New Park Street Pulpit · Sermon No. 265
Delivered on Sabbath Morning, July 31st, 1859.
“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”—Matthew 11:28-30.
THE single sentence which I have selected for my text consists of these words:—“I am meek and lowly in heart.” These words might be taken to have three distinct bearings upon the context. They may be regarded as being the lesson to be taught: “Learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart.” One great lesson of the gospel is to teach us to be meek—to put away our high and angry spirits, and to make us lowly in heart. Peradventure, this is the meaning of the passage— that it we will but come to Christ’s school, he will teach us the hardest of all lessons,—how to be meek and lowly in heart. Again; other expositors might consider this sentence to signify, that is *the only Spirit in which a man can learn of Jesus,—*the Spirit which is necessary if we would become Christ’s scholars. We can learn nothing, even of Christ himself, while we hold our heads up with pride, or exalt ourselves with self-confidence. We must be meek and lowly in heart, otherwise we are totally unfit to be taught by Christ. Empty vessels may be filled; but vessels that are full already can receive no more. The man who knows his own emptiness can receive abundance of knowledge, and wisdom, and grace, from Christ; but he who glories in himself is not in a fit condition to receive anything from God. I have no doubt that both of these interpretations are true, and might be borne out by the connection. It is the lesson of Christ’s school—it is the spirit of Christ’s disciples. But I choose, rather, this morning, to regard these words as being a commendation of the Teacher himself. “Come unto me and learn; for I am meek and lowly in heart.” As much as to say, “I can teach, and you will not find it hard to learn of me.” In fact, the subject of this morning’s discourse is briefly this: the gentle, lovely character of Christ should be a high and powerful inducement to sinners to come to Christ. I intend so to use it: first of all, noticing the two qualities which Christ here claims for himself. He is ”meek;” and then he is “lowly in heart;” and after we have observed these two things, I shall come to push the conclusion home. Come unto him, all ye that are labouring and are heavy laden; come unto him, and take his yoke upon you; for he is meek and lowly in heart.
I. First, then, I am to consider THE FIRST QUALITY WHICH JESUS CHRIST CLAIMS. He declares that he is “MEEK.”
Christ is no egotist; he takes no praise to himself. If ever he utters a word in self-commendation, it is not with that object; it is with another design, namely that he may entice souls to come to him. Here, in order to exhibit this meekness, I shall have to speak of him in several ways.
1. First, Christ is meek, as opposed to the ferocity of spirit manifested by zealots and bigots. Take, for a prominent example of the opposite of meekness, the false prophet Mahomet. The strength of his cause lies in the fact, that he is not meek. He presents himself before those whom he claims as disciples, and says, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, for I am neither meek, nor lowly in heart; I will have no patience with you; there is my creed, or there is the scimitar— death or conversion, whichever you please.” The moment the Ma- hometan religion withdrew that very forcible argument of decapitation or impalement, it stayed in its work of conversion, and never progressed; for the very strength of the false prophet lays in the absence of any meekness. How opposite this is to Christ! Although he hath a right to demand man’s love and man’s faith, yet he comes not into the world to demand it with fire and sword. His might is under persuasion; his strength is quiet forbearance, and patient endurance; his mightiest force is the sweet attraction of compassion and love. He knoweth nothing of the ferocious hosts of Mahomet; he bids none of us draw our sword to propagate the faith, but saith, “Put up thy sword into its scabbard; they that take the sword shall perish by the sword.” “My kingdom is not of this world, else might my servants fight.” Nay, Mahomet is not the only instance we can bring; but even good men are subject to the like mistakes. They imagine that religion is to be spread by terror and thunder. Look at John himself, the most lovely of all the disciples: he would call fire from heaven on a village of Samaritans, because they rejected Christ. Hark to his hot enquiry,—“Wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” Christ’s disciples were to him something like the sons of Zeruiah to David; or when Shimei mocked David, the sons of Zeruiah said, “Why should this dead dog curse my lord the king? let me go over, I pray thee, and take off his head.” But David meekly said, “What have I to do with you, ye sons of Zeruiah? ”—and put them aside. He had something of the spirit of his Master; he knew that his honour was not then to be defended by sword or spear. O blessed Jesus! thou hast no fury in thy spirit; when men rejected thee thou didst not draw the sword to smite, but, on the contrary, thou didst yield thine eyes to weeping. Behold your Saviour, disciples, and see whether he was not meek. He had long preached in Jerusalem without effect, and at last he knew that they were ready to put him to death; but what saith he, as, standing on the top of the hill, he beheld the city that had rejected his gospel? Did he invoke a curse upon it? Did he suffer one word of anger to leap from his burning heart? Ah! no; there were flames, but they were those of love; there were scalding drops, but they were those of grief. He beheld the city, and wept over it, and said, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not.” And for a further proof of the absence of all uncharitableness, observe that, even when they drove the nails into his blessed hands, yet he had no curse to breathe upon them, but his dying exclamation was, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” O sinners! see what a Christ it is that we bid you serve. No angry bigot, no fierce warrior, claiming your unwilling faith: he is a tender Jesus. Your rejection of him has made his bowels yearn over you; and though you abhor his gospel, he has pleaded for you, saying, “Let him alone yet another year, till I dig about him; peradventure he may yet bring forth fruit.” What a patient master is he! Oh! will you not serve him!