—when we become meek in order that we may inherit here—then the promised enjoyment will not come. If we are merciful merely that we may ourselves obtain mercy, we shall not have that in-dwelling love of God which is the result and token of His forgiveness. Such was the law and such the example of our Lord and Master.

True it is that in the prosecution of the great work of redemption He had “respect to the recompense of reward.” True it is He was conscious—how could He but be conscious—that when His work was completed He should be “glorified with that glory which He had with the Father before the world began;” but we deny that this was the motive which induced Him to undertake that work; and that man has a very mistaken idea of the character of the Redeemer, and understands but little of His spirit, who has so mean an opinion of Him as to suppose that it was any consideration of personal happiness and blessedness which led the Son of God to die. “For this end was He born, and for this end came He into the world to bear witness unto the Truth,” and “to finish the work which was given Him to do.”

If we were asked, Can you select one text in which more than in any other this unselfish, disinterested feature comes forth, it should be this, “Love ye your enemies, do good and lend, hoping for nothing again.” This is the true spirit of Christianity—doing right disinterestedly, not from the hope of any personal advantage or reward, either temporal or spiritual, but entirely forgetting self, “hoping for nothing again.” When that glorious philanthropist, whose whole life had been spent in procuring the abolition of the slave-trade, was demanded of by some systematic theologian, whether in his ardour in this great cause he had not been neglecting his personal prospects, and endangering his own soul, this was his magnanimous reply—one of those which show the light of truth breaking through like an inspiration. He said, “I did not think about my own soul, I had no time to think about myself, I had forgotten all about my soul.” The Christian is not concerned about his own happiness; he has not time to consider himself; he has not time to put that selfish question which the disciples put to their Lord, when they were but half baptized with His spirit, “Lo, we have left all and followed Thee, what shall we have therefore?”