Plain Sermons, Preached at Archbishop Tenison's Chapel, Regent Street

by James Galloway Cowan

Listen! You believe that there is another life after this. You believe that it may be one of glory, or one of shame and destruction. You believe that there are necessary qualifications for glory, without which it will not be conferred. You hope and expect to partake of the glory. You all know that the change from this life to the next may come at any moment, to any one of you. Still, the greater part of you make no effort to prepare farther for that change; but go on, day after day, year after year, doing the same deeds, thinking the same thoughts, feeling the same feelings, in the same way and measure as heretofore. Is it not so? And if it is, do you not justify yourselves—do you not at least compose yourselves in your present state—by asserting, or at any rate by not actively denying, that you have attained as much faith, and holiness and love, as you need to fit you for heaven. You have apprehended: at least you think so. Otherwise, how could you be contented? Believing in your heart of hearts that there is a heaven, how could you be satisfied if you did not think you would go to it; if you conceived it possible that the want of something which you have not yet, might shut you out from glory? As I speak to you thus, you feel disposed to protest against my words. You know you are not perfect. You frequently sigh over your lamentable imperfections. You feel that it is only unspeakable mercy which can make any allowance for you. You are not fit for heaven. You are not satisfied with yourselves. You have not attained. You have much to do. You intend to do much. Yes! this is your protest, and it is an honest one; you mean it, you feel it. But, brethren, I am not talking of what you mean and feel now; of the momentary stir of right feeling which takes place occasionally, in church when the minister of Christ rouses you; or at home or abroad, when God calls loudly to you by some unusual act of Providence; or on a sick bed, when physicians speak doubtfully, and friends wear ominously troubled looks; or at the grave-side, when one of your own age and circumstances of life, and like constitution, is being hidden out of sight. No! I am speaking of your usual feelings, and your every-day life; and I say, on their clear testimony, that many of you count yourselves to have apprehended.

You are at ease about heaven; you do not strive, you do not press forward as though it were yet to gain; you do not imagine that any striving, any pressing forward, is needed. What are the religious exercises of the many? A few words of private prayer, morning and evening; an attendance once on the Lord’s day at church; and now and then, perhaps, a participation of the holy communion. These are the chief, often the only, efforts for grace to attain and apprehend. No perpetual upraising of the soul in prayer; no delight in public worship; no frequent yearning for the communication of Christ through His appointed ordinances; no eager searching of His Word for light, and guidance, and comfort, and encouragement! What, again, are the strivings of the many to attain a heavenly character; to do the work which God has given them to do; to put aside the old man, with his affections and lusts; to walk in holy obedience? Alas! they are merely negative; forbearing to offend against the letter of the great commandments. No literal idolatry, no profane swearing, no Sabbath-breaking, no stealing, no deed of lust, no deliberate slander. This is their righteousness; and if, besides, they occasionally sigh, or utter a self-condemnation, on account of the frequently reiterated, uncurbed outbreaks and indulgences of what they call “infirmities,” they seem to themselves to have attained to exemplary excellence. No matter that all their usual feelings are earth-born, and earth-directed; that their affections are set on worldly things; that they continue, year after year, every whit as spiritually indolent, impatient, bad-tempered, sensual in thought, jealous, faithless, unloving, unholy. They might, indeed, be better in these respects; perhaps they ought to be; but it is not actually necessary. They have already attained what is absolutely needed. If not quite perfect (no man is) they are perfect enough; better than many others; as good as God will require.

Oh, if men do not think this, do they not act it and testify it in their lives? Does not their religion seem to be a mere occasional pastime? something to be taken up only in the intervals of life’s earnest work; a matter of no real moment; which does not demand more than ceremonious observance, leaving the thoughts, the affections, the energy free; offering nothing (worth the while) to be pursued with zeal, and industry, and self-denial; to progress and grow perfect in; having no claims upon us which are not sufficiently discharged in the way of mere routine?

I should wrong many of you, dear brethren, if I meant this charge to be universal. Of not a few of you, “we are persuaded better things, and things that accompany salvation, though we thus speak.” But, in a degree, even you answer to this description, or part of it; coming nearer, now and then, to contentment about your spiritual state than you should; forbearing, frequently, to press forward enough for what is not yet attained.

Well, then, we are all reproved by the apostle’s lowly estimation of his own past and present: “I count not myself to have apprehended.” Let us now seek to be instructed by his proposals for the future: “Forgetting the things that are behind, I reach forth.” First, then, we are to forget the things that are behind. In the figure which the apostle uses, that of a runner in a race, to forget what is behind is, not to pride ourselves upon, not to think of the progress we have already made. Paradox though it seem, the Christian religion often bids us both remember and forget the same thing; and it does so in this case. We are to remember the success which has attended us hitherto in the attempt to serve God, both to prompt our gratitude for the past, and to encourage us to persevere, as having hope that we may prevail. We are to forget it, so as not to presume on our goodness; not to rest satisfied with aught we have done, or to count ourselves as having in any measure attained to what God requires of us. There is much temptation to such self-satisfaction, and there is much danger in it. Few, if any of us, who have been earnestly endeavouring to work out our salvation, can fail to observe that we have accomplished something. We have come to feel an interest in spiritual things. Prayer, instead of being altogether a wearisome task, or a mere matter of routine, has begun to be an enjoyable exercise. The pursuit of godliness, instead of being altogether a hard task, requiring us to forego all that is pleasant, to encounter much that is trying, to do that for which we have no taste, has begun to bestow on us its reward, in fulfilling its promise of making glad the life that now is, in elevating us, though, perhaps, but little, towards the hope of the life which is to come. We like now (that is, we dislike less) the exercises of devotion. We more readily give up what once we clung to as the chiefest good. We begin to realise, that there is something worth striving for beyond; and we make efforts, though they may be feeble, to reach it, and lay hold on it. But, perceiving this change, this improvement in ourselves, we run the risk of coming to think, that we are not like other men; that we have come out, and are separate; that we are in the right way; that God approves us. And the natural effect of this perception, or rather the effect which Satan causes it to produce, is spiritual pride and spiritual indolence. “I love prayer, I cultivate holiness: what lack I yet? I have attained; I have apprehended Christ; knowing and loving Him, and laying fast hold on His salvation.”

Such a feeling once harboured in the breast, and thus interpreted, soon begins to deaden our spiritual energies. We cease to be holy as soon as we fancy ourselves holy. We relinquish effort as soon as we find that we have been using it. In the remembrance of the past, in the spiritual pride which it produces, we forget the future and unlearn humility. Therefore we are to forget the past of progress.

But, besides this, we are to forget what is behind of failure and trial, and former superiority. There is nothing so apt to beget despondency, to discourage further effort, as the review of unsuccess: “I have tried this before, and failed; it is of no use to try it again. Destiny, or innate corruption seems to thwart me and bind me down; it is vain to contend against it.” Thus it is that men persuade themselves to yield unresistingly to evil. When bidden to forsake it, when desiring to forsake it, instead of making the effort as though it were a first one, the beginning of a right course, in which, if they persevere, they may hope by God’s grace to do well, they recall to memory how they have failed before, and persuade themselves, from their remembrance, that in like manner they should surely fail again: and so they refuse to try. And so, too, the remembrance of former superiority discourages. “How pure, how temperate, how steady, how comparatively good was I once. Alas! that cannot be again. I cannot undo what I have done. I cannot recover what is lost. The past can never be the present.” No, it cannot, brethren, and therefore forget it. Do not seek to undo, to recover. Since that cannot be, aim at something else; and, that you may aim the more steadily, do not let your eye wander elsewhere. If you have left your father’s house, and wasted your substance in riotous living, it is too late to prevent you from being a prodigal; but it is not too late to become a returning prodigal. Forget your former independence; forget the going away into the far country. Remember, that your Father still lives; that He is a merciful, a pardoning Father; that His arms are spread out to enfold you; that there is still room, and welcome room, for you in His house. Forget what you have abandoned, and seek what you may yet have: not former innocence, not the inheritance of uninterrupted dutifulness, but reformed life, and fresh favour, a new place as a new character.

Once more, forget the things that are behind, as you start, as you run along the course from the world to heaven. Do not delay in considering what you have to give up; do not grudge the effort; do not turn aside your eyes to behold what you are leaving behind, what you are passing by the way. Temporal things, though so infinitely inferior to eternal, are near and palpable; while the spiritual are distant and indistinctly seen. If you ponder and weigh, if you count over too frequently the cost, your own carnal judgment, and Satan’s blinding influence, will check you at starting, or lure you aside. To look back, to gaze about you, to stand still for a moment, is perhaps to lose the race. “See,” says Satan, “what you are leaving, what you are passing. Here are riches, honour, friends, pleasure, ease.” You look, and the look leads you back, or makes you stumble, perhaps fall. “Onward, onward!” be this your cry; this your aim. Stay not in all the plain; look not behind you; look on; behold the goal; remember the prize. Think not of the past; regard not the present; aim at the future. Forgetting the things that are behind, reach forth unto those that are before.

I have anticipated the other lesson of wisdom; that of reaching forth; of concentrating all your thoughts, and all your energies, on what is held out to you by God in Christ. You are not to measure the distance you have come; you are not to brood over stumblings, and falls, and past slowness; you are not to recall the things that you have left, nor to look at those you are passing. You are to run on, as if the race were all before you; as if the course were an untrodden one; as if there were good hope of reaching the goal. And you are to look steadfastly at the goal, and run eagerly towards it. This is your position; this your course; these your hopes.

Gird up your loins then, lay aside every weight, the weight of worldly temptation, the weight of experienced failure, the weight of difficulties and troubles. Assured that the race may be run, assay to run it. Knowing that the prize is still proffered, attempt to gain it. Gather experience from the past, what to do, what to avoid. Redouble your efforts, quicken your pace, because the time is short, and much of it has been trifled away. Take hope from the future, because the lists are still open, because you are accepted candidates for the prize, because the king waits to crown you.