“And the Lord came, and stood, and called as at other times,
Samuel; Samuel. Then Samuel answered, Speak; for Thy servant heareth.
“—1 Samuel iii. 10.
In the narrative of which these words form part, we have a
remarkable instance of a Divine call, and the manner in which it is our
duty to meet it. Samuel was from a child brought to the house of the
Lord; and in due time he was called to a sacred office, and made a
prophet. He was called, and he forthwith answered the call. God said,
“Samuel, Samuel.” He did not understand at first who called, and what
was meant; but on going to Eli he learned who spoke, and what his
answer should be. So when God called again, he said, “Speak, Lord, for
Thy servant heareth.” Here is prompt obedience.
Very different in its circumstances was St. Paul's call, but
resembling Samuel's in this respect, that, when God called, he, too,
promptly obeyed. When St. Paul heard the voice from heaven, he said at
once, trembling and astonished, “Lord, what wilt Thou have me to
do[1]?” This same obedient temper of his is stated or implied in the
two accounts which he himself gives of his miraculous conversion. In
the 22nd chapter he says, “And I said, What shall I do, Lord?” And in
the 26th, after telling King Agrippa what the Divine Speaker said to
him, he adds what comes to the same thing, “Whereupon, O King Agrippa,
I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision.” Such is the
account given us in St. Paul's case of that first step in God's
gracious dealings with him, which ended in his eternal salvation. “Whom
He did foreknow, He also did predestinate[2];”—“whom He did
predestinate, them He also called”—here was the first act which took
place in time—“and whom He called, them He also justified, and whom He
justified, them He also glorified.” Such is the Divine series of
mercies; and you see that it was prompt obedience on St. Paul's part
which carried on the first act of Divine grace into the second, which
knit together the first mercy to the second. “Whom He called, them He
also justified.” St. Paul was called when Christ appeared to him in the
way; he was justified when Ananias came to baptize him: and it was
prompt obedience which led him from his call to his baptism. “Lord,
what wilt Thou have me to do?” The answer was, “Arise, and go into
Damascus; and there it shall be told thee of all things which are
appointed for thee to do[3].” And when he came to Damascus, Ananias was
sent to him by the same Lord who had appeared to him; and he reminded
St. Paul of this when he came to him. The Lord had appeared for his
call; the Lord appeared for his justification.
This, then, is the lesson taught us by St. Paul's conversion,
promptly to obey the call. If we do obey it, to God be the glory, for
He it is works in us. If we do not obey, to ourselves be all the shame,
for sin and unbelief work in us. Such being the state of the case, let
us take care to act accordingly,—being exceedingly alarmed lest we
should not obey God's voice when He calls us, yet not taking praise or
credit to ourselves if we do obey it. This has been the temper of all
saints from the beginning—working out their salvation with fear and
trembling, yet ascribing the work to Him who wrought in them to will
and do of His good pleasure; obeying the call, and giving thanks to Him
who calls, to Him who fulfils in them their calling. So much on the
pattern afforded us by St. Paul.
Very different in its circumstances was Samuel's call, when a child
in the temple, yet resembling St. Paul's in this particular,—that for
our instruction the circumstance of his obedience to it is brought out
prominently even in the words put into his mouth by Eli in the text.
Eli taught him what to say, when called by the Divine voice.
Accordingly, when “the Lord came, and stood, and called as at other
times, Samuel, Samuel. Then Samuel answered, Speak, Lord, for Thy
servant heareth.”
Such, again, is the temper of mind expressed by holy David in the
27th Psalm, “When Thou saidst, Seek ye My face, my heart said unto
Thee, Thy face, Lord, will I seek.”
And this temper, which in the above instances is illustrated in
words spoken, is in the case of many other Saints in Scripture shown in
word and deed; and, on the other hand, is illustrated negatively by
being neglected in the case of others therein mentioned, who might have
entered into life, and did not.
For instance, we read of the Apostles, that “Jesus, walking by the
sea of Galilee, saw two brethren, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his
brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishers. And He
saith unto them, Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men. And
they straightway left their nets and followed Him[4].” Again; when
He saw James and John with their father Zebedee, “He called
them; and they immediately left the ship, and their father, and
followed Him.” And so of St. Matthew at the receipt of custom, “He
said unto him, Follow Me, and he left all, rose up, and followed Him.”
Again, we are told in St. John's Gospel, “Jesus would go forth into
Galilee, and findeth Philip, and saith unto Him, Follow Me.”
Again, “Philip findeth Nathanael,” and in like manner says to him,
“Come and see.” “Jesus saw Nathanael coming unto Him, and saith of him,
Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile.”
On the other hand, the young ruler shrunk from the call, and found
it a hard saying, “If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast,
and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and come,
and follow Me. But when the young man heard that saying, he went away
sorrowful, for he had great possessions[5].” Others who seemed to
waver, or rather who asked for some little delay from human feeling,
were rebuked for want of promptitude in their obedience;—for time
stays for no one; the word of call is spoken and is gone; if we do not
seize the moment, it is lost. Christ was on His road heavenward. He
walked by the sea of Galilee[6]; He “passed forth[7];” He “passed
by[8];” He did not stop; all men must join Him, or He would be calling
on others beyond them[9]. “He said to another, Follow Me. But he said,
Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. Jesus said unto him,
Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou and preach the kingdom of
God. And another also said, Lord, I will follow Thee: but let me first
go bid them farewell, which are at home at my house. And Jesus said
unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back,
is fit for the kingdom of God[10].”
Not unlike these last instances are the circumstances of the call of
the great prophet Elisha, though he does not seem to have incurred
blame from Elijah for his lingering on the thoughts of what he was
leaving. “He found Elisha, the son of Shaphat, who was ploughing . . .
Elijah passed by him, and cast his mantle over him.” He did not stay;
he passed on, and Elisha was obliged to run after him. “And he left the
oxen, and ran after Elijah, and said, Let me, I pray thee, kiss my
father and my mother, and then I will follow thee.” This the prophet
allowed him to do, and after that “he arose and followed Elijah, and
ministered unto him.”
Or once more consider the circumstances of the call of Abraham, the
father of all who believe. He was called from his father's house, but
was not told whither. St. Paul was bid go to Damascus, and there he was
to receive further directions. In like manner Abraham left his home for
a land “that I will show thee[11],” says Almighty God.
Accordingly he went out, “not knowing whither he went.” “Abram
[Transcriber's note: Abraham?] departed as the Lord had spoken unto
him.”
Such are the instances of Divine calls in Scripture, and their
characteristic is this; to require instant obedience, and next to call
us we know not to what; to call us on in the darkness. Faith alone can
obey them. But it may be urged, How does this concern us now? We were
all called to serve God in infancy, before we could obey or disobey; we
found ourselves called when reason began to dawn; we have been called
to a state of salvation, we have been living as God's servants and
children, all through our time of trial, having been brought into it in
infancy through Holy Baptism, by the act of our parents. Calling is not
a thing future with us, but a thing past.
This is true in a very sufficient sense; and yet it is true also
that the passages of Scripture which I have been quoting do apply to us
still,—do concern us, and may warn and guide us in many important
ways; as a few words will show.
For in truth we are not called once only, but many times; all
through our life Christ is calling us. He called us first in Baptism;
but afterwards also; whether we obey His voice or not, He graciously
calls us still. If we fall from our Baptism, He calls us to repent; if
we are striving to fulfil our calling, He calls us on from grace to
grace, and from holiness to holiness, while life is given us. Abraham
was called from his home, Peter from his nets, Matthew from his office,
Elisha from his farm, Nathanael from his retreat; we are all in course
of calling, on and on, from one thing to another, having no
resting-place, but mounting towards our eternal rest, and obeying one
command only to have another put upon us. He calls us again and again,
in order to justify us again and again,—and again and again, and more
and more, to sanctify and glorify us.
It were well if we understood this; but we are slow to master the
great truth, that Christ is, as it were, walking among us, and by His
hand, or eye, or voice, bidding us follow Him. We do not understand
that His call is a thing which takes place now. We think it took place
in the Apostles' days; but we do not believe in it, we do not look out
for it in our own case. We have not eyes to see the Lord; far different
from the beloved Apostle, who knew Christ even when the rest of the
disciples knew Him not. When He stood on the shore after His
resurrection, and bade them cast the net into the sea, “that disciple
whom Jesus loved saith unto Peter, It is the Lord[12].”
Now what I mean is this: that they who are living religiously, have
from time to time truths they did not know before, or had no need to
consider, brought before them forcibly; truths which involve duties,
which are in fact precepts, and claim obedience. In this and such-like
ways Christ calls us now. There is nothing miraculous or extraordinary
in His dealings with us. He works through our natural faculties and
circumstances of life. Still what happens to us in providence is in all
essential respects what His voice was to those whom He addressed when
on earth: whether He commands by a visible presence, or by a voice, or
by our consciences, it matters not, so that we feel it to be a command.
If it is a command, it may be obeyed or disobeyed; it may be accepted
as Samuel or St. Paul accepted it, or put aside after the manner of the
young man who had great possessions.
And these Divine calls are commonly, from the nature of the case,
sudden now, and as indefinite and obscure in their consequences as in
former times. The accidents and events of life are, as is obvious, one
special way in which the calls I speak of come to us; and they, as we
all know, are in their very nature, and as the word accident implies,
sudden and unexpected. A man is going on as usual; he comes home one
day, and finds a letter, or a message, or a person, whereby a sudden
trial comes on him, which, if met religiously, will be the means of
advancing him to a higher state of religious excellence, which at
present he as little comprehends as the unspeakable words heard by St.
Paul in paradise. By a trial we commonly mean, a something which if
encountered well, will confirm a man in his present way; but I am
speaking of something more than this; of what will not only confirm
him, but raise him into a high state of knowledge and holiness. Many
persons will find it very striking on looking back on their past lives,
to observe what different notions they entertained at different
periods, of what Divine truth was, what was the way of pleasing God,
and what things were allowable or not, what excellence was, and what
happiness. I do not scruple to say, that these differences may be as
great as that which may be supposed to have existed between St. Peter's
state of mind when quietly fishing on the lake, or Elisha's when
driving his oxen, and that new state of mind of each of them when
called to be Apostle or Prophet. Elisha and St. Peter indeed were also
called to a new mode of life; that I am not speaking of. I am not
speaking of cases when persons change their condition, their place in
society, their pursuit, and the like; I am supposing them to remain
pretty much the same as before in outward circumstances; but I say that
many a man is conscious to himself of having undergone inwardly great
changes of view as to what truth is and what happiness. Nor, again, am
I speaking of changes so great, that a man reverses his former opinions
and conduct. He may be able to see that there is a connexion between
the two; that his former has led to his latter; and yet he may feel
that after all they differ in kind; that he has got into a new world of
thought, and measures things and persons by a different rule.
Nothing, indeed, is more wonderful and strange than the different
views which different persons take of the same subject. Take any single
fact, event, or existing thing which meets us in the world; what
various remarks will be made on it by different persons! For instance,
consider the different lights in which any single action, of a striking
nature, is viewed by different persons; or consider the view of wealth
or a wealthy man, taken by this or that class in the community; what
different feelings does it excite—envy, or respect, or ridicule, or
angry opposition, or indifference, or fear and compassion; here are
states of mind in which different parties may regard it. These are
broad differences; others are quite as real, though more subtle.
Religion, for instance, may be reverenced by the soldier, the man of
literature, the trader, the statesman, and the theologian; yet how very
distinct their modes of reverencing it, and how separate the standard
which each sets up in his mind! Well, all these various modes of
viewing things cannot one and all be the best mode, even were they all
good modes; but this even is not the case. Some are contrary to others;
some are bad. But even of those that are on the whole good, some are
but in part good, some are imperfect, some have much bad mixed with
them; and only one is best. Only one is the truth and the perfect
truth; and which that is, none know but those who are in possession of
it, if even they. But God knows which it is; and towards that one and
only Truth He is leading us forward. He is leading forward His
redeemed, He is training His elect, one and all, to the one perfect
knowledge and obedience of Christ; not, however, without their
co-operation, but by means of calls which they are to obey, and which
if they do not obey, they lose place, and fall behind in their heavenly
course. He leads them forward from strength to strength, and from glory
to glory, up the steps of the ladder whose top reacheth to heaven. We
pass from one state of knowledge to another; we are introduced into a
higher region from a lower, by listening to Christ's call and obeying
it.
Perhaps it may be the loss of some dear friend or relative through
which the call comes to us; which shows us the vanity of things below,
and prompts us to make God our sole stay. We through grace do so in a
way we never did before; and in the course of years, when we look back
on our life, we find that that sad event has brought us into a new
state of faith and judgment, and that we are as though other men from
what we were. We thought, before it took place, that we were serving
God, and so we were in a measure; but we find that, whatever our
present infirmities may be, and however far we be still from the
highest state of illumination, then at least we were serving the world
under the show and the belief of serving God.
Or again, perhaps something occurs to force us to take a part for
God or against Him. The world requires of us some sacrifice which we
see we ought not to grant to it. Some tempting offer is made us; or
some reproach or discredit threatened us; or we have to determine and
avow what is truth and what is error. We are enabled to act as God
would have us act; and we do so in much fear and perplexity. We do not
see our way clearly; we do not see what is to follow from what we have
done, and how it bears upon our general conduct and opinions: yet
perhaps it has the most important bearings. That little deed, suddenly
exacted of us, almost suddenly resolved on and executed, may be as
though a gate into the second or third heaven—an entrance into a
higher state of holiness, and into a truer view of things than we have
hitherto taken.
Or again, we get acquainted with some one whom God employs to bring
before us a number of truths which were closed on us before; and we but
half understand them, and but half approve of them; and yet God seems
to speak in them, and Scripture to confirm them. This is a case which
not unfrequently occurs, and it involves a call “to follow on to know
the Lord[13].”
Or again, we may be in the practice of reading Scripture carefully,
and trying to serve God, and its sense may, as if suddenly, break upon
us, in a way it never did before. Some thought may suggest itself to
us, which is a key to a great deal in Scripture, or which suggests a
great many other thoughts. A new light may be thrown on the precepts of
our Lord and His Apostles. We may be able to enter into the manner of
life of the early Christians, as recorded in Scripture, which before
was hidden from us, and into the simple maxims on which Scripture bases
it. We may be led to understand that it is very different from the life
which men live now. Now knowledge is a call to action: an insight into
the way of perfection is a call to perfection.
Once more, it may so happen that we find ourselves, how or why we
cannot tell, much more able to obey God in certain respects than
heretofore. Our minds are so strangely constituted, it is impossible to
say whether it is from the growth of habit suddenly showing itself, or
from an unusual gift of Divine grace poured into our hearts, but so it
is; let our temptation be to sloth, or irresolution, or worldly
anxiety, or pride, or to other more base and miserable sins, we may
suddenly find ourselves possessed of a power of self-command which we
had not before. Or again, we may have a resolution grow on us to serve
God more strictly in His house and in private than heretofore. This is
a call to higher things; let us beware lest we receive the grace of God
in vain. Let us beware of lapsing back; let us avoid temptation. Let us
strive by quietness and caution to cherish the feeble flame, and
shelter it from the storms of this world. God may be bringing us into a
higher world of religious truth, let us work with Him.
To conclude. Nothing is more certain in matter of fact, than that
some men do feel themselves called to high duties and works, to which
others are not called. Why this is we do not know, whether it be that
those who are not called, forfeit the call from having failed in former
trials, or have been called and have not followed, or that though God
gives baptismal grace to all, yet He really does call some men by His
free grace to higher things than others; but so it is; this man sees
sights which that man does not see, has a larger faith, a more ardent
love, and a more spiritual understanding. No one has any leave to take
another's lower standard of holiness for his own. It is nothing to us
what others are. If God calls us to greater renunciation of the world,
and exacts a sacrifice of our hopes and fears, this is our gain, this
is a mark of His love for us, this is a thing to be rejoiced in. Such
thoughts, when properly entertained, have no tendency to puff us up;
for if the prospect is noble, yet the risk is more fearful. While we
pursue high excellence, we walk among precipices, and a fall is easy.
Hence the Apostle says, “Work out your own salvation with fear and
trembling, for it is God that worketh in you[14].” Again, the more men
aim at high things, the more sensitive perception they have of their
own shortcomings; and this again is adapted to humble them especially.
We need not fear spiritual pride then, in following Christ's call, if
we follow it as men in earnest. Earnestness has no time to compare
itself with the state of other men; earnestness has too vivid a feeling
of its own infirmities to be elated at itself. Earnestness is simply
set on doing God's will. It simply says, “Speak, Lord, for Thy servant
heareth,” “Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?” Oh that we had more of
this spirit! Oh that we could take that simple view of things, as to
feel that the one thing which lies before us is to please God! What
gain is it to please the world, to please the great, nay, even to
please those whom we love, compared with this? What gain is it to be
applauded, admired, courted, followed, compared with this one aim, of
not being disobedient to a heavenly vision? What can this world offer
comparable with that insight into spiritual things, that keen faith,
that heavenly peace, that high sanctity, that everlasting
righteousness, that hope of glory, which they have who in sincerity
love and follow our Lord Jesus Christ?
Let us beg and pray Him day by day to reveal Himself to our souls
more fully, to quicken our senses; to give us sight and hearing, taste
and touch of the world to come, so to work within us that we may
sincerely say, “Thou shalt guide me with Thy counsel, and after that
receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but Thee? and there is none
upon earth that I desire in comparison of Thee: my flesh and my heart
faileth; but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever.”
[1] Acts ix. 6.
[2] Rom. viii. 29.
[3] Acts xxii. 10.
[4] Matt. iv. 18-20.
[5] Matt. xix. 21, 22.
[6] Matt. iv. 18.
[7] Matt. ix. 9.
[8] Mark 11. 14.
[9] Matt. xx. 6, 7.
[10] Luke ix. 59-62.
[11] Gen. xii. 1.
[12] John xxi. 7.
[13] Hosea vi. 3.