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

by James Galloway Cowan

I have spoken all along as if what we call “death” were the coming of Christ, which you ought to desire and pray for, because we have all come to take for granted that in our several cases death will surely precede judgment, that Christ will not be revealed in our time. I need scarcely remind you, that we do not know that; that at any moment the final advent might take place, and so each one of us be caught up alive—and never see death. If then, when you desire more of Christ, you think that through the gate of death is the probable way of gaining it, and so look for death, you must not forget that there is another way, and that you may possibly first meet Christ face to face there. Be your desire to be more fully with Christ, and submissively leave to Him to decide how that desire shall be accomplished, through death or without death. But in either case remember that your ultimate thought should rest upon the final advent, and your most fervent prayers be for it. Though you gain much by dying, being freed from many hindrances of perception of Christ, being made more fit for His presence, seeing Him more clearly, feeling, and hearing, and loving Him better, your state and privileges will still be imperfect. You must stand before Him in glorified bodies before you are capable of being and receiving all that He graciously designs; and all the elect must stand there with you before His perfect gifts shall be bestowed. God does not will that we, without them, should be made perfect. The final advent, then, is to be the frequent subject of our prayers; the speedy completion of all God’s preparatory measures, the swiftest communication, far and wide, of the knowledge of His name and will, the quick filling up of the number of the elect.

This we are to pray for, and this we are to aid in accomplishing. Christ will come when all is ready, and He has left us to make ready. First to prepare ourselves, then to prepare others. When this work of the forerunner has been done, the Lord Whom ye seek will come. He does but tarry till men be told of His coming, and persuaded to look for and desire it. When we tell them, when we persuade them, we hasten His coming—that coming in perfect glory to bestow in perfection on us, on all, that which, till then, at the best must be imperfect.

Should not this quicken our own growth in spiritual things? should it not prompt us to admonish, and persuade, and help others? should it not impel us to give more substantial aid to, to interest ourselves more about, to pray more frequently and really for the success of missionary enterprise, that those who have heard of Christ may be found out in their forgetfulness, and reminded of Him, that those who are as yet strangers and aliens may be brought into His household, and made fellow heirs with us, and expectants of His coming?

SERMON XX.
TRUE PROSPERITY.

Genesis, xxxix., 2.

The Lord was with Joseph, and he was a prosperous man.

If you were asked, brethren, to make a list of what you consider prosperous men, what kind of persons what you put into it? Those, I doubt not, with whom all goes smoothly, who come in no misfortune like other folk, who have riches in possession, acquire fame, are exalted in honour; whose wishes are largely gratified, whose every project succeeds; who, in short, experience no reverse, no temporary withdrawal or suspension of good fortune, and peace, and pleasure. What is the first prosperous man that comes into your mind? Perhaps, a successful speculator, who years ago made what is called a “lucky hit,” and has gone on repeating it, till he has become a millionaire. Perhaps, a professional man, whom fortune took by the hand as soon as he set out, and who has been hurried along with giant strides, favoured, flattered, well remunerated, till he has reached the summit of success. Perhaps, some uniformly thriving, respectable, happy tradesman, whose business prospers, who is always able to pay his way, can afford time and money for pleasure, and has good heart and health to enjoy it; in whose household there is no strife or division, no sickness, no vacated place; all present success, or bright hope. Or, perhaps, you fasten on an artisan, who is never out of work, who always meets with considerate and liberal employers, whose sobriety and uprightness, and other good qualities, are recognised and respected abroad, and rewarded by comfort, and affection, and well-doing at home.

But it is a clergyman who bids you select: so you must look about with a religious eye. Then you pick out, perhaps, those who are naturally endowed with good will and resolution, and are strong to perform it; who have been early trained in the right way, so that doing good has become habitual and comparatively easy; who have no overwhelming concern about the support of their lower life, are not distracted by worldly cares or by the claims of society upon them, nor much exposed to unspiritual influence; who have no immoderate passions, encounter no sore temptations, but can, without hindrance, and do, from desire, live calm, and easy, and creditable lives. These, you would say, are prosperous men, and so, in a sense, they are—very prosperous—and far be it from me to say, wrongly, or unhappily prosperous. We know, indeed, what snares riches bring with them, how many grave responsibilities are imposed upon all to whom much has been given, how dizzy one becomes through standing on a great height, and how easy and dangerous it is to fall from it. We know, too, that constant success is apt to make us self-reliant, forgetful of God, proud, imperious, uncharitable; and that uninterrupted peace and happiness in this world too often beguile us, softly indeed, but surely, out of all thought of heaven. And once more, we know that an even temperament and an untempted life may easily lead to routine-religion, to self-righteousness, to spiritual apathy and deadness. On these accounts, we must not count them surely happy who prosper in the world; but, on the other hand, we may not judge their state certainly unhappy; nor deem the desire to be like them necessarily wrong or unwise. If we can make sure of both worlds; if we can have the best of this, and not lose the other; if no harm will happen to our spiritual state, and no fitness for it be unattained and unkept; if God will be surely with us, while we thus prosper—then religion does not require, rather forbids, that we should give up our good things, that we should forbear to seek them, to use them, and to rejoice in them. All these various states may, or may not be, truly prosperous. Wherefore be not rashly carried away with admiration and desire of any of them; be slow to judge unfavourably of them, or to refuse, if you be called to any of them.

But what I would have you chiefly note now is that there are other kinds of true prosperity; rather, that if you would find out who truly prosper, and whether you yourselves are truly prosperous, you must look for other signs than those of worldly success and happiness; you must not conclude that the inward part, the very substance of prosperity, is wanting, because the outward life is sorely tried, and thwarted, and deprived, and saddened.

The Spirit of Truth describes, in the chapter of the text, a truly prosperous man. Three several times, in a few verses, is Joseph’s prosperity put prominently forward. Now just think what his life had been, and was, and was yet to be! He had been motherless from an early age; his father’s love made him the object of his brothers’ envy and hatred. He was thrown into a pit to die, and only escaped death to become a slave in a foreign land to a heathen master. Ere long he was made the victim of a foul accusation; he was thrust into prison, and there detained many long years; and when, at last, a hope of deliverance dawned upon him, he was cruelly disappointed by the king’s servant, whom he had kindly tended and reassured in trouble, and another two years of incarceration, of suspense worse than despair, had to be endured! Yet was he all the while—mark that!—a prosperous man. The Scripture does not say or mean that by and by he attained to a prosperity, in which all his former adversity was forgotten. It is of the present, not of the future, that prosperity is predicated. Nor may we suppose that there was but a show of adversity, that Joseph was really what we call prosperous all the while, in that he enjoyed many advantages, that he made steady way towards greatness, that his troubles were but as the toils and difficulties which, in a measure, the most successful have to encounter; or the just merits of misdeeds and the correction of faults. Up to the time of his release from prison, all through the years which Scripture says were prosperous, every hope and aim had been frustrated. It was not that he had difficulty in entering upon his work, that he had much to resist and suffer from its pursuit; but that after it was done, the reward of it was denied him: he only climbed the hill, to be rolled back, just as he reached the summit. His child’s life commended him to the love of his father, therefore he was thrust out. He won the good-will of his master, was diligent in his work, which prospered in his hand; was trustworthy and trusted, rose to be overseer of the house, and then, when he had good hope of his freedom and of returning to his yearned-for home, without any fault of his, he was degraded, branded with infamy, and cast into prison. Here, again, he deserved prosperity: the very jailor acknowledged it, and honoured and well treated him. The door, too, seemed to be opening for his deliverance, when a fellow-prisoner went forth full of his praise, an eye-witness of his sorrow, to make mention of him to Pharaoh—but alas! the most strange forgetfulness took possession of the butler, and for two years the name of Joseph never crossed his lips, nor thought of him entered his mind. And even when delivered out of prison, and exalted by Pharaoh, he became but a chief slave, next the throne in dignity, second to the king in power, but still not free to return to his home, still kept ignorant whether his father was yet alive! Was this what we can call, by any stretch or limitation, “prosperity”? And mark, that all his trouble came upon him, not only in, but for, his well-doing. In obedience to his father, he went to visit his brethren, and thus afforded the occasion of selling him into bondage; because he did his duty to Potiphar, he was put into circumstances of danger; by refusing to sin against God, he incurred the reproach and punishment of sin; by honestly asserting before Pharaoh, “It is not in me, I am nothing but a servant,” he lost the opportunity of obtaining what the king would have been most ready to give him, and afraid to refuse, absolute freedom.

My brethren, you and I can hardly bear with trials, and sufferings, and reproaches, and ill-treatment, when we dimly suspect, or are actually conscious, that we have deserved them. How should we murmur, and cry out, and kick, and rebel, if we were thus treated for well-doing! With what words should we answer him who sought to calm and comfort us in such trouble, by assuring us that we did wrong to count it adversity, that it was indeed prosperity!