“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.”—Matt. xi. 29, 30.
These words, which are brought before us in the Gospel of to-day's
festival[1], are also found in the address made to us upon Ash
Wednesday, in which we are told that if we “return unto Him who is the
merciful Receiver of all true penitent sinners, if we will take His
easy yoke and light burden upon us, to follow Him in lowliness,
patience, and charity; this, if we do, Christ will deliver us from the
curse of the law, and from the extreme malediction which shall light
upon them that shall be set on the left hand.” A few days since we were
upon a Fast-day called to take on us Christ's yoke, and now on a
Festival of an Apostle the call is repeated.
And with a particular fitness it occurs, now as often, that we
celebrate the feast of St. Matthias, during Lent; for if there be an
Apostle who above the rest may be taken to remind us of the duty of
mortification, it is he. Our Lord, when asked why His disciples did not
fast, said, they could not fast while He was with them, but that the
time would come, when the Bridegroom should be taken away from them,
and then should they fast in those days. That time was now come, when
St. Matthias was chosen to be an Apostle. Christ had gone away.
Peace and joy the Apostles had abundantly, more so than when He was
with them; but for that very reason, it was not such a joy “as the
world giveth.” It was His own joy which arose out of pain and
chastisement. This was the joy which St. Matthias received when he was
made an Apostle. He never had been an Apostle under age. He had indeed
been with our Lord, but not as an Apostle. The rest had been chosen (as
it were) as children; they had been heirs of the kingdom, while under
tutors and governors, and, though Apostles, had not understood their
calling, had had ambitious thoughts or desires after riches, and were
indulged for a while, ere new made, with the old wine, lest the bottles
should burst. But St. Matthias came into his inheritance at once. He
took upon him at once, upon his election, the power and the penalty of
the Apostolate. No dreams of earthly prosperity could flit around that
throne, which was reared over the grave of one who had been tried and
had fallen, and under the immediate shadow of the cross of Him whom he
had betrayed.
Well, then, does St. Matthias repeat to us on this day our Lord's
words, “Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me,” for he had taken it on
him from the first. His Pastoral Staff had ever been a crosier. He had
had no youth. He had borne the yoke in his youth. He entered at once
upon his long Lent, and he rejoiced in it.
The exhortation, then, which our Saviour gives in today's Gospel,
and of which St. Matthiases history reminds us, is at the present
season most suitable. Our Saviour says, “Come unto Me,” and then He
adds, “Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me.” Thus He first calls us
to Him, and next shows us the way. “Come unto Me,” He says, “and I will
give you rest,” and then adds, “Take My yoke upon you, and ye shall
find rest for your souls.” He told the Apostles that they must come to
Him, but did not at once tell them the way; He told them they must bear
a yoke, but did not at once tell them what it was. St. Peter, in
consequence, inquired about it on one occasion, and was bid to wait
awhile, and he should know of it more plainly. Our Lord had said,
“Whither I go, thou canst not follow Me now, but thou shalt follow Me
afterwards.” “Ye shall seek Me,” He said, “and whither I go ye cannot
come[2].” He spoke of His yoke, the way of His cross, as St. Peter
found when at length, after His resurrection, he was told plainly what
should befall him. “When thou wast young,” said our Lord to him, by the
lake of Tiberias, when thou wast a child in the faith, and hadst thine
own way, “thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest,”
as just before St. Peter had girt his fisher's coat unto him, and cast
himself into the sea; “but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch
forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither
thou wouldest not[3].” And then He added, “Follow Me.” St. Peter,
indeed, was called upon literally to take Christ's yoke upon him, to
learn of Him and walk in His ways; but what he underwent in fulness,
all Christ's disciples must share in their measure, in some way or
other. Again, in another place, our Lord speaks more expressly; “If any
man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross,
and follow Me[4].” Here we have the words of the text emphatically
repeated. To come to Christ, is to come after Him; to take up our
cross, is to take upon us His yoke; and though He calls this an easy
yoke, yet it is easy because it is His yoke, and He makes it easy;
still it does not cease to be a yoke, and it is troublesome and
distressing, because it is a yoke.
Let us set it down then, as a first principle in religion, that all
of us must come to Christ, in some sense or other, through things
naturally unpleasant to us; it may be even through bodily suffering,
such as the Apostles endured, or it may be nothing more than the
subduing of our natural infirmities and the sacrifice of our natural
wishes; it may be pain greater or pain less, on a public stage or a
private one; but, till the words “yoke” and “cross” can stand for
something pleasant, the bearing of our yoke and cross is something not
pleasant, and though rest is promised as our reward, yet the way to
rest must lie through discomfort and distress of heart.
This I say must be taken as a first principle in religion; it
concerns us all, it concerns young and old, rich and poor, all of whom
are apt to consider it a valid reason for disregarding and speaking
against a religious life, that it is so strict and distasteful. They
shrink from religion as something gloomy, or frightful, or dull, or
intrusive, or exorbitant. And, alas, sometimes it is attempted to lead
them to religion by making it appear not difficult and severe. Severe
truths are put aside, religion is made to consist in a worldly
security, or again in a heated enthusiastic state of mind. But this is
a deceit. I do not of course mean, far from it, that religion is not
full of joy and peace also; “My yoke,” says Christ, “is easy, and My
burden is light:” but grace makes it so; in itself it is severe, and
any form of doctrine which teaches otherwise forgets that Christ calls
us to His yoke, and that that yoke is a cross.
If you call to mind some of the traits of that special religious
character to which we are called, you will readily understand how both
it, and the discipline by which it is formed in us, are not naturally
pleasant to us. That character is described in the text as meekness and
lowliness; for we are told to “learn” of Him who was “meek and lowly in
heart.” The same character is presented to us at greater length in our
Saviour's sermon on the Mount, in which seven notes of a Christian are
given to us, in themselves of a painful and humbling character, but
joyful, because they are blessed by Him. He mentions, first, “the poor
in spirit,” this is denoted in the text, under the word “lowly in
heart,”—secondly, those “that mourn;” and this surely is their
peculiarity who are bearing on their shoulders the yoke of
Christ;—thirdly, “the meek,” and these too are spoken of in the text,
when He bids us to be like Himself who “is meek;”—fourthly, those
which do “hunger and thirst after righteousness;” and what
righteousness, but that which Christ's Cross wrought out, and which
becomes our righteousness when we take on us the yoke of the Cross?
Fifthly, “the merciful,” and as the Cross is in itself the work of
infinite mercy, so when we bear it, it makes us merciful. Sixthly, “the
pure in heart,” and this is the very benefit which the Cross first does
to us when marked on our forehead when infants, to sever us from the
world, the flesh, and the devil, to circumcise us from the first Adam,
and to make us pure as He is pure. Seventhly, “the peace-makers,” and
as He “made peace by the blood of His Cross,” so do we become
peace-makers after His pattern. And, lastly, after all seven, He adds,
those “which are persecuted for righteousness' sake,” which is nothing
but the Cross itself, and the truest form of His yoke, spoken of last
of all, after mention has been made of its fruits.
Such is the character of which the text speaks. A man who is poor in
spirit, meek, pure in heart, merciful, peace-making, penitent, and
eager after righteousness, is truly (according to a term in current
use) a mortified man. He is of a character which does not please us by
nature even to see, and much less to imitate. We do not even approve or
love the character itself, till we have some portion of the grace of
God. We do not like the look of mortification till we are used to it,
and associate pleasant thoughts with it. “And when we shall see Him,
there is no beauty, that we should desire Him,” says the Prophet. To
whom has some picture of saint or doctor of the Church any charm at
first sight? Who does not prefer the ruddy glow of health and
brightness of the eyes? “He hath no form nor comeliness,” as his Lord
and Master before him. And as we do not like the look of saintliness,
neither do we like the life. When Christ first announced His destined
sufferings, Peter took Him and began to rebuke Him, saying, “Be it far
from Thee, Lord, this shall not be unto Thee.” Here was the feeling of
one who was as yet a mere child in grace; “When he was a child, he
spake as a child, he understood as a child, he thought as a child,”
before he had “become a man and had put away childish things.”
This is St. Paul's language, writing to the Corinthians, and he
there furnishes us with another description, under the name of charity,
of that same heavenly temper of mind in which Christian manhood
consists, and which our Lord had already described in the sermon on the
Mount; He says, “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels,
and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling
cymbal.” And then He describes it as suffering long, kind, envying not,
vaunting not, behaving seemly, unselfish, rejoicing in the truth, slow
to be provoked, bearing all things and hoping all. And with this agrees
St. James's account of wisdom, that it is “pure, peaceable, gentle,
easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality
and without hypocrisy[5].”
In all these passages, one and the same character is described
acceptable to God, unacceptable to man; unacceptable to man both in
itself, and because it involves a change, and that a painful one, in
one shape or other. Nothing short of suffering, except in rare cases,
makes us what we should be; gentle instead of harsh, meek instead of
violent, conceding instead of arrogant, lowly instead of proud,
pure-hearted instead of sensual, sensitive of sin instead of carnal.
This is the especial object which is set before us, to become holy as
He who has called us is holy, and to discipline and chasten ourselves
in order that we may become so; and we may be quite sure, that unless
we chasten ourselves. God will chasten us. If we judge ourselves,
through His mercy we shall not be judged of Him; if we do not afflict
ourselves in light things. He will afflict us in heavy things; if we do
not set about changing ourselves by gentle measures, He will change us
by severe remedies. “I refrain my soul,” says David, “and keep it low,
like as a child that is weaned from his mother.” “I keep under my body,
and bring it into subjection,” says St. Paul. Of course Satan will try
to turn all our attempts to his own purposes. He will try to make us
think too much of ourselves for what we do; he would fain make us
despise others; he will try to ensnare us in other ways. Of course he
turns all things to evil, as far as he can; all our crosses may become
temptations: illness, affliction, bereavement, pain, loss of worldly
prospects, anxiety, all may be instruments of evil; so likewise may all
methods of self-chastisement, but they ought not to be, and need not.
And their legitimate effect, through the grace of the Holy Spirit, is
to make us like Him who suffered all pain, physical and moral, sin
excepted, in its fulness. We know what His character was; how grave and
subdued His speech, His manner, His acts; what calmness,
self-possession, tenderness, and endurance; how He resisted evil; how
He turned His cheek to the smiter; how He blessed when persecuted; how
He resigned Himself to His God and Father, how He suffered silently,
and opened not His mouth, when accused maliciously.
Alas! so it is; not only does the world not imitate such a temper of
mind as this; but, if the truth must be spoken, it despises it. As
regards, indeed, our Lord's instance itself, the force of education,
habit, custom, fear of each other, and some remaining awe, keep the
world from reflecting upon the notes of character which the Gospels
ascribe to Him, but in His followers, it does discern them, it
understands and it condemns them. We are bidden lend and give, asking
for nothing again; revenge not ourselves; give our cloak when our coat
is taken; offer the left cheek when the right is smitten; suffer
without complaint; account persons better than they are; keep from
bitter words; pray only when others would be impatient to act; deny
ourselves for the sake of others; live contented with what we are;
preserve an ignorance of sin and of the world: what is all this, but a
character of mind which the world scorns and ridicules even more than
it hates? a character which seems to court insult, because it endures
it? Is not this what men of the world would say of such a one? “Such a
man is unfit for life; he has no eye for any thing; he does not know
the difference between good and evil; he is tame and spiritless, he is
simple and dull, and a fit prey for the spoiler or defrauder; he is
cowardly and narrow-minded, unmanly, feeble, superstitious, and a
dreamer,” with many other words more contemptuous and more familiar
than would be becoming to use in Church. Yet such is the character of
which Christ gave us the pattern; such was the character of Apostles;
such the character which has ever conquered the world. “In much
patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, in stripes, in
imprisonments, in watchings, in fastings, by pureness, by knowledge, by
long-suffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned, by
the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armour of righteousness
on the right hand and on the left, by honour and dishonour, by evil
report and good report, as deceivers and yet true, as chastened and not
killed, as sorrowful yet alway rejoicing;”—these are the weapons of
our warfare, “which are not carnal, but mighty through God to the
pulling down of strong holds[6].” These are despised by the world, but
they have subdued the world. Nay, though they seem most unmanly, they
in the event have proved most heroic. For the heroical character
springs out of them. He who has thrown himself out of this world, alone
can overcome it; he who has cut himself loose of it, alone cannot be
touched by it; he alone can be courageous, who does not fear it; he
alone firm, who is not moved by it; he alone severe with it, who does
not love it. Despair makes men bold, and so it is that he who has
nothing to hope from the world, has nothing to fear from it. He who has
really tasted of the true Cross, can taste no bitterer pain, no keener
joy.
I have been trying to urge on you, my brethren, that the taking of
Christ's yoke, and learning of Him, is something very distinct and
special, and very unlike any other service and character. It is the
result of a change from a state of nature, a change so great as to be
called a death or even a crucifixion of our natural state. Never allow
yourselves, my brethren, to fancy that the true Christian character can
coalesce with this world's character, or is the world's character
improved—merely a superior kind of worldly character. No, it is a new
character; or, as St. Paul words it, “a new creation.” Speaking of the
Cross of Christ, he says, “God forbid that I should glory, save in the
Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me,
and I unto the world. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth
any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature[7].” It is a new
character, and it is one; it is ever one and the same. It is not one in
Apostles, and another in the Christian of this day; not one in the
high, another in the low; one in rich, another in poor; one in
Englishman, another in foreigner; one in man, another in woman. Where
Christ is put on, St. Paul tells us, there is neither Jew nor Greek,
bond nor free, male nor female, but all are one in Christ Jesus[8].
What Lazarus is, that must Dives become; what Apostles were, that must
each of us be. The high in this world think it suitable in them to show
a certain pride and self-confidence; the wealthy claim deference on
account of their wealth; kings and princes think themselves above
instruction from any; men in the middle ranks consider it enough to be
decent and respectable, and deem sanctity superfluous in them; the poor
think to be saved by their poverty;—but to one and all Christ speaks,
“Come unto Me,” “Learn of Me.” There is but one Cross and one character
of mind formed by it; and nothing can be further from it than those
tempers and dispositions in which the greater part of men called
Christians live. To have one's own way, to follow one's own tastes, to
please one's self, to have things to one's mind, not to be thwarted, to
indulge in the comforts of life, to do little for God, to think of Him
now and then indeed, but to live to this world; to aim at things of
this world; to judge of things by our own accidental judgment, be it
better or worse; to measure religious men, to decide upon right or
wrong in religion, by our favourite fancy; to take a pride in forming
and maintaining our own opinion; to stand upon our rights; to fear the
hard words and cold looks of men, to be afraid of being too religious,
to dread singularity; to leave our hearts and minds, our thoughts,
words, and actions, to take care of themselves:—this, on one side or
the other, in this measure or that, is the sort of character which the
multitude, even of what are called respectable men, exemplify; and no
wonder, this being the case, that they speak against those who have, or
strive to have, a more serious view of religion, and whose mode of
living condemns them. If there be but one character of heart that can
please God, both of these contrary characters cannot please Him, one or
the other does not; if the easy religion is right, the strict religion
is wrong; if strict religion is right, easy religion is wrong. Let us
not deceive ourselves; there are not two ways of salvation—a broad and
a narrow. The world, which chooses the broad way, in consequence hates
and spurns the narrow way; and in turn our Blessed Lord, who has chosen
for us the narrow way, hates, scorns, spurns, denounces, the broad way.
Surely He does so; He hates the broad way as entirely as the world
hates the narrow way; and if we are persuaded to take part with the
world, we take part against Him. When St. Peter said, “Be it far from
Thee, Lord,” being shocked at the notice that his Lord should suffer,
what was His answer? Did He thank him for his zeal? Did He, at least,
let it pass in silence? He answered, “Get thee behind Me, Satan, for
thou art an offence unto Me; for thou savourest not the things that be
of God, but those that be of men[9].” And in like manner to the corrupt
church of Laodicea He says, “Because thou art lukewarm, and neither
cold nor hot, I will cast thee out of My mouth. Because thou sayest, I
am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and
knowest not, that thou art wretched and miserable, and poor, and blind,
and naked; I counsel thee to buy of Me gold tried in the fire, that
thou mayest be rich, and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed;
and anoint thine eyes with eye-salve, that thou mayest see.” And then
He adds: “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten;” that is, He puts on
them His yoke; “Be zealous therefore and repent[10].”
To conclude. If Almighty God moves any of us, so that we have high
thoughts; if from reading Scripture or holy books we find that we can
embrace views above the world; if it is given us to recognize the glory
of Christ's kingdom, to discern its spiritual nature, to admire the
life of saints, and to desire to imitate it; if we feel and understand
that it is good to bear the yoke in our youth, good to be in trouble,
good to be poor, good to be in low estate, good to be despised; if in
imagination we put ourselves at the feet of those mortified men of old
time, who, after St. Paul's pattern, died daily, and knew no one after
the flesh; if we feel all this, and are conscious we feel it; let us
not boast—why? because of a surety such feelings are a pledge to us
that God will in some way or other give them exercise. He gives them to
us that He may use them. He gives us the opportunity of using them.
Dare not to indulge in high thoughts; be cautious of them, and refrain;
they are the shadows of coming trials; they are not given for nothing;
they are given for an end; that end is coming. My brethren, count the
cost; never does God give faith but He tries-it; never does He implant
the wish to sit on His right hand and on His left, but He fulfils it by
making us wash our brethren's feet. O fearful imaginations, which are
sure to be realized! O dangerous wishes, which are heard and forthwith
answered! Only may God temper things to us, that nothing may be beyond
our strength!
[1] Preached on St. Matthias's day during Lent.
[2] John xiii. 36, 33.
[3] John xxi. 18.
[4] Matt. xvi. 24.
[5] James iii. 17.
[6] 2 Cor. vi. 4-10; x. 4.
[7] Gal. vi. 14, 15.
[8] Gal. iii. 28.
[9] Matt. xvi. 23.
[10] Rev. iii. 16-19.