25 - Matthew 13:17

’For verily I say unto you, that many prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them.’ -Matthew 13:17.

There is a tendency to magnify the privileges of those who lived at a period long anterior to ours. It is generally connected with a very decided disposition to find objects of reverence. In some the principle of veneration has a morbid development; they are only happy when they are mentally and morally at the feet of some one. Veneration is a legitimate and most important faculty of the mind; but we are not to take it for granted that its action is always salutary. It has participated in the damage sustained by all our faculties, in the fall; and until subordinated to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, is sure to mislead us. It appears to be radically different from selfishness, and therefore some leap to the conclusion that it must be, in all its exercises, good. But sin is the preference of something finite to the Creator; selfishness is the preference of self, and is just one form of sin; but we may sin as grievously by giving undue honour to some other creature. You may defend it by pleading the merits of this fellow-creature, his superiority to yourself. But he who has commanded you to love Him with all the heart and soul, has solemnly declared that there is none good beside him, that He is the source of all that is admirable, and alone entitled to the honour of it. "What hast thou that thou hast not received?" And the time of judgment is not yet. The last day will take from a thousand objects the worthiness that man has attributed to them, and many that have been utterly overlooked shall be seen radiant with glory. The seraphim veil their faces: they refuse to be seen of worshippers, that God alone may be exalted. Earth shall have no portrait of them. The four and twenty elders on thrones about the throne of God and of the Lamb fall prostrate, and cast down their crowns, that no one may give honour save unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever.

There are myriads in the world, yes, in the Christian world, whose religion is nothing more or less than a morbid veneration. It is a very sweet and comforting thought to them that they are not as other men are, self-honouring and self-seeking; their delight is to humble themselves before the great and good; they are not stiff-necked, they know how to prostrate themselves before that which is worthy of reverence. Humility, reverence, self-abnegation, are precious things, and every way enriching to the mind; but there are counterfeits of these gifts as there are of others. The Spirit of God guides the believer by taking of Christ and showing unto him; His aim first and last is to glorify Christ. The Gospel does not give us bits of the cross and pieces of Christ’s apparel, or send us on pilgrimage to the place of his sepulchre, to this day unknown. It does not teach us to prostrate ourselves before the piety of antiquity, or to supplant the image of self that we may enshrine in its place an earthly priest. If we talk of the fathers and make our boast of tradition, and gaze with awe upon a church fifteen centuries old, and visit the tombs of martyrs, and exalt the power and holiness of the reputed saints of antiquity, the Gospel says to us, "The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth and in thy heart; that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." "One is your Master, even Christ."

Much of this morbid reverence proceeds from want of faith. "Thou shalt never wash my feet," said Peter. Men are staggered by the offer of God to give them all for nothing; and think it becoming to say, ’We will take only this which lies a little beyond our merit.’ This little merit of theirs is (if they but knew it) an insult flung in the face of God. The word is nigh thee, and in that word is all that pertains to life and godliness; nigh to thee, sinner; and the only condition imposed is, that thou shouldst let go all that trashy merit of thine, and take the pearl of great price. Thou thinkest it modesty and lowliness to have so little merit; but it is blasphemous to have any. Know thy utter demeritoriousness, and thou wilt know that none but Christ, the Son of God, can wash thy feet. To deny thyself, and have in reverence Chrysostom, Augustine, St. Bernard, Pusey, the Pope, a bishop, a priest, a crumb, a drop, a garment, a house with aisles and arches, a form of prayer, a method of worship, a ritual, a collection of hymns, an organ, a cross, this is not the religion of the Gospel.

Polarity is a tendency to operate in two opposite directions. This is a quality of the minds which are characterised by this morbid veneration. But that which is positive in one direction is negative in another. According to the veneration felt for the objects which it has canonised is the repulsion felt by the mind for others. But it will generally be found that among these repelled objects are many that are dear to Christ, many that can only be rejected with hazard of his love. When the Son of God was in the world there were men actually engaged in building and garnishing the sepulchres of prophets, under the idea that there was nothing living so holy as the tombs of these dead men; while the divinely inspired words of those prophets, had they heeded them, would have pointed them to the Saviour of the world and the Lord of all, then actually in the midst of them. They heard Christ speak, and saw him perform his marvellous works, and went forth to gather contributions for the holy and meritorious work of adorning the sepulchres of the prophets. Their generation is not extinct. But to whom said Christ, Beware of their leaven? To his disciples, his apostles. Is there any of this leaven with you or with me? Do we esteem the Word of God above thousands of gold and silver? "Is the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, shining in our hearts?"