The Business Man's Good Service

The Business Man's Good Service

"Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness," by which I understand the practical part of true religion. Seek to have the imputed righteousness of Christ by all means; but seek also to exhibit the infused righteousness which comes of sanctification. Let us aspire after a high degree of holiness. We are called to be saints; and saints are not miraculous beings to be set up in niches and admired; but they are men and women who live, and trade, and do righteousness, and practise charity in the streets of a city, or the fields of a village. Those who are washed in the blood of the Lamb should not be satisfied with the common cleanliness of morality; but the garment of their life should be whiter than any fuller can make it. Purity becomes the disciples of Jesus. In spirit, soul, and body we ought to be holiness to the Lord. Our righteousness must exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees; it should be a reproduction of the character of our Lord. By the phrase "His righteousness," I understand that power in the world which is always working, in some form or other, for that which is good, and true, and pure. Everything in this world which is holy, and honest, and of good repute, may count upon the Christian as its friend, for it is a part of God's righteousness. Does drunkenness eat out the very life of our nation? Do you want men of temperance to battle this evil? The Christian cries, "Write down my name." When the slave had to be freed, the subjects of God's kingdom were to the front in that deed of righteousness; and to-day, if oppression is to be put down, we dare not refuse our aid. If the people are to be educated, and better housed, we hail the proposal with delight. If the horrible sin of the period is to be denounced and punished, we may not shrink from the loathsome conflict. Let each man in his own position labour after purity; and, as God shall help us, we may yet sweep the streets of their infamies, and deliver our youth from pollution. Every Christian man should say of every struggle for better things, "I am in it, cost what it may." Hosts of your professors of religion forget to seek God's righteousness, and seem to suppose that their principal business is to save their own souls—poor little souls that they are! Their religion is barely sufficient to fill up the vacuum within their own ribs, where their hearts should be. This selfishness is not the religion of Jesus. The religion of Jesus is unselfish: it enlists a man as a crusader against everything that is unrighteous. We are knights of the red cross, and our bloodless battles are against all things that degrade our fellow-men, whether they be causes social, political, or religious. We fight for everything that is good, true, and just.

True religion is diffusive and extensive in its operations. I see people drawing lines continually, and saying, "So far is religious, and so far is secular." What do you mean? The notion is one which suits with the exploded notions of sacred places, priests, shrines, and relics. I do not believe in it. Everything is holy to a holy man. To the pure all things are pure. To a man who seeks first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, his house is a temple, his meals are sacraments, his garments are vestments, every day is a holy day, and he himself is a priest and a king unto God. The sphere of Christianity is co-extensive with daily life. I am not to say, "I serve God when I stand in the pulpit"; for that might imply that I wished to serve the devil when my sermon was over. We are not only to be devout at church, and pious at prayer-meetings; but to be devout and godly everywhere. Religion must not be like a fine piece of mediæval armour, to be hung upon the wall, or only worn on state occasions. No; it is a garment for the house, the shop, the bank. Your ledgers and iron safes are to be made by grace "holiness unto the Lord." Godliness is for the parlour and the drawing-room, the counting-house and the exchange. It can neither be put off nor on. It is of the man and in the man if it be real. Righteousness is a quality of the heart, and abides in the nature of the saved man as a component part of his new self. He is not righteous who is not always righteous.

Undefiled religion is a vital matter; it is in the life of the man. I am afraid that the religion of some people is like the shell of the hermit crab. At sea the dredge brings up creeping things innumerable, and among them creatures which have their own natural shells to live in; but here comes a fellow who has annexed the shell of a whelk, and bears it about as if it were his own. He lives in it while it suits him, and he gives up the tenancy when it becomes inconvenient; the shell is not part of himself. Avoid such a religion. Beware of a Sunday shell, and a week-day without the shell. That religion which you can part with, you had better part with. If you can get rid of it, get rid of it. If it is not part and parcel of yourself, it is good for nothing. If it does not run right through you like a silver thread through a piece of embroidery, it will not avail for your eternal salvation.

I remember a remark of John Newton, once rector of St. Mary Woolnoth. He was a thoroughly Calvinistic preacher; but when one asked him whether he believed in Calvinism, he replied," I am a Calvinist, but I do not take it as children eat lumps of sugar; I use it to flavour all my preaching, as men use sugar in tea or food." Hypocrites swallow religion in lumps, inviting all to admire the quantity; but sincere seekers after righteousness quietly dissolve their godliness in their lives and sweeten all their common relationships therewith. The real saint flavours his ordinary life with grace, so that his wife and his children, his servants and his neighbours, are the better for it. Rowland Hill used to say that a man was not a true Christian if his dog and his cat were not the better off for it. That witness is true. A man's religion ought to be to him what perfume is to a rose, or light to the sun: it should be the necessary outcome of his existence. If his life is not fragrant with truth, and bright with love, the question arises whether he. knows the religion of our Lord Jesus. The division between sacred and secular is most unhappy to both divisions of life: we want them united again. In the days of Queen Mary, a foolish spite dug up the bones of the wife of Bucer. Poor woman! she had done no ill, except that she had married a teacher of the gospel; but she must needs be dragged from her grave to be buried in a dung-hill for that grave offence. When Elizabeth came to the throne, her bones were buried again; but to make the body secure from any future malice of bigots, our prudent forefathers took the relics of a certain Popish saint, who was enshrined at Oxford, and mixed the remains of the two deceased persons past all chance of separation. Thus Mistress Bucer was secured from further disrespect by her unity with the body of one of the canonized. I want the secular to be thus secured by union with the sacred. If we could only feel that our common acts are parts of a saintly life, they would not so often be done carelessly. If we lay our poor daily life by itself, it will be disregarded; but if we combine it with our holiest aspirations and exercises, it will be preserved. Our religion must be part and parcel of our daily life, and then the whole of our life will be preserved from the destroyer. Doth not the Scripture say, "Whether ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus"?

"But," says one, "are we not to have amusements?" Yes, such amusements as you can take in the fear of God. Do whatever Jesus would have done. This is liberty enough for one who aspires to be like Jesus. There is happiness enough in things which are pure and right; and if not, we will not do evil to find more. We find pleasure enough without hunting for it in the purlieus of sin. There are joys which are as far above the pleasures of folly as the feasts of kings are above the husks of swine. At times our inner life flames up into a blaze of joy; and if usually it burns lower, there is at least a steady fire of peace upon our hearth which makes our life such that we envy none. It is not slavery that I set before you when I say that we are first of all to seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness: there is a present recompense which justifies the choice; and as for the eternal future, it pleads for it with voice of thunder. A far more desirable idea is for a man to rise above his possessions, elevating life upon stepping-stones of these dead gains; building with them a pedestal, above which the inner manhood rises. This is what God intends to do in providence to the man who serves Him heartily: He will add to him the things of this life. These shall be thrown in as supplements to the Divine heritage. I incur certain little outlays in connection with my study; we need a few matters which may be paid for out of petty cash; but I have never seen, as far as I recollect, a single penny for string and brown paper; because, as a reader and writer, I buy books, and then the string and brown paper are added to me. My purchase is the books, but the string and brown paper come to me, added as a matter of course. This is the idea: you are to spend your strength on the high and noble purpose of glorifying God, and then the minor matters of "What shall we eat? and What shall we drink? and Wherewithal shall we be clothed?" are thrown in as supplements. Earthly things are but the brown paper and string; and I pray you never think too much of them. Some people get so much of this brown paper and string that they glory in them, and expect us to fall down and worship them. If we refuse this homage, they are foolish enough to adore themselves. It must not be so among the servants of God. To us the man is the man, and not the guinea's stamp. "All these things" are to us small matters; the real life of the soul is all in all. Do not slice pieces out of your manhood, and then hope to fill up the vacancies with bank-notes. He who loses manliness or godliness to gain gold is a great cheater of himself. Keep yourselves entire for God and for His Christ, and let all other matters be additions, not subtractions. Live above the world. Its goods will come to you when you do not bid high for them. If you hunt the butterfly of wealth too eagerly you may spoil it by the stroke with which you secure it. When earthly things are sought for as the main object, they are degraded into rubbish, and the seeker of them has fallen to be a mere man with a muck-rake, turning over a dunghill to find nothing. Set your heart on nobler things than pelf! Cry with David, "I will lift up mine eyes to the hills, whence cometh my help." Let us so live that it will be safe for God to add to us the blessings of the life that now is; but that can only be done with safety when we have learned to keep the world under our feet.