Without subscribing to this view (though there is really much to be said for it), I would humbly suggest that, since God, when He designed an earthly tabernacle, prescribed that it, and all in it, should be costly and ornamental; and that when He speaks of heaven He does so under the image of all that is accounted splendid and costly on earth, He either must have meant to require that we should erect and adorn our churches after this description, or He must have taken for granted that we should best understand spiritual beauties and excellencies by their comparison with what we account earthly beauties and excellencies, and that we should naturally honour and worship Him with the best of these within our reach. It seems, then, to be our duty, nay, to be natural to us, if we are in earnest, whichever view we take, to make our churches and their contents beauteous and costly, either as images of the future church in heaven, or as the nearest representations to it which we can furnish, and the best copies of God’s own pattern.
To this it has been objected, firstly, that the primitive Christians afford us no such example; and, secondly, that it seems unfitting, trifling, unseemly, to decorate the spiritual palace as we would an earthly mansion. The first objection falls to the ground, when we remember, that the early Christians were very poor, and, moreover, were obliged to hide themselves, and, therefore, to refrain from all that would attract attention; and that, as soon as they had the means and liberty, they made their churches very splendid, and furnished them very gorgeously. And the second objection is as soon disposed of. What is unfitting, trifling, unseemly, for the Master, is surely as much, and more so, for the disciple. If God is to dwell in tents, we ought not to dwell in ceiled houses; if gold, and precious stones, and beautiful arts are unfit for Him, then they are pre-eminently unfit for us. If we may not furnish His house with rich furniture, and put into it, for instance, the best musical instrument, we must not do so in our own houses. It is enough for us, that we should be as our Lord. We must not be above Him, or different from Him. We must not glory in what is unfit for Him. Be then our own abodes rude; let everything in them be homely, unadorned, inferior; banish from them all traces of the artist’s skill; or give all, and use all, more exceedingly upon and in the house of God.
One more argument for adorning and furnishing to the utmost, the house of God:—We must not offer unto God of that which doth cost us nothing of our substance. Now, all that we offer indirectly, no matter how much, how frequently, may yet cost us nothing—that is, it may be only the laying out of that for which we get an immediate equivalent. When you relieve the sick, rescue the tempted, raise the fallen, by the contribution of your substance, if you have not the reward of their gratitude, there is at least the felt human satisfaction of the act; and that would and has remunerated many an infidel. The sacrifice, therefore, in this case, ceases to be a sacrifice; it is a laying out for those who pay you again. But when you expend your substance largely on the direct service of God, hoping for nothing again, perhaps getting nothing, then you offer of that which costs you something; something for which you do not expect an equivalent. The exercise is a good one, and the duty is imperative. If you got your money’s worth, and your human satisfaction, for its outlay, then you would be offering to God of that which doth cost you nothing.
Let this consideration urge you, then, first, indeed to provide what is necessary for the service of God by yourselves; afterwards, what may help others in like manner to serve Him; and then, not by mulcting them, but by denying yourselves, to give some true gift, some free-will offering, which is costly in itself, and promises no present equivalent. Thus shall you overcome selfish and mere human feelings, and render dutiful, and grateful, and costly sacrifice unto the Lord your God.
My brethren, depart not with the notion that you have heard nothing of Christ this morning. It is a deep-rooted error that, under the law men were commanded to do, but under the Gospel they are forbidden; that then salvation was a work, but now it is only a contemplation. The contrary is the truth. Men might contemplate and wait idly and dreamily before their Redeemer came; they must be up and doing now that He has laid His hand upon them, and given them a lifelong, arduous, self-sacrificing work to do.
It is because Christ has purchased you wholly, body, and soul, and spirit, thoughts, words, and deeds, talents and substance, to be an entire and constant sacrifice unto Him; it is because He is watching over you, and working for and in you, to make you that sacrifice; it is because presently He will judge and deal with you, according as you have been, or have not been what He required, that I have enforced on you the pre-eminently Christian lesson of taking solemn, anxious heed, that you offer not unto the Lord your God of that which doth cost you nothing.
SERMON IX.
SPIRITUAL PROGRESS.
Philippians, iii., 13, 14.
“Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”
To have apprehended; to have attained unto the perfection of the knowledge of Christ; to have gone through the Christian’s appointed course of discipline and duties; to have acquired the acceptable and approved character; to have laid such a hold on salvation as could not be shaken off—this even Paul did not claim to have done. Divinely enlightened as he was, greatly zealous, blamelessly righteous, the chosen vessel of the Lord, he could not be satisfied with the past, he could not rest in the present, he could not calculate on the future. “If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead”—be made one of those who shall be raised in Christ to glory—“not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect. . . . I count not myself to have apprehended.”
Brethren, if Paul, with all his light, all his labours, all his holiness, all his love, felt that heaven, was, after all, not his sure inheritance, how can any among us count themselves to have secured it, to have become perfect? And yet, not a few do! I am not alluding now to those who are called Calvinists, to those who believe that salvation will infallibly be conferred on a few, chosen without regard to their former, or care for their after life; and that they who believe this doctrine are certainly of the chosen few (every Calvinist, according to his own creed, is sure of salvation)—to those who fancy that a peculiar flutter of strange feelings in the breast which they felt at a certain moment of some day or night, perhaps long past, was the impression of God’s seal upon them; a seal which cannot be broken, which has marked them God’s for ever; and that all they have to do in anticipation, in preparation for glory, is to talk and think about man’s depravity, and God’s electing grace. No! I am alluding to such as are most of you, brethren; who have probably never concerned yourselves about supposed absolute decrees, and irresistible grace, and final perseverance; who do not claim to be objects of any signal conversion; who have felt, and feel no ecstacy and rapture which betoken sure acceptance; and of you, I say, that many of you count yourselves to have apprehended, to know as much, to have done as much, to feel as much, to be as perfect, as you need, and to have a sure hope of salvation. None of you have a definite theory of this kind; none of you, if I took you apart and said, “Are you sure of heaven?” would dare to answer, “yes,” or to feel that you might answer, “yes;” but many of you, nevertheless, do persuade yourselves, that it is even so; many of you so spend your lives as though you had already apprehended, as though there were nothing which you had yet to attain.