Memoranda Sacra Part 3

"So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou Me more than these? He saith unto Him, Yea, Lord; Thou knowest that I love Thee. He saith unto him, Feed My lambs.

"He saith to him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou Me? He saith unto Him, Yea, Lord; Thou knowest that I love Thee.

He saith unto him, Feed My sheep.

"He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou Me?

Peter was grieved because He saith unto him the third time, Lovest thou Me? And he saith unto Him, Lord, Thou knowest all things; Thou knowest that I love Thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed My sheep."--JOHN xxi.

15-17.

The whole story contained in these verses carries us back in thought to the time when Peter denied the Lord. They contain the first recorded words which pa.s.sed between Christ and Peter since the latter had said, "I know not the man," and the Lord had "turned and looked upon Peter."

He had his special token of lovingkindness at the Resurrection in the message which the woman brought: "Tell His disciples and Peter," in the witness given to himself, "The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon," and in his partic.i.p.ation in the blessing when the Lord stood in the midst and said, "Peace be unto you"; but these are, I think, the first recorded words addressed directly to Peter.

Peter had professed to be faithful above others; and now the Lord asks him, "Lovest thou Me more than these?" and the question thrice repeated can scarcely fail to remind us of the triple denial.

If we consider what must have been the state of Peter's mind after he had denied the Lord, we shall see that the circ.u.mstances recorded indicate a crisis in his life-history. How the enemy must have come in like a flood! what desolation of spirit he must have experienced during those lonely moments that followed the look of the Lord, when he went out, and wept bitterly! the enemy was come against him in full force, and legions of evil spirits had arisen to destroy his faith for ever.

One would say to him, "Thou hast sinned against special warnings; the Lord said to thee particularly that Satan had desired to have thee that he might sift thee as wheat. A little later on He said, 'Pray that ye enter not into temptation;' and a sin against special warning is more than twice a sin; and it was that sin which of all others thou didst think to be so great that it was impossible for thee to commit it."

Then another spirit would say, "Thou hast sinned against special promise; for thee the Saviour prayed; but now it is clear that thou hast outsinned the Mediator's grace and the Intercessor's prayers"; and at the thought black despair and utter hopelessness would enter his soul, as if to make it their eternal abode.

Then a third spirit would suggest the thought, "I said, 'I know not the man!' Dost remember, Peter, how He Himself said, 'I will declare unto you, that I never knew you;' and again, 'Whosoever denieth Me before men, him will I also deny before My Father in Heaven!' No word of Christ shall be broken; yea, thou thyself hast in past time established thyself on the faithfulness of His truth!"

Again would come the thought, "By thy words shalt thou be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned; and of every idle word that men shall speak they shall give an account in the day of judgment--how much more then for a _deliberate_ word, affirmed, and reaffirmed, and affirmed again."

It was as if a judgment-seat were already set up in his soul, and the spirits were pleading him outside mercy; not one would speak in his behalf. Even the promises and the threatenings were against him; the first saying, we strengthened him; and the second, we warned him. Then some voices would testify against him on a side where one would think nothing would have been said, "Thou hast injured the faith; thou hast weakened the brethren; thou hast been infidel against love, and for such there is no repentance; thou hast sold thy Lord at a cheaper rate than Judas!"

"Dost thou remember, Peter, that tree which the Lord cursed, because, when He had a right to expect fruit from it, it bore none? Was there ever a time when the Master expected so much from thee as this? and now He has come, and found 'nothing but leaves.'"

Then, perhaps, one ray of hope would gleam into his darkened soul--"But the Lord did pray for me, and He never prayed in vain. He said, Father, I know that Thou hearest Me always; and He prayed for me."

And then the spirits would answer, "But the Lord prayed for thee that thy faith might not fail, and _it has failed_; where now is the power of the Lord's prayer? And if that has failed what remains for thee unless it be a certain fearful looking-for of judgment. If even He who said, 'Father, I thank Thee that Thou hearest Me always,' has been refused in His pet.i.tion; even G.o.d is against thee, and the stars in their courses rule thee down, Simon, son of Jonas."

Another bitter shaft enters his heart: "Dost thou remember, Peter, how the Lord said of His own followers, 'I have kept them in Thy name, and none of them is lost but the son of perdition'? Thou hast not only made vain the Lord's prayers, but denied the Lord's faith, and caused Him to appear before heaven and earth as a false witness. Would He speak like that now, if He were beginning His intercessory prayer again? Would He not have to say, 'None of them is lost, except the Sons of Perdition, the Denier and the Betrayer'? So that even Christ's words failed to meet his case."

"And now, Peter, the high priest is asking Him of His disciples and His doctrines; what thoughts must be in His mind about thee when He takes up His testimony concerning those for whom He has lavished His life!

The question will wring His heart anew into great drops of blood."

"Moreover, thou hast sinned against the strongest light and the highest privilege; it was given to thee to be with Him at the most solemn and sacred times: thou wast with Him at the transfiguration in the Holy Mount; and if ever heaven could strengthen earth, thou shouldst have been a strong man. Thou wast with Him at times of special Power, when only two or three were privileged to see the grace and glory flow down upon the suffering and the dying. Will not the greatness of thy privilege be the greatness of thy condemnation? He always chose thee to be with Him in special times when He went apart for prayer: to whom much is given, of them will much be required. Oh! how hast thou fallen!" and the spirits away in the darkness would say, "Thou art become even as one of us."

Then he would remember how in his own family, almost in his own flesh, he had received special mercy; and that work of healing would rise up to condemn him. Sin against mercy is sin without mercy; a thousand times thou art condemned, having sinned against such light and privilege and grace.

Then some spirits would whisper, "Dost thou remember how when many were leaving the Lord, because His doctrines were hard to receive and His steps hard to follow, He asked the question, 'Will ye also go away?'

Who was it that answered so readily, 'Lord, to whom shall we go?'

Would it not have been better to have denied Him at the first than to have waited till the light had grown as clear as it has been, and to have deserted Him when He needed thee most? Better to have denied Him then, when evidence was feeble, than to disown Him, known as thou hast been privileged to know Him!"

We are not told one word about what Peter did or where he went, except that he went out weeping. When the morning came and they were leading Jesus away to crucifixion, John was there, but no mention is made of Peter. And yet I think I know where he went, and can see him taking his way across the brook, which so lately he had crossed with Jesus, to the garden of olive-trees. He would say to himself, "Here is the place where the Lord came and found me sleeping"; and "Here He said to me, 'Pray, pray, that ye enter not into temptation.'" Going a little farther, he would come to the place where the Master Himself had prayed. He would kneel and pray there too; in the place where there were still lying on the ground great drops of blood, the earth still wet with the strange sorrow of the Lamb. There, in his despair, he would kneel; and yet even in his despair would be turned towards G.o.d.

His heart would be turned, even when he thought it never would be turned again; he would be there, without comfort, and yet G.o.d comforting him. Maybe, for him, too, there were strengthening angelic ministries; for there are more of these heavenly messengers with us than we think. Perhaps some words of ancient promise might be brought to his mind by G.o.d, as he was kneeling there; such as, "My soul cleaveth unto the dust, quicken Thou me according to Thy word!" "A bruised reed He will not break, and smoking flax He will not quench, till He bring forth judgment into victory." "He restoreth my soul, He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake." But whatever means were adopted, we believe that G.o.d was with him--comforting, restoring, saving, strengthening him. All this prepares us for the scene by the Lake.

This must have struck Peter as very like another pa.s.sage in the intercourse between him and Jesus. Strange scene! we are back in Galilee; we experience again a night of fruitless toil. This was my place of consecration at the first; and these nets, which I borrow now, were then my own; and it was in the morning that the Lord was standing on the beach, as He did even now.

There is no mere repet.i.tion in this story: to a soul in Peter's case the one impossible thing would be that he should ever regain the place from whence he fell. And the Lord was going to convince him, by means of these similar circ.u.mstances and the miraculous draught of great fishes, that there was for him, even for him, such a thing as a fresh start; and that he should not mourn because there was "no returning upon his former track." When the boat had been brought to land, the Lord questioned Peter, not saying, "Thou didst deny Me," but "Dost thou love Me?" and finally repeats in his ears the old word with which He moved him to tread the heavenly way at the first--"Follow thou Me."

There were now no boats or nets which Peter could leave for the Lord, but the whole drama of consecration is acted over again. "Follow Me, Peter; what thou hast missed shall yet be given thee; formerly there was a point beyond which thou couldst not follow Me; but now thou shalt tread in My footsteps, even to the cross which thou didst fear at the first, and to the shame from which erewhile thy soul recoiled."

"Another shall carry thee whither thou wouldest not: this spake He, signifying by what death he should glorify G.o.d."

VI

ADDITION AND MULTIPLICATION

"He that lacketh these things is blind and short-sighted, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins."--2 PETER i. 9.

The chapter from which these verses are taken describes two arithmetical processes, the working out of one of which belongs to us, and of the other to our Father in heaven. The first is an addition sum: "Add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; and to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience G.o.dliness; and to G.o.dliness brotherly-kindness; and to brotherly-kindness love." Writing down the figures of the sum, and computing the total, we have it set out fair and clear,--"Ye shall never fall." The other is G.o.d's multiplication sum:

"Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of G.o.d and of Jesus our Lord"; and the result of the working comes out,--"Ye shall be made partakers of the Divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through l.u.s.t." I suppose it means that if we are willing to go on at an arithmetical progression, G.o.d would work in us at a geometrical one; and so, patiently persisting in holiness, and hungering after righteousness, we shall be in heaven before we know where we are.

But such pa.s.sages trouble some folk who don't like to think that a Christian has anything to do in the matter of his own salvation; who say "It is finished" over a work that is only begun in them, and "Jesus paid it all," when a voice within is saying, "How much owest thou unto thy Lord?" or, perhaps, if they do not put it quite so strongly as that, they are, to say the least, gravely suspicious of the existence of a creaturely activity in the spiritual life.

Let us settle, then, in the beginning, that G.o.d never requires us to exercise ourselves to win His favour, nor calls us to work for One in whom we have no faith. He never says, "Add to your darkness grace; and to grace mercy; and to mercy peace." That would be impossible; for grace, mercy, and peace are experienced in the Divine operation; and it is because we have so received them that we are able to fulfil the commandments given to us. G.o.d sets us this sum to work, but He gives us a clean slate on which to work it; He cleanses that inward tablet on which we have been working out quite a different sum, whose total is given in the words,--"The wages of sin is death"; He purifies it, that there may be written thereon the steps and the summation of the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Now, some one will say, "Does every one have to go through a process of development of virtues such as is indicated in this epistle, and must every one have them all, and produce them in the same order? May we not develop just a few of them, by a sort of spiritual selection, as flowers have their own colours, and the creatures their own forms and features?" To this we answer (i.) that if you are to be a saint, as G.o.d has called you to be, you must have the qualifications and nature of a saint; (ii.) we ought not to recoil from this sum, as if the casting of the figures were necessarily a long process. No, not long! how long does it take one to reach love? Why, we commonly use the expression "falling in love"; and when the heart is awakened to the sense of the universal presence of the Father, it is not difficult to love men for His sake. As for the virtues, we must have them all. Shall we imagine an impatient saint, called to follow Him who when reviled, reviled not again; an ignorant saint, a partaker of Him in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge; an intemperate saint, to follow Him who was living at a cheaper rate, for a man, than the foxes or the fowls; an unloving saint! into whose heart have been breathed the words, "Love is the fulfilling of the law," or, which is the same thing, "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth"? Yes, we must have them all. What, will you complain, like little children, because your Teacher has been giving you too many rows to add up? will you say, "Lord, you overrate my powers; you think too highly of the grace that you have given me; I know you, that you are a hard man, an austere man"?

Does it matter in what order we ascend our virtue-scale? Not at all.

An addition sum comes to the same thing whether you put it 2 + 3 or 3 + 2. For myself, I would like to begin the addition from the bottom row, starting with love; but it does not matter, so that all the figures are included. The Apostle goes on to speak of the effect of such a chain of experience upon the perceptive powers of the soul; he who has these things, well; his eye shall see the King in His beauty and the land of far distances; he who has them not, he is blind and short-sighted; or, as Luther and the Vulgate render it, is blind, and gropes with his hands. Spiritual short-sightedness is the result of the neglect of the pursuit of the prize of the high calling of G.o.d in Christ. An indistinct vision may result from one of two causes: a fault in the eye, or an obstruction in the atmosphere. If you cannot make out a distant object while other people can, they will say to you, "How short-sighted you are!" but if no one can discern it, the probability is that something external has made vision impossible. Now, in the things of G.o.d, it is almost always the first defect that mars our perception; and the main reason why "eye hath not seen" is in our own nature, and not because G.o.d has not prepared nor revealed such things for our perception. To them that love Him, He reveals; wherefore let us add to kindness love, and we shall know. There are many things to which we are blind, because we have not practised ourselves in looking for them, nor do we know in what direction to look. I remember, when in the Isle of Arran, watching through a mist for the coming of the steamer from Glasgow; our landlady found it long before we could detect it, because she was more used to the quest; her eyes were keener, and she knew the direction in which to look. And the soul that ardently believes and hopes, knows well how to lift up its eyes to the hills from whence its help shall come, and to discern the help when it appears.

There are some people who seem ignorant of the fact that G.o.d has given them spiritual faculties suited to the observation of spiritual realities. They are like folks who, if they were put down ten miles from home on a clear night, would never be able to tell you on which side of the sky the sun would rise; because they never exercised their powers in the observation of the way the skies go round. And not only may we discern spiritual realities, but more than that, it is written that the pure in heart shall see G.o.d. For G.o.d has not given up revealing Himself to men yet; but this is an age in which, while there are many who know Him a little, there are few who know Him much. He spake to the fathers. He is speaking still. Enoch was not the last of whom it should be said, "He walked with G.o.d, he pleased G.o.d"; Isaiah not the only one who could say, "I beheld the Lord sitting on a throne high and lifted up"; Paul not the only one who should be privileged with rapture to the third heaven; George Fox not the only one to whom it was given to say, "I was come up, through the naming sword, into the Paradise of G.o.d." Many there are who have known "the Most High G.o.d no vision, nor that One who rose again."

G.o.d, who at sundry times, in manners many, Spake to the fathers and is speaking still, Eager to find if ever, or if any Souls will obey and hearken to His Who that one moment has the least descried Him, Dimly and faintly, hidden and afar, Doth not despise all excellence beside Him, Pleasures and powers that are not and that are.

Aye, amid all men bear himself thereafter, Smit with a solemn and a sweet surprise, Dumb to their scorn and turning on their laughter Only the dominance of earnest eyes.

Whoso has felt the Spirit of the Highest Cannot confound nor doubt Him nor deny; Yea, with one voice, O world, though thou deniest, Stand thou on that side, for on this am I.

Yes! things that were seen of old may be seen again; voices that spake to prophets and seers be revived in the innermost soul of G.o.d's faithful children; G.o.d is not dead; the Lord Jesus has not been raised from the grave to be placed in an inaccessible limbo, far from the sight of believing eyes: the Holy Spirit still speaks, as of old time, by holy men; He has not left the world yet, He dwelleth with you, He shall be in you.

Suppose I were to say to you that if you were to go down to Hastings you would be able to see the French coast clearly and distinctly, you would say, "Impossible even to the longest-sighted person; it is more than fifty miles away"; and yet, as you may see in the Philosophical Transactions for 1798, the coast of France was so visible, without a telescope, from Calais to St. Vallery, with the fishing-boats, and the colour of the houses clearly perceived. When you hear this, you say, "Well, if it is in the Philosophical Transactions, it must be true, and if it happened once, it may happen again." Good enough reasoning; and the Scriptures are the Spiritual Transactions, the record of G.o.d's dealings with and revealings to men of old time. If they are true, He has unveiled the hidden mysteries not once or twice to waiting souls; and what He has done, He not only may do again, but will do, wherever He finds a truly humble heart in which to work and rest. If He stood by Paul, saying, "Fear not," just as really and maybe as evidently will He stand by you: If He guided him in his work, restraining him from preaching here, and calling him to service there, He will give you also leadings just as certain and maybe as distinct. But, do you say, "Are we then to seek for signs and wonders, to fast and pray, ardently longing for the Divine revelation, until the vision dawns?" I do not say so; but rather add unto your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; and to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience G.o.dliness; and to G.o.dliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness love: for if ye do these things ye shall never fall, and an entrance shall be abundantly ministered unto you into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ.

VII

A CONFERENCE ON DEATH

"And, behold, there talked with Him two men, which were Moses and Elias, who appeared in glory, and spake of His exodus which He should accomplish at Jerusalem."--LUKE ix. 30, 31.

We shall not attempt to explain the whole subject of the Transfiguration, but let us consider for what Jesus went up into the mountain. The common opinion is that He went up to enjoy Himself--in search of some spiritual ecstacy. But in this case there would have been no transfiguration. Spiritual rapture comes after earnest labour through eager prayer--it is not found by seeking--we have not to look for feelings or ecstacies; we need "to know the will of G.o.d, and to do it."