Plain Sermons, preached at Archbishop Tenison's Chapel, Regent Street. Second Series

by James Galloway Cowan

O how many who are zealous at one time, are without zeal at another! How many who make a great show of religion, and talk much about it, and contend in public for it, are utter strangers to its real influence, are wholly without love for it! How many, too, who honestly consider themselves zealous for God, are only serving Him in the bent of their natural inclinations, and taking no heed to Him, where self must be denied; like men of cold temperament, despising bodily indulgence, yet making a god of mammon; prodigals, inveighing against covetousness; destroyers of the temple of Baal, restorers of the calves of Bethel and Dan; saints in some things, devils in others!

O ye who boast of zeal, or claim to have it, take care that ye have it towards God, and that ye are constant in it! Distrust the energy which works only at times, and in some directions. Suspect the feeling which excites and fills with ardour to-day, but is listless and dead to-morrow; which chooses for itself what to do for God, what to think of God, what truth to meditate on chiefly, what practice alone to follow. Zeal for God is entire, regular, consistent devotion to Him. It fills the whole man with all spiritual desires and feelings; it works out in the whole life; albeit, it is generally calm, and sober, and quiet, not boasting nor thrusting itself forward, not making much ado.

Do not suppose, brethren, that in speaking thus on the subject of zeal, I would discourage, in any degree, the entertaining of a fervent spirit, or would allow, for a moment, that strong feeling and strong expression of it, and manifested earnest activity, are, in the slightest degree, incompatible with real religion. On the contrary, I would maintain that there is no religion at all in the man or woman who is not—allowing for the differences of temperament—stirred within by it, and impelled to speak of and act upon it; who is afraid, or unwilling, or negligent, to show it. Zeal, I maintain, is good—nay, is necessary; zeal, which makes one burn with the glowing thought of immortality, which rouses one to ardent work and holy contention; which finds, and must have, its vent in the speech; which shows itself designedly, that it may impress others, and set forth the glory of God. Only, I would have you judge of that zeal in others, and find it in yourselves; not in what Jehu did, but in what he omitted, and ought to have done; not in that which indulges natural desires, but in that which crosses them; not in that which secures worldly advantages, but in that which disregards, and even sacrifices them; not in that which exists, or is quickened only in times and places of excitement, but which burns brightest and highest, and spreads farthest, in solitude and silence; not where there is immediate praise, or glory, or notoriety, in the sight of men, but in that which is seen alone by God. Seek to be zealous, rest not till you are zealous, for there is no service of God, no acceptance with Him but through zeal: but expect to find your zeal, know that there only God will find it, in your deep conviction of sin, in the fervour of your penitence, in the uncompromising persecution of your own lusts, in the crossing of your own will, in the refraining from that you would naturally choose to do, and the performance of that you shrink from through worldly motives, in the earnestness of your prayers, in the frequency of your acts of communion, in the diligence of your searching of the Scriptures, in the munificence of your private charities, in the strenuousness of your efforts to do good to others, in the secret contemplation and desire of heaven, in the soul’s appreciation of your high calling, in faithful love of God in your hearts! Have such zeal, and manifest and exercise it as often and as consistently as the Holy Spirit enables you, and then the whole of your life, within and without, from first to last, shall have the commendation which Jehu’s at the beginning had; and an infinitely better promise shall be fulfilled to you, Ye shall sit on the throne of heaven with Christ, and reign with Him for ever and ever.

SERMON XIX.
CHRIST’S COMING DESIRED.

Revelation, xxii., 20.

Even so, come, Lord Jesus.

As it was the common belief of the early disciples that Christ was to come in His glorious Majesty, to render unto every man according to his works, so was it a common desire, a frequent prayer, that He would come quickly. They were not content with being merely mindful of the fact that He would come at some time, they were not merely anxious to be prepared, lest He should come soon; but they looked for His coming, they hasted towards it, they loved the thought of His appearing. Some of them, expecting that they should not taste of death till He had actually appeared to them in His fullest glory, looked ever with eager eyes for the opening of the heavens, and the revelation of the Son of Man: others, believing that it was through the gates of death that they should enter into Christ’s presence and realise His Second Advent, wished to die, courted death, yea, hardly resigned themselves to the Divine will, that they should as yet continue in the flesh.

Perhaps you may think that this was a natural rather than a spiritual frame of mind. On earth their portion had all along been one of sorrow and suffering, and evil reproach; and prophecy bade them look on for aggravations of what they already endured, and for many additional and greater troubles. What wonder, then, that they struggled to escape from the present, that they shrunk from the future, that they prayed that Christ would speedily come to them, or that He would speedily take them to Himself! What wonder that St. Paul, for instance, amid his toils, and perils, and sufferings, and revilings, and failures, and disappointments, with the prospect of nothing on earth but sorer persecution and greater trials, should desire to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord! What wonder that St. John, so cruelly entreated by foes, so disregarded by should-be friends, when in the isle of his banishment the voice of his Lord told of His speedy coming, should promptly and ardently respond to Him, “Even so, come, Lord Jesus.” Having nothing, and expecting nothing that flesh could desire; enduring much, anticipating more that was undesirable, grievous, hateful, what wonder, you would ask, that they yearned in their hearts to be delivered from such bondage, and to be transferred to the abode of peace and glory: that they offered frequently and fervently those Advent prayers, “Thy kingdom come,” “Lord Jesus receive my Spirit,” “Even so, come, Lord Jesus”! Even had they expected no hereafter, had they supposed that the coming Judge would annihilate them, or that the grave would bury them in eternal forgetfulness, it would still have been natural for them to have courted and prayed for the cessation of toil and the end of suffering.

So some persons are wont to reason. It is natural, they say, for those to whom this world is a blank or a sea of troubles, to set their hopes on another world. It is natural for those whose life here is all weariness, to be desirous to give up that life, even though they shall have no life hereafter.

But is it really natural? Does affliction naturally make us look heavenwards? Does a troubled life naturally reconcile us to the thought of speedy death, yea, and cause us to desire it, to pray for it?

On the contrary, do we not often find persons unspiritualised by affliction? Do not many maintain that their worldly troubles are the hindrance of religious thought and practice? Is not death by very instinct shrunk from by well-nigh all, and most by those whose circumstances seem to recommend it as naturally the greatest good?