The Highway of the Upright
1 The highway of the upright is to depart from evil: he that keepeth his way preserveth his soul.” — xvi. 17.
VERY man has a highway of his own. It is formed, aa our forefathers formed their roads, simply by walking often on it, and without a predetermined plan. Foresight and wisdom might improve the moral path, as much as they have in our day improved the material. The highway of the covetous is to depart from poverty and make for wealth with all his might. In his eagerness to take the shortest cut he often falls over a precipice, or loses his way in a wood. The highway of the vain is to depart from seriousness, and follow mirth on the trail of fools. The highway of the ambitious is a scramble up a mountain’s side towards its summit, which seems in the distance to be a paradise basking in sunlight above the clouds, but when attained is found to be colder and barer than the plain below. The upright has a highway too, and it is to “depart from evil.”
The upright is not an unfallen angel, but a restored man: he has been in the miry pit, and the marks of the fall are upon him still. Even when a sinner has been forgiven and renewed — when he has become a new creature in Christ, and an heir, of eternal life — the power of evil within him is not entirely subdued, the stain of evil not entirely wiped away. He hates sin now in his heart, but he feels the yoke of it in his flesh still. His back is turned to the bondage which he loathes, and his face to the liberty which he loves. He hastens away from evil, and if he looks behind him at any time, it is to measure the distance he has already made, and quicken his pace for the time to come. In this way the pilgrim walks unwearied, nor dares to rest until in dwellings of the righteous he hear that “melody of joy and health:” “Salvation to our God who sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb.” Then at last he ceases to depart from evil; for there is no more any evil to depart from. He treads no more his chosen beaten highway, because he is now at home.
The man who has found this highway, and keeps it, “preserveth his soul.” How necessary to each other reciprocally are doctrine and life! To sever them is to destroy them; and to sever them is a more common error in Christendom than most are able to perceive or willing to confess. Doctrine, although both true and divine, is for us only a shadow, if it be not embodied in holiness. Nothing more effectually serves Satan’s purpose in the world than a strict creed wedded to a loose practice. This union secures a double gain to the kingdom of darkness; it keeps the man himself in bondage, and also exposes to shame the gospel of our Lord. The true doctrine is necessary to salvation, because it is the only way of reaching righteousness. The preciousness of revealed truth lies in this, that it teaches how we may please God, first by the righteousness of Christ, second and subordinately by personal obedience. He who keepeth his way preserveth his soul: conversely, he who departs from it shall perish.
There stands the word in all its simplicity and bluntness: the preserving of your soul depends on the keeping of your way. The way is obviously the life: no reader can mistake the meaning of the term. It was not the profession, but the “walk” of those Philippian backsliders thsrt made Paul weep, and ranked them “enemies of the cross of Christ.” The Lord himself, in the sermon on the mount, has settled this point with extraordinary precision and minuteness (Matt. vii. 21-27), especially in the parable of the two houses, that of the wise man built upon a rock, and that of the foolish man built upon the sand. He has graven as with a pen of iron, and the point of a diamond in the rock for ever, the lesson that a sound creed will not save an evil doer in the great day.
To contend for a high standard of doctrine, and be satisfied with a low standard of life, is a fatal inconsistency. It is a “damnable heresy,” whoever brings it in; for it issues in the loss of the soul. At certain periods in the history of the Church, and among certain communities of professors, evangelical doctrine has prevailed, while morality has languished. This knowledge, dissociated from obedience, is a more melancholy object of contemplation than the idolatry of Athens, where the living God was ununknown as a blighted corn-field is a sadder sight than a bare unsown moor. In the early Christian culture some fields ran waste in this way, on which much labour had been expended; and to these the reproof of James is specially addressed: “But wilt thou know, 0 vain man, that faith without works is dead?” (ii. 20). It is as false in philosophy as in religion to assume that a knowledge of the way will lead those home who refuse to walk in it.
In our day and our country, the supreme and fundamental importance of truth in doctrine is generally acknowledged and inculcated in the religious education of the people. This is both right and necessary, but it is not enough. Why should’ men separate and set up as rivals the knowing of the right way, and the walking in the way that is right 1 You may as well pit against each other the seeing eye and the shining light, some declaring for this and some for that as the one thing needful. Shake off prepossessions and traditions; go in simplicity to the Bible; sit at the feet of Jesus, and listen to the Teacher sent from God; and you will find that a so-called right believing which does not clothe itself in right living, so far from being a passport to safety, is an aggravation of guilt. “To him that knoweth to do good and doeth it, not, to him it is sin.”
When a wanderer has been met, like Paul, in the way of death, and led into the way of life, the end is not yet. Let not him that putteth on his armour boast himself as he that putteth it off. Those who have found the way must keep it. There are many by-paths, and many enticers clustering round the entrance of each. “Watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation.” “He that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved.”
It is in the way, the conduct, the life, that the breach occurs whereby a soul is lost, that seemed to bid fair for the better land. It is probable that with nine out of every ten of our people in this favoured land, the enemy finds it easier to inject actual impurity into the life than speculative error into the creed. Danger to the soul is greater on the side of practice than on the side of faith. A shaken faith, I own, leads the life astray; but also a life going astray makes shipwreck of the faith. I do not teach that any righteousness done by the fallen can either please God or justify a man; but I do teach, on the authority of the Bible, that a slipping from the way of righteousness and purity in actual life is the main stay of Satan’s kingdom — the chief destroyer of souls. When your conduct becomes impure, your belief will not continue sound. It is more common in the experience of individuals, if not also in the History of the Church, to find evangelical doctrine undermined by sinful practice, than to find holy practice perverted by a heterodox belief. A successful assault by the enemy on either side will ruin all, but in the battle of life the side of conduct is weaker and more exposed than the side of profession. If the spirits of darkness could be heard celebrating their success, while erroneous doctrines might, in their dreary paean, occupy the place of Saul who slays his thousands, indulged lusts would certainly be the David who slays his ten thousands. Young men and women! when you are in the place and the hour of temptation, look to that apostle who had sorely stumbled himself, and therefore, when confirmed by grace, was better fitted than others to have compassion on them that are out of the way; his eyes are red with weeping and his manly heart is breaking in his breast: he cries with an exceeding great and bitter cry, that should run through you like a sword in your bones: “Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul” (1 Peter ii. 11).
Every one has a highway, and every one is a traveller. The whole human race are travelling, each on his own chosen track, across Time and toward Eternity. Every traveller has something very precious in his custody — the most precious of created things — his own soul. “What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his soul 1” You will lose it, pilgrim, if you go off the way. The miners in the gold fields of Australia, when they have gathered a large quantity of the dust, make for the city with the treasure. The mine is far in the interior; the country is wild; the bush is infested by robbers. The miners keep the road and the day-light. They march in company, and close by the guard sent to protect them. They do not stray from the path among the woods; for they bear with them a treasure which they value, and they are determined to run no risks. Do likewise, brother, for your treasure is of greater value, your enemies of greater power, Keep the way, lest you lose your soul.