Christian Services and Christian Rewards

“This I say, that he which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully.”—2 Corinthians ix. 6.

This text is often appealed to with great triumph by those who say that men can only be excited to good deeds here by the prospect of a tangible recompense for them in a future state. “The writer,” they remind us, “is St. Paul, the Apostle who is supposed by Protestants to have laid the axe to all notions of human merit. His meaning cannot be mistaken. He is exhorting the Corinthians to make a collection for their poorer brethren. He is asking for their money. He affirms that if they give their money liberally, they will receive liberally from God. And can language,” they continue, “be more natural or reasonable than this? Do not your preachers fall into it almost inevitably? You are shocked at the notion that alms are an offering for sins. You will denounce by the hour those who encourage men to think that some of their offences may be overlooked, or even that they may obtain actual rewards in Heaven, if they relinquish a portion of their earthly treasures. But is there one of your charity sermons which does not leave the inference upon the minds of those who hear, that their condition may be better if they help the cause for which the preacher is pleading—may be worse if they are deaf to his rhetoric? Draw what nice distinctions you please, you suggest that opinion when your words are effective. And what is the reason that they are so often ineffective, but this, that men do not know whether you mean what you say? Sometimes we suppose that we are to take St. Paul literally, and calculate the harvest by the seed that is sown. Sometimes you speak as if the one was wholly independent of the other. And the result is what might be expected. The benevolent and religious efforts of your flocks are uncertain and desultory; beginning under the pressure of some sudden impulse, presently abandoned because there is no sufficient motive for persevering in them. Can it be otherwise? In ordinary affairs we act upon the Apostle’s maxim. We expect results from our diligence. In those affairs which are, you say, the most important, it seems as if we are to assume, or half to assume, a directly opposite principle.”

These arguments evidently strike at some inconsistency in our modes of speaking, at some feebleness in our modes of acting, which ought to be examined that it may be corrected. They appeal to that practical sense which Englishmen value and must value above all refinements of divinity. They appeal also to our trade temper. It is very hard for us to divest ourselves of habits of thought in one region which we cultivate in another. If we suppose that our main business on earth is to lay out so much capital that we may secure a good return, we shall—whatever our formal professions may be—use the same measure in our expectations of the world after death. We may talk against Romanism till we are weary, but if this be Romanism, a nation which gives itself up to money-getting and gambling, must be Romanist or atheistic, or both in one.

I. As I am anxious to interpret St. Paul’s language strictly, I must ask you to observe that his comparison is not drawn from trade. He did not avoid commercial allusions or illustrations when they came in his way. The Epistle to the Ephesians abounds in such. He speaks of the goods which were left in bond by the purchaser, of the seal he put upon them, of the earnest-money he paid for them, of the time when he would come to redeem them. But in this instance the ordinary operations of husbandry, not the speculations of the merchant, supply him with his analogy. He does not speak of making a venture, but of conforming to a law. The savage who depends for his supplies of food upon the accidents of the chase is evidently more of a speculator, in the common sense of the word, than the civilized man who tills his ground and sows it at the appointed season. The one trusts in part to his skill and dexterity; in part to chance. His acts are irregular, done with a prospect, though an uncertain prospect, of a reward; when he gets it, he boasts over his less fortunate rival. The other does best when he attends most carefully to certain facts over which he has no control whatever; he trusts neither in his skill nor in chance; his acts are orderly; he expects a result which must be common, not particular, which other men must share as well as himself. His fields may be more productive than those of his neighbour; but it is the harvest he must look to; the sun will not shine or the rains fall at certain irregular seasons to please him. This is St. Paul’s comparison, considered generally. Let us inquire more minutely what seed it is which he required the Corinthians to sow, and what harvest he encouraged them to hope that they might reap.

II. I am not at all eager to explain away the context of the chapter. It is true that he wished the Corinthians to make collections for the poor. Let it be fully admitted then that money was to be the seed, or part of the seed, which they were bidden not to scatter sparingly. St. Paul does not indulge in refinements, and we must not indulge in them if we would understand him. He wished the Corinthians to contribute of their substance, of their gold. Other things along with that; certainly that if they had it. But if you look at his exhortation, you will see that he talks much of cheerful giving, of giving not grudgingly or of necessity. Something then was demanded of them, not only besides the money, but before it. The precept would not be obeyed if this were wanting. St. Paul was certain the seed would be sown sparingly, capriciously, unprofitably, unless there were this power to direct the hand of the sower. These were great demands—cheerfulness and a ready mind. How were they to be procured? They were not inseparable accidents from the possession of the money surely. St. Paul intimates that they often belonged most to those who had the least of it. Could they be obtained by the help of calculation? If a man said to himself, “So much of this wealth which I love must be given up, in order that I may avert some future penalty or get some future reward”—would the cheerful will, the ready mind, be formed either at once or gradually? I apprehend the man who presented that thought to himself would begin with grudging, and would grudge more and more each time he forced himself to diminish his hoards. Under the pressure of some great conscience-pang, with death staring him in the face, they would be dispersed freely. “It is worth while to incur any risk now. I may not have my wealth long to enjoy. Why not devote it to the poor or the Church, as well as to my heirs?” But how sure we are that this disposition will last just as long as the terror lasts! Take away that, and what has become of it? I do not mean that it is at all impossible to keep up a certain habit of fear, a pressure which shall never be quite unfelt. But those are not practical people,—they are wild dreamers who say that by such a process a man will acquire the state of mind which the Apostle demands,—that he will not be hindered from acquiring it. We attribute an influence to this motive which in the nature of things it cannot have, because we resolutely ignore the existence of another principle in ourselves and our fellow-men wholly unlike this, absolutely opposed to this. We do not acknowledge that there is a power working upon us to produce a ready and loving mind, and that our true thoughts and just acts proceed from this. We suppose that the miserable calculations which are disturbing and destroying the sincerity of our doings, are really the springs of what is good in them.

It was not so with St. Paul. And therefore I conceive that the passage before us is entirely consistent with those which people have fancied that it contradicts, or at least qualifies. He assumes that there is a Spirit of God, a Spirit of Love who is stirring hearts that of themselves would be torpid to living energy, to steady labours, to acts of which there is no obvious and immediate result. He bids them simply obey this Spirit. Then their acts will be simple and orderly, like those of the husbandman who casts seed into the ground, losing it out of his sight, trusting it to secret powers which are not under his direction to ripen it. His acts will not be like those of the wild hunter, who is always considering what he can get by his bow, who has no belief in hidden and transmuting processes, who knows nothing of law or a lawgiver, all whose efforts are therefore poor, fragmentary, and uncertain.

“Do not sow sparingly,” the Apostle seems to say. “Sow freely, ungrudgingly. For the free ungrudging Spirit of God is working with you to will and to do of His good pleasure. You are striving against Him, you are refusing to be made the instruments of His loving purposes, when you dole out with a niggardly hand that which He has given you, in trust for those who are members of the same family with yourselves. If you sow sparingly, you are not sowing as God sows. You are not acting as the servants and the children of the great Husbandman. You show that you think of Him as a taskmaster with whom you are bargaining, for whom you only make sacrifices because you expect him to pay you for them.”

III. Such are the inferences we should draw from the clause of the text which concerns sowing. But what does he understand by the reaping? What are those rich results which are to follow if the seed is freely dispersed, those poor results which must be looked for where there is a mean, grudging use of it? The Apostle does not give us much help in this passage to ascertain his meaning. He takes it for granted that the Corinthians knew what they were to hope for. They had heard the Gospel to little purpose if they did not. His own words elsewhere, and still more our Lord’s, may remove all doubt from our minds on this subject.

1. First, then, Christ clearly holds out to us a promise of very rich blessings to come from our fellow-creatures in such passages as these: “Give, and it shall be given you; full measure, pressed down, and running over, will men give into your bosoms.” Here we have the assurance that those will experience a larger return of free, uncalculating love, who have a free, uncalculating love in their own hearts, and who show it forth in their acts. Those, as He expressed it at the same time, who give, “hoping for nothing again,” who have no notion of laying out their capital to advantage, who communicate their gold, their hearts, their very selves, to those among whom they live, because they sympathize with them, will find a sympathy greater than they can dream of. It must often have seemed to the Apostles as if this promise—like others which yet came from One Who does not deceive—were not fulfilled. St. Paul complained to the Corinthians, that the more he loved the less he was loved. The preachers of the Gospel seemed as if they were hated by men because they carried to them a message of peace. They had to sustain themselves under such thoughts by remembering that the servant was not above the Master; that He Who showed most love found most hatred; that He said, “They have hated both me and my Father.” And by degrees they learnt the truth of His other words through these. They were sure that the Divine Love had not been thrown away. If it called forth all that was most hostile to it, this was a homage to its power. By degrees it would be found also that it had called forth in a still more wonderful manner that which corresponded to it, that which was of its own nature. Out of the hardest rock, waters would gush forth, when it was struck by the rod of the true guide and deliverer. If the Cross was the great sign how men struggle against their dearest Friend, it would at last, so He declared, draw all to itself. The Apostles knew what a might of resistance there was to it in themselves. They knew also its mightier attraction. And if in their own persons they had to experience the enmity which it provoked, they also knew themselves to be the objects of an affection, of which they could not measure the depth or the height,—an affection which would have been probably dangerous to them if it had not been checked and counteracted by a number of unfriendly, ungenial influences here; but which they were sure would have free scope for developing itself when the vanity that perverted it into a selfish gratification had been burnt up, and when they understood and realized, what here they believed, that they were members of one body, in which if one suffer all must suffer, if one rejoice all must rejoice. On the whole, then, this was a kind of fruit which they had received imperfectly, which they might expect in fulness hereafter; but it was a fruit which they could not produce or ripen by making it the object of their speculations. So far as they did that, they blighted and killed it in the bud; they introduced barrenness and rottenness into the stock from which it was to grow. If this is the kind of reward we desire, the notion of earning it by merit is one which we must diligently cast aside.

2. But our Lord held forth another prize to His disciples. “Fear not,” He said to St. Peter, when he was astonished at the fishes which had come into the net at His word, “henceforth ye shall catch men.” The Apostle to whom these words were addressed had many of those thoughts in his own heart which have been fostered in the Church that calls him its head, and in Churches that disclaim him as their head. “We have left all, and followed thee,” he said to our Lord, “what shall we have therefore?” He was told that they were to have more than they had left, or than they knew of. But it was clear that they must pass through a tremendous discipline—a fiery baptism—before they could either receive the good things which were coming to them, or would care to receive them. They had given up their father’s ship and their occupation, to do Christ’s work; by and by they thought they should have their wages, and be allowed rest. He never gave them a hint of such felicity. Those who had used five talents or two talents well, He said, should have five talents or two talents more. They should have rule over five cities or over ten cities. The reward was to be fresh work, a larger sphere of action, a more responsible stewardship. To be the distributors and doers of good was not to be a way of getting good for themselves, it was to be itself the good; if they did not enter into it and enjoy it and give thanks for it, but only counted it taskwork which they were to endure for a certain time, they could not be ministers of the kingdom of Heaven; they could not enter into the joy of their Lord. For the chief of all in that kingdom was the servant of all; the joy of Christ was to do His Father’s will, and to finish His work. The great gift of all, therefore, the gift of His Spirit, was bestowed on the Apostles, not as their dismissal from labour, but as the qualification for labour. By this Spirit they were to bear witness of Christ’s redemption, to catch men, to gather out a Church. By it they were raised above the miserable question, “What shall we have then?” to feel that Selfishness was the great curse and damnation from which Christ came to set them free, that Self-Sacrifice is the law of the Universe, that this part of the Universe is broken and divided and unhappy because we are fighting against that law and trying to repeal it, that it must be that which all creatures obey in every region where Christ’s power is fully confessed, and His Father worshipped as their Father.

3. But though a continual increase and enlargement of work is one part of Christ’s promise to His faithful disciples, it is equally true that He speaks of a Rest which He has prepared for them, and which they are to enter. Rest and work have sustained each other in this world; either has been a curse without the other. It must be so throughout the whole Universe over which He rules, Who reveals Himself to us as creating all things and renewing them each day, and as resting with delight in that which He has made, because it is very good. In no future condition which is subject to His law, of which His will is the author, can there be a rest which is incompatible with activity, an activity that does not imply rest, and is not consummated in it. The Scriptures do not leave us in ignorance of the nature of the rest. They speak of it as the image of God’s rest and satisfaction. We enter into it in proportion as we know Him, in proportion as we are satisfied with that which satisfies Him. All our fevers and restlessness come not from overmuch of toil, they beset those most who have most idleness. But they come from a dream of something which we are to get for ourselves here or elsewhere; of something which is necessary to our happiness; and yet which the Creator of the world does not desire us to have; something which, by one means or other, we must obtain, in spite of His disinclination to grant it. This craving, whether it takes what is called a worldly form or what is called a religious form, whether it confessedly turns to the things of earth or is apparently and nominally occupied with the things of Heaven, must be destructive of peace, must be inhuman, must be ungodly. For that peace of God which passes understanding is not a distant thing, which we must go up into the sky or down into Hell to seek after. It is with us continually; embracing us; the source of all that is harmonious in the lives and societies of men, reflected in the order of the external world. And because it is that which binds us together in one, he who would have it as his own refuses it; he who would vindicate it for all men, and invites all men into the participation of it, discovers its nature and begins to taste the blessedness of it. He does not strive with God, but yields to Him; believes that His Will is the loving, preserving, restoring Will; reposes in that.

I think then, my brethren, that the text we have considered to-day, instead of encouraging the doctrine which St. Paul denounces elsewhere, is one of the best and most effectual warnings against it. Once learn from him what seed God would have us sow, what harvest He would have us desire, and our dreams of some meritorious services which are to earn eternal life must seem more monstrous than they ever did. Yes! and the practical English sense, which the dealers in these false motives try to enlist on their side, will be found utterly to discard them. Plain, palpable, material gratifications which can be seized, which do bring a moment’s reward, will not be relinquished for the dim possibility of some advantage in another condition of existence. It is true that our language respecting rewards is fluctuating and confused; it is true that our benevolence is often of a very uncertain, dilettante kind; it is true that the two facts are closely connected—perhaps as cause and effect. But it is not true that we are too much opposed to the doctrine that men must be bribed to do right. We are afraid to dispense with bribes even when they manifestly fail of their purpose. We are afraid to tell men boldly that Selfishness is not the law of their lives, and every act of kindness and duty a graceful and meritorious deviation from the law. We are afraid to say that no man can live to himself or die to himself, if he wishes it ever so.

St. Paul however held that opinion, and therefore he exhorted the Corinthians to make a collection for the poor, not as some act of virtue or sanctity, but as part of their regular business. They were to do it just as they were to sow the ground, just as they were to care for their children, or pursue their common occupations. The care of our children, the performance of our duties as lawyers, physicians, tradesmen, just as much implies a relation to other human beings, habitual obligations to them, daily and hourly self-sacrifice, as gifts to the poor or labours for them. The family will be neglected, the profession and trade will be neglected, just as much as the poor will be neglected, by any man who once resolutely acts upon the principle that he is sent into the world to care for himself. Let that principle be carried into practice as consistently as it is proclaimed in theory,—let men actually become what they are always trying to become,—and the work of the world is at an end; it is not Heaven we have given up; we have renounced the blessings of earth, and have fallen into a condition more savage than any that has ever yet been known. Do you never fear this result? Are you not sometimes terrified when you think of the indolence, the purposelessness, the hopelessness, which you see among young men? You want to make them work for any object, let it be the poorest, meanest possible. But you do not know how to make your ends low enough. You try competition for immediate rewards; that fails, or only succeeds for a moment. You try competition for distant rewards, the fear of distant punishments; that is less effectual still. Oh, try one method more! Do not speak to the base, covetous spirit in man, which Christ came to cast out. Speak to that which He came to rescue and redeem. Hold out to that a hope, a sure and certain hope, not a precarious hope; a hope safer than that of the husbandman waiting for the harvest. Speak of a Righteous Kingdom which has been established in the world. Say that it will assuredly be manifested, whether we crave for it or no. Say that in this Kingdom the great blessing is to work, to work for a perfectly good and faithful Master, to rest in His wisdom and truth. It is the message which men want to hear. For there is in the idlest human being a crying for occupation, an impatience of the wretchedness which falls to the lot of those who spend all the day idle. There is a craving to know if there is any one willing to hire them, and who He is, and what His vineyard is. There is a secret cry, in the most exclusive man, for a reward at the end of the day, which shall be general, not special, not doled out according to a narrow measure of ours, but according to the grace of Him Who giveth to all liberally and upbraideth not. There is an inward feeling, in the most selfish man, that Selfishness has been his torment, and that the Christ Who breaks this yoke is the only Saviour of him and of the Universe.