The Church's Widowhood
u And there was a widow in that city; and she came unto him, saying, Avenge me of mine adversary.” — Luke xviii. 3.
Most unweariedly has Satan sought, age after age, to silence the widowed Church’s cry, to muffle her voice, to seduce her into unfaithfulness, and to persuade her to part with her weeds of widowhood. That he has never wholly succeeded we know; for a remnant, at least, has always been found who abode faithful, though sometimes clothed in sackcloth, in addition to the widow’s raiment, and sometimes with that sackcloth stained with blood. Yet too frequently has he succeeded in part, — to an extent which may well alarm us, and lead to self-questionings of the most searching kind. He succeeded in a measure with the church of Ephesus, so that her Lord was constrained to address her as one who had left her first love. He succeeded still more with Sardis, till only a few names were left which had not defiled their garments. Even more sadly did he succeed with Laodicea; bringing her into such a condition of evil that she was on the very edge of entire
rejection; elating her with such thoughts of self- 385 Bb sufficiency and wealth as to make her wholly lose sight of her estate of lowly widowhood; decking her with the world’s gay attire, and leading her to exchange the widow’s cry for the world’s song, “I am rich and increased in goods, and have need of nothing.” But the full measure of his success is only seen in Babylon. In her, seduction has been triumphant, and not a vestige either of the widow’s weeds or of the widow’s cry can be found in her. The temptation which proved so unsuccessful in the Lord has succeeded in her, — the offer of the world’s kingdoms. With these, Satan has bewitched and beguiled her. For these, she has forsaken her Lord, and espoused herself to the god of this world, who satiates her to her heart’s content with the carnal abundance of his kingdom, so that she is no longer a widow, but a queen; no longer desolate, but “glorifying herself, and living deliciously;” no longer poorly or plainly clothed, but decked in purple, and pearls, and gold; no longer crying, in her helplessness, “Avenge me of mine adversary,” but ruling over the nations, nay, giving them to drink of the golden cup of her uncleanness, nay, seducing even the kings of the earth to pay her suit and service, intoxicating them with the pleasures of her unlawful love.
Between the state of backsliding Ephesus and that of apostate Babylon, there is a mighty difference; and yet these churches reveal but different degrees of the same evil. Ephesus represents the beginning, Babylon the end, of the downward course, between which extremities there exist many stages and gradations; but the type of evil is, to a certain extent, the same in all. In every one of them we see Satan laying snares for the Church, beguiling her out of her widow’s seclusion, making her dissatisfied with her poverty and weakness, persuading her to put off her weeds, and conform to the gay attire of the multitude around.
This, then, is one of the Church’s special dangers. Such is Satan’s object in assailing her. Such the small beginnings of apostasy, and such the fatal end! In ways most subtle, by degrees quite imperceptible, she is persuaded to leave her first love; and then, having done that, she is ready for any amount of backsliding.
Is it not thus that Satan is spreading his fascinations for the Church in our day? Fain would he draw her out of her seclusion into the gay whirl of earth. He spares no art to tempt her to act inconsistently with her widow’s character, and to become unfaithful to her widow’s vow. His object is to bring her down from her high standing as the Church of God, holy and beloved, separated unto Christ, and set on high by his redeeming power; to draw her off from that consecrated ground which her Lord had intended her to occupy, that she may mingle with the bustling crowds of the world’s highway, or take her place in its assemblies of pleasure and revelry.
In carrying on his seductions, he makes use of various appliances. He begins with objects which are in themselves lawful; he goes on with those which are suspicious and questionable; and he ends with those which are positively sinful and pernicious.
He approaches the Church subtilely and with fair words, as an angel of light. How excellent and noble is science, — how fitted to exalt the soul, and to feed its immortal longings! Most true. Nor ought we ever to say onewrord to the disparagement or depreciation of science. But may it not be too absorbing? May it not displace higher things? May it not lead to a too exclusive cultivation of the understanding, and so nourish intellectual pride, and seduce the soul into the mere wrisdom of this world? The Church is to be on her guard; not against science, but against the way in which science has been used to dazzle or bewilder the Church’s eye, and so withdraw her affection and her gaze from the things above.
Or, again, he comes to her applauding the world’s literature, and exhibiting it to her in all the fascinations of poetry and romance. Let us not discredit literature, or treat it all as alike unprofitable. But let us beware of its enchantments. Let us see that even in its lawful parts it does not come between us and the vision of the eternal kingdom, or lead us astray with the enticing words of man’s wisdom. And as to those parts of it that appeal to the sentiment, or the passions, or the lusts of our nature, which are mere gratifications of our love of pleasure, such as the novel, or the idle song, or the loose opera; — how can we touch, or taste, or handle? What has a heaven-born soul to do with earthly vanities like these? What has the widowed spouse of Christ, mourning her Lord’s absence, and longing for his return, to do with scenes and sounds such as these, which feed the flesh, which eat out the very core of faith, which rekindle fires that should be for ever quenched, and refasten links that should be for ever broken? Or, farther, he comes to her with the more direct blandishments of pleasure as his snares. “What sin, what harm in the dance, or the theatre or the assembly?” And how often is he at once responded to, — “Yes, what sin, what harm in these? May a man not be a Christian and yet enjoy these?” This would we say in reply. In primitive days no man would have thought of claiming the name of Christian who enjoyed them; and if a man can think himself a Christian while enjoying these, he must have misunderstood the character of a follower of Christ; he must have forgotten the Lord’s own awful words, — “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me; ’ and he must have set aside the apostle’s solemn exhortation,” Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world: if anv man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” If any say, u- This is an hard saying, who can hear it? “we answer, Is it harder than that, “She that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth?” Is it harder than that, “The friendship of the world is enmity to God?” Is it harder than that, “Come out, and be ye separate, and touch not the unclean thing? ‘Is it harder than that, u Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils; ye cannot be partaker of the Lord’s table, and the table of devils?”
Besides, what congeniality can one whose characteristic is that of widowhood, and orphanage, and stranger ship, find in such scenes as these? Laughter and revelling are for the whole-hearted and the sorrowless; how suit they the widow’s weeds and the widow’s cry? If the Church of God wTould mingle in such scenes, she must first renounce her widowhood; for how strange, how spectral, wrould be the entrance of widowhood, in the reality of grief, as well as in the outward garb of mourning, into such haunts of hollow mirth as the gay world presents! How startling, nay, how displeasing and disturbing, would be the sombre hue of the widow’s raiment in that blazing hall of midnight,
“That dazzling mass of artificial light That shews all things, but nothing as they are.”
Into such uncongenialities, how is it possible for the Church of God to enter? With incongruities and inconsistencies like these, she can have no sympathy. If she understands her own character and calling, she must see that she has a peculiar path to pursue, — a path which cannot admit of any such compromise between the things of heaven and the things of earth.
She, like her Lord, is from above; the world, like its prince, is from beneath, — and how can there be an alliance between parties, whose interests, sympathies, hopes, joys, are so far asunder? How can the Church of God descend from the high eminence to which she has been lifted up, and tread again that enchanted ground which she professes to have forsaken for ever? Can she lose sight of her calling? Can she forget her widowhood? Can she see no crime in being unfaithful to her absent Lord, and unjust to the memory of one who has loved her so well? Can she think of imitating (even in spirit, or for a day) the apostate Church, Satan’s harlot bride, and saying, “I sit as a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow?”
The god of this world is doing his utmost, in these last days, to ensnare the Church, to seduce her into worldliness, to draw down her eye from the heavenly glory, to silence her cry, to induce her to drop her widow’s raiment, and if not altogether to identify herself with the world, at least to be less peculiar, less singular in her walk, less solemn in her testimony against the “fashion of this world,” the “things that perish with the using,” “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life.”
Shall he succeed? Shall his sophistry prevail? Shall his appeals to all that is best in the natural man be met with acquiescence on the part of the saints of God? Shall his arguments and wily flatteries, addressed so skilfully to our love of natural beauty, wisdom, goodness, truth, be yielded to, so that we shall give up our distinctiveness as the called of God, and the heirs of his kingdom? Shall he persuade us to be less strict, less holy, less heavenly, with less of the sorrowing widow in our deportment, and more of the crowned queen?
Shall we resist, or shall we )ield? Shall we hold fast our profession, or shall we fling it aside? Shall we try to seize a portion here, or shall we be content to wait in faith, until the Lord return?
Surely this is a question for the age, — a question for the Church of God, — a question for every child of the kingdom. It is a question, too, for those who are still wholly of the earth: “Will ye cling to the earth; and what will that earth to which you cling do for you?” It is a question for those who think it possible to be both lovers of God and lovers of pleasure: “Will ye try to reconcile wThat is irreconcileable? Is not God enough without the world, — is not Christ enough without its pleasures?” It is a question for the anxious and the earnest: “Will ye not decide, — will ye waver, will ye halt, will ye try something less than an entire surrender of the whole man to God?” It is a question for the Christian: “Will you be less than your name implies, — less than a child of heaven, less than an heir of God, and a joint heir with Christ?” It is by faith you stand. It was the belief of God’s free love, as manifested in the cross of his Son, that made you what you are; and if that faith has any meaning, it means that you are no longer of the world, that your treasure is above, that your inheritance is not here, and that you are waiting, in patient love and hope, amid weariness and buffeting and trouble, for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.