The Christian's Growth
We beseech you brethren, that ye increase more and more.”~ 1 Thess. iv. 10.
Creatiox, so far at least as concerns this world, has been compared to a pyramid. Beginning with the mineral, passing upward into the vegetable, and rising into the animal kingdom, we find man standing on the apex — the crowning work of God. In defining the limits of these kingdoms, Linnaeus, the father of botany, says, that “minerals grow; that vegetables grow and live; that animals grow, live, and feel.” He makes growth common to them all; and in older days than his, some held that even stones and metals, as well as plants and animals, spring from seed. But though certain metals, in their native state, assume the arborescent form, and crystals increase in size, and coral forests throwing out branches like trees, rise from the bottom of the sea, yet no mineral substance ctin, properly speaking, be said to grow. Growth, that active power by which the ox converts the green grass of the meadow into red flesh, and foul manures are changed into fragrant odours, and all plants and animals appropriate to themselves such materials as are fitted to preserve their being and increase their bulk, is a property
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that belongs to life. It is only living things that grow, and all living things do grow. Be it the lichen that clings to the rock, or the eagle that has her nest on its craggy shelf, or man that rends its heart with powder and draws the gold from its bowels — from the germ out of which they spring they grow onwards to matu rity; in the words of my text, they “increase more and more.”
These words are as true of spiritual as of natural life. According to heathen fables, Minerva, the goddess of wisdom and daughter of Jupiter, sprung full-grown and full-armed from her father’s head. No man thus comes from the hand of the Holy Spirit, in sudden, mature, perfect saintship. There is nothing in the spiritual world which resembles this; no, nor even what the natm-al world presents in the development of the insect tribes. During their last and perfect stage, in the condition, as it is called of the imago, be their life long or short, they undergo no increase. So soon as the green worm that once crawled on the ground and fed on garbage, bursting its coffin-shell, comes forth, a creature with silken wings, to roam in the sunny air, to sleep by night on a bed of flowers, and by day banquet on their nectar, it grows no more — neither larger nor wiser; its flight and faculties being as perfect on the day of what may be called its new birth, as when, touched by early frosts or drowned in rain, it dies. Here, indeed, we have a symbol of the resurrection-body as it shall step from the tomb; in beauty perfect, in growth mature; to undergo henceforth, and through eternal ages, neither change nor decay. It is otherwise with the renewed soul. Before it, in righteousness, and knowledge, and true holiness, stretches a field of illimitable progress — upwards and onwards to what it shall be for ever approaching, yet never reach, the throne of God.
Meanwhile, to confine our views only to this world, — who knows his shortcomings and laments them; who feels with Paul that he has not yet attained, or is already perfect; that he is far from perfect; that he is not what he ought to be, and might have been, but also feels how appropriate to the best of us are those words of exhortation, “We beseech you, brethren” — by the mercies of God, by the cross of Christ, by your hopes of heaven; for the glory of Jesus’ name, and the good of his Church; for the sake of your purity, your peace, your joy, your fitness for heaven, and growth in grace, — “we beseech you that ye increase more and more.”
I. In what are we to increase?
“Thou hast multiplied the nation,” says the prophet, “and not increased the joy.” There is little or no advantage in the increase of some things. It but increases our danger, and adding to our cares, lays weightier burdens on the back of life. Hear the wise man, “He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver; nor he that loveth abundance with increase.” More riches will certainly not make us happier; and perhaps, paradoxical as it sounds, they may not even make us richer. The expenditure grows in proportion to the increase of income; and so again the wise man says, “When 10^ good increase, they increase that eat them; and what good is there to the owner thereof?” Good! Hear the wise man once more, “The sleep of a labouring man is sweet, but the abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep. There is a sore evil which I have seen under the sun; riches kept for the owners thereof to their hurt.” We have seen that as well as Solomon.
Nor is the increase even of wisdom, though a higher and nobler pursuit, without its own drawbacks. It is harder to work with the brain than with the hands; to hammer out thoughts than iron. Not to be acquired but by toil and self-denial, at the expense often of health, always of labour, and sometimes, as where the pale, emaciated student feeds his midnight lamp with the oil of life, at the expense of life itself, “In much wisdom,” as Solomon says, “is much grief, and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow — of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness to the flesh.”
It is not increase of these things at which my text calls us to aim; but of such riches as makes it less difficult, and more easy, to get to heaven; of the wisdom that humbles rather than puffs up its possessor; of a beauty, unlike woman’s, which is the shield in place of being the snare of virtue; of graces which, unlike a fair form or lovely countenance, defy the ravages of time, and grow more beautiful with age. It is increase of those spiritual endowments which are thus catalogued by Paul as fruits of the Holy Spirit — “Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance;” it is more humility; more docility; more acts of self-denial and works of charity; more prayer and watchfulness; a more tender conscience, and a closer walk with God; a heavenlier temper and a holier life. In all these, and especially in the love that is the spring of all,” I beseech you, brethren, that ye increase more and more.’’
n. How we are to increase in these.
1. We are to increase equally.
All our graces are to be cultivated to the neglect of none of them. If one side of a tree grows, and the other does not, the tree acquires a crooked form — is a misshapen thing. Nor are monsters among mankind made only by want of parts, as when the body wants a limb, or the face an eye, or the leg a foot, or the arm a hand; but also by some one part growing in excess of others. Analogous in its results to this is the unequal growth of Christian graces. Let fear, for example, that godly fear which is so strong a safeguard of the soul, grow out of due proportion to faith, and the result is a gloomy, despondent, unhappy Christian. Or, let that zeal which makes us like a flaming fire in the service of our God, grow more than knowledge, prudence, wisdom; and, like a machine without director, or balance-wheel, generating steam faster than it can use it, zeal bursts into extravagance, and carries men away into the regions of wild fanaticism. There are dijfferences of character which, springing from constitutional peculiarities, or early education, grace will modify, but never altogether eradicate on this side the grave. Such are those in Bunyan’s pictures, all pain ed, no doubt, from life — as well as Mr. Great-heart the giant-killer and hero of a hundred battles, as Mr. Feeble-mind, who started at his own shadow and trembled at the falling of a leaf. There are also differences among Christians which imply no defect; just as there are in countenances which are very unlike, and yet, be the coDiplexion dark or fair, the hair of golden colour or like the raven’s wing, are very beautiful. We do not expect or even wish all good men to be alike, any more than I would have all the members of a family alike; all flowers alike — none but roses in the garden, :r daisies in the field; the Church of Christ like the meadows below, or the star-spangled heavens above, owing its beauty in part to that variety in unity which marks all the works of God; and mars none of them.
Some saints are remarkable for having one grace in peculiar prominence — faith, for instance; or resignation; or courage; or zeal; or benevolence. Yet though this peculiarity may draw most eyes upon them, and win them most praise, if not” in all the churches,’* in their neighbourhood, or even in their nation, these are not the most perfect specimens of Christianity. For it is with men as with trees, amongst which the least symmetrical may be the most noticeable. The more perfect the shape of the tree, the more symmetrical the proportion between its trunk and branches, between its height and width, it strikes the eye the less; and it is only on a near approach and closer scrutiny that we take in its size, and gaze with wonder on ita towering form, and enormous girth.
The finest specimen of a Christian is he in whom all the graces, like the strings of an angel’s harp, are in the most perfect harmony. Therefore, we are to beware of cultivating one grace or attending to any one duty at the expense of others. That is possible; and never more likely to happen than in these days of recoil from mere speculative theology, and of busy, bustling benevolence. Treading in our Master’s steps, we are to go about doing good; yet we may undertake so many works of Christian philanthropy as to trench on the hours that should be sacred to devotion. In seeking the good of others, we may so neglect the cultivation of our own hearts, and the duties we owe to our own families, as to have to cry with the man of old, They made me keeper of vineyards, and my own vineyard I have not kept. On the other hand, like a lark that goes up soaring and singing in heaven, while the hawk below is rifling her nest, we may spend our hours in devotional exercises, in communion with saints and with God, when we should be down here — fighting with the devil; alleviating human misery; righting the wrongs of the oppressed; raising the fallen; reforming the vicious; helping humanity, and by God’s help plucking the prey from the lion’s jaws. The head, the heart, and the hand, doctrine, devotion, and work, should each have their due share of our time and attention; we working on our life like the ancient sculptor on the dead marble, when he produced forms where each feature was not only beautiful in itself, but in proportion also to every other. On this account these statues of his divinities are the admiration of all ages, being the perfect models of men and women. Even so, it is by growing equally in the knowledge, and the love, and the life of Christ, that we are to reach the true model of a Christian; and, to use Paul’s words, “grow into a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.”
2. We are to increase constantly.
This idea is embodied in all those figures under which our spiritual life is set forth in the word of God. Is it a seed? So soon as the seed is quickened in the soil it grows; grows by night and by day; grows beneath the foot that tramples on it; piercing the rugged clod, turning and twining to round the corner of a stone, it shoots its way upward, till it emerge into the blessed light, and drink the dews of heaven; and under their influences, on and ever on it grows, rises and ripens, till sickles flash, and reapers sing where winter howled over dead fields of snow. Is it the day? From the first faint streak of light that our eye catches in the eastern horizon, how steadily it grows! hill and dale, town and hamlet, woods and winding river, shore and sea, becoming more and more distinct; one star disappearing after another in the grey sky; the fleecy clouds changing into opal, and amber, and purple, and burning gold, until the sun springs up, flaming from his ocean bed; and the daisies open their golden eyes, and the birds sing for joy, and the waves flash and dance in light, and the earth rejoices in perfect day. Is it human life? Hanging on a mother’s bosom; sleeping, and by and bye with wakening intelligence smiling in her arms; oq little feet balancing itself so beautifully; trying its first trotting steps; speaking its first stammering words; its affections and faculties opening like the petals of a flower, how does the infant develope itself with each successive year! Infancy growing into prattling childhood; childhood into blooming youth; youth into ripened manhood, till the hand that once played with coral and bells, yonder amid royal pageant, and the blare of trumpets, and the boom of cannon, waves the sceptre of empire over an acclaiming throng — or till the voice that was once but a feeble wail, commands on the reeling deck, or amid the roar of battle; here stirs the deepest passions, or there stills the tumults of the people.
Such is the way that we should grow; should pray, should labour, and should strive to grow. Slow and silent, growth is a thing which you neither see nor hear; yet mark in these cases what its steady, constant progress achieves in the natural world. Should it do less in the spiritual? Is God less omnipotent in grace than nature? By no means. “My grace,” he says, “is sufficient for thee;” sufficient for that. Would we rise every morning both to get and to do some good; to cultivate some grace and mortify some sin; to live more holily than yesterday — not to say its bad words, nor indulge its bad wishes, nor repeat its bad deeds; to learn from the experience of the past where we should watch, which is our weak side, what are our besetting sins, taking such precautions as a man who strengthens the dyke where the last floods broke through, or doubles his sentries where the enemy last surprised him — what progress we should make! we should be a stage nearer heaven every day. If not every day, every year at least, would present a palpable, sensible difference. It is not, but it should be, as easy to tell how long it is since we were born the second time, as the first; our spiritual as our natural age; the years of our new life as those of a tree which we count by the rings that every season adds to its circumference.
The nearer we reach the summit of a hill, the climb is harder; and the higher the eagle soars, ever mounting into thinner air, its flight grows more arduous. Now, both in the case of the foot that has climbed the highest Alp, and of the wing that cleaves the sky above its snowy summit, there is a point where progress ceases — this foot can climb, that wing can fly no higher. It is quite otherwise with spiritual progress. While the higher a believer rises in grace his ascent becomes not more diflBcult but more easy, he never reaches a point where progress ceases. Begun on earth, it is continued in heaven; the field that lies before us stretching beyond the grave and above the stars — illimitable as space and endless as eternity.
Man, physically considered, grows into maturity, stops, and then returns on his course. The descent on the other side of the hill corresponding with the ascent on this, he goes down much as he went up. The hair drops from his head; the teeth fall from his jaws; the light fades in his eye; he enters on the stage of a second childhood; and at length, naked as he came from his mother’s womb, naked he returns thither. The emblem of his life is the day: first the grey dawn; then sunrise; then the sun flaming in the zenith; then sinking lower and lower, he wheels his course down the western sky; then he sets; then fading twilight; and then the depth of night. But how unlike this to the progress of the immortal spirit! “With a course ever onward, upward, Godward, it presents a case somewhat analogous to the mathematical paradox of two bodies that are ever approaching, and yet, though moving through infinite space and for eternal ages, never meet; and never can meet. Even so, though they shall never reach the infinite height and perfection of divinity, the saints in glory, constantly ascending, shall be ever approaching it; so that death which, in a sense, makes us perfect, and introduces us into a state of rest, shall not arrest our progress. Our life, in fact, is like a ship working its way down a river, where the water grows deeper, and the banks grow wider, and the view expands as we move on, till at death, as there, where the waves roar upon the bar, we shall pass out on a great, broad, shoreless ocean, on which, with no limits bounding our progress, we shall advance evermore; growing in the knowledge, and love, and likeness of Christ with the ages of eternity, increasing yet” more and more.’’
3. We are to make efforts to grow.
Some men have mooted the strange notion that that peculiar adaptation of the bodies of certain animals to their habits, in which we see the wisdom of their Maker, has resulted from the efforts which they made to adapt themselves to their circumstances — that the heron for instance, by stretching itself up to preserve its feathers from the water of the stream or shore where it fishes, got its limbs lengthened into stilts, and acquired also its taper neck by constant and long continued efforts to strike its prey at the bottom of the pool. Any theory more absurd can hardly be imagined. Yet, in the spiritual kingdom, the very wish and effort to be good has, with God’s blessing and through operation of the Holy Spirit, a tendency to improve us. In the attempt to be better we grow better, even as the flapping of a nestling’s wing, impotent though it be to raise the bird into the air, fits its pinions for future flight; or as the creeping of an infant on the floor prepares its limbs for walking. It is to efforts, not to idleness, to supineness, to sleep, that God promises the blessing — those heavenly aids, without which the arm of a giant, to say nothing of a child in grace, cannot snap the feeblest cord that binds us to earth and sin. God works; and we are to be fellow-workers with him, that we may “increase more and more.”
Cast a sponge into water, and, the fluid filling its empty cells, it swells out before our eyes; increases more and more. There is no effort here, and could be none; for though once a living animal, the sponge is now dead and dry. But it is not as sponges fill with water, nor, to use a Scripture figure often employed, and sometimes misapplied, as Gideon’s fleece was filled with dews, that God’s people are replenished with his grace. More is needed than simply to bring ourselves ill contact with ordinances; to read the Bible; to repair on Sabbath to the church; to sit down in communion seasons at the Lord’s table. The babe, for example, is laid in a mother’s arms, and in contact with her breast; but is laid there only to die, unless, with slumbering instincts awakened, it fasten and suck by its own efforts the nourishment provided for it, independent of itself; and there, drawing life from a mother’s bosom, it lies in her loving arms, the symbol of him who hangs by faith in Christ, and, fed on the sincere milk of the word, is nourished up into the likeness and image of God. And after all, this picture conveys but an adequate idea of what is required of us, in order that we may increase more and more. It is by other and greater efforts than the infant’s we are to grow in grace, and get to heaven. Christ’s children, like our own, are not always to remain babes. The mother, while rocking her infant’s cradle, is hopefully looking forward to a time when her boy shall have grown a man; to stand up for a mother’s cause; to defend a mother’s head; to go forth to his daily labour; to win prizes in the race; if danger and duty summon him, to fight the battles of his king and country. To such active, energetic, and self-denying labours, Christ calls the candidate for a heavenly crown; for instance, Search the Scriptures — Watch unto prayer — Pray without ceasing — Fight the good fight — Labour for the bread that never perisheth — Give all diligence to make your calling and election sure — Work out your salvation with fear and trembling — See that no man take your crown.
While all our hopes of salvation centre in the crosg of Christ, and all our hopes of progress hang on the promised aids of the Holy Spirit, let us therefore exert ourselves to the utmost; reaching forth to higher attainments, and aiming at daily increase in every holy and Christian habit. What was suitable to us once, should not satisfy us now. The man out-grows the dress of childhood. Down among the rocky hollows of the sea, there are creatures that cast their shell year by year; and up among the storm-beaten cliffs of the mountain, year by year also, the moulting eagle casts her feathers — these that they may walk in larger, stronger mail; the other, that she may soar on broader pinions, and to higher flights. At such increase should we aim; to grow more busy in God’s work; to spend more time and money in his service; to perform greater acts of self-denial; to increase both in the heavenliness of our temper, and in the generosity of our gifts. Not content with being what once we were, and doing only what once we did, let us “covet earnestly the best gifts;” attempt the loftiest heights of grace; saying, with the holy ambition of an apostle, When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man I put away childish things. The fulness of the Godhead bodily is in Jesus Christ; and from that exhaustless supply may the Holy Spirit fill us more and more, day by day, till, the moorings strained that bind us to earth, we are ready, on their being severed by the stroke of death, to shoot up to heaven — saying with our Saviour, “I leave the world, and go to the Father.” For these ends, Wait on the Lord; wait, I say, on the
Lord, — He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength, — The youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall; but they that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength: they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.