Thomas Watson · 17 of 31

15. A discourse of mercifulness · Part 2

So that it is wisdom (in this sense) to consider the wants of others. Remember how soon the scene may alter. We may be put in the poor’s dress and, if adversity come, it will be no trouble of mind to us to think that while we had an estate we laid it out upon Christ’s indigent members. This is the first thing in mercifulness, a judicious consideration

2 A tender commiseration. ‘If thou draw out thy soul to the hungry’ (Isaiah 58:10). Bounty begins in pity. The Hebrew word for ‘mercy’ signifies ‘bowels’. Christ first ‘had compassion on the multitude’. Then he wrought a miracle to feed them (Matthew 15:32). Charity which lacks compassion is brutish. The brute creatures can relieve us in many ways, but cannot pity us. It is a kind of cruelty (says Quintilian) to feed one in want and not to sympathise with him. True religion begets tenderness. As it melts the heart in tears of contrition towards God, so in bowels of compassion towards others. ‘My bowels shall sound as an harp’ (Isaiah 16:11). Likewise, when our bowels of pity sound, then our alms make sweet music in the ears of God.

3 Mercifulness consists in a liberal contribution. ‘If there be a poor man within thy gates, thou shalt open thy hand wide unto him’ (Deuteronomy 15:7, 8). The Hebrew word to ‘disperse’ (Psalm 112:9) signifies ‘a largeness of bounty’. It must be like water that overflows the banks. ‘Not a meagre dispersing of a mere trifle’. If God has enriched men with estates and made ‘his candle (as Job says) to shine upon their tabernacle’, they must not encircle and engross all to themselves but be as the moon which, having received its light from the sun, lets it shine to the world. The ancients, as Basil and Lorinus observe, made oil to be the emblem of charity. The golden oil of mercy must, like Aaron’s oil, run down upon the poor which are the lower skirts of the garment. This liberal disbursement to the wants and necessities of others God commands and grace compels.

God Commands. There is an express statute law, ‘If thy brother be waxen poor and fallen in decay with thee, then thou shalt relieve him’ (Leviticus 25:35). The Hebrew word is ‘Thou shalt strengthen him’; put under him a silver crutch when he is falling. It is worth our observation what great care God took of the poor, besides what was given them privately. God made many laws for the public and visible relief of the poor. ‘The seventh year thou shalt let the land rest and lie still, that the poor of the people may eat’ (Exodus 23:11). God’s intention in his law was that the poor should be liberally provided for. They might freely eat of any thing which grew of itself this seventh year, whether of herbs, vines or olive trees. If it be asked how the poor could live only on these fruits, there being (as it is probable) no corn growing then, for answer Cajetan is of opinion that they lived by selling these fruits and, so converting them into money, lived upon the price of the fruits.

There is another law made: ‘And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not wholly reap the corners of thy field, neither shalt thou gather the gleanings of thy harvest’ (Leviticus 19:9). See how God indulged the poor. Some corners of the field were for the poor’s sake to be left uncut, and when the owners reaped they must not go too near the earth with their sickle. The Vulgate Latin reads it, ‘Thou shalt not shear to the very ground’. Something like an after-crop must be left. The shorter ears of corn and such as lay bending to the ground, were to be reserved for the poor, says Tostatus.

And God made another law in favour of the poor. ‘At the end of three years thou shalt bring forth the tithe of thy increase the same year, and thou shalt lay it up in thy gates: and the Levite and the fatherless and the widow which are within thy gates shall come and shall eat and be satisfied’ (Deuteronomy 14:28, 29). The Hebrews write that every third year, besides the first tithe given to Levi which was called the perpetual tithe (Numbers 18:21), the Jews set apart another tithe of their increase for the use of the widows and orphans, and that was called ‘the tithe of the poor’. Besides, at the Jews, solemn festivals, the poor were to have a share (Deuteronomy 16:11).

And as relieving the necessitous was commanded under the law, so it stands in force under the gospel. ‘Charge them that are rich in this world that they do good, that they be rich in good works ...’ (1 Timothy 6:17, 18). It is not only a counsel but a charge, and non-attendance to it runs men into a gospel-praemunire. Thus we have seen the mind of God in this particular of charity. Let all good Christians comment upon it in their practice. What benefit is there of gold while it is embowelled and locked up in the mine? And what is it the better to have a great estate if it be so hoarded and cloistered up as never to see the light?

As God commands, so grace compels to works of mercy and beneficence. ‘The love of Christ constraineth’ (2 Corinthians 5:14). Grace comes with majesty upon the heart. Grace does not lie as a sleepy habit in the soul but will put forth itself in vigorous and glorious actings. Grace can no more be concealed than fire. Like new wine it will have vent. Grace does not lie in the heart as a stone in the earth, but as seed in the earth. It will spring up into good works.

This doctrine may serve to justify the Church of England against the calumny of malevolent men. Julian upbraided the Christians that they were Solifidians, and the Church of Rome lays upon us this aspersion, that we are against good works. Indeed we plead not for the merit of them but we are for the use of them. ‘Let ours also learn to maintain good works for necessary uses’ (Titus 3:14). We preach that they are needful both as they are enforced by the precept and as they are needful for the general good of men. We read that the angels had wings, and hands under their wings (Ezekiel 1:8). It may be emblematic of this truth. Christians must not only have the wings of faith to fly, but hands under their wings to work the works of mercy. ‘This is a faithful saying, and these things I will that thou affirm constantly, that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works’ (Titus 3:8). The lamp of faith must be filled with the oil of charity. Faith alone justifies but justifying faith is not alone. You may as well separate weight from lead or heat from fire as works from faith. Good works, though they are not the causes of salvation, yet they are evidences. Though they are not the foundation yet they are the superstructure. Faith must not be built upon works, but works must be built upon faith. ‘Ye are married to another that we should bring forth fruit unto God’ (Romans 7:4). Faith is the grace which marries Christ and good works are the children which faith bears. For the vindication of the doctrine of our Church, and in honour of good works, I shall lay down four aphorisms.

1 Works are distinct from faith. It is vain to imagine that works are included in faith as the diamond is enclosed in the ring. No, they are distinct, as the sap in the vine is different from the clusters that grow upon it.

2 Works are the touchstone of faith. ‘Show me thy faith by thy works’ (James 2:18). Works are faith’s letters of credence to show. If, says Saint Bernard, you see a man full of good works, then by the rule of charity you are not to doubt of his faith. We judge the health of the body by the pulse where the blood stirs and operates. O Christian, judge of the health of your faith by the pulse of mercy and charitableness. It is with faith as with a deed in law. To make a deed valid, there are three things requisite the writing, the seal, the witnesses. So for the trial and confirmation of faith there must be these three things the writing, the Word of God; the seal, the Spirit of God; the witnesses, good works. Bring your faith to this Scripture touchstone. Faith justifies works; works testify faith.

3 Works honour faith. These fruits adorn the ‘trees of righteousness’. Let the liberality of your hand (says Clemens Alexandrinus) be the ornament of your faith, and wear it as an holy bracelet about your wrists. ‘I was eyes to the blind and feet was I to the lame. I put on righteousness and it clothed me. My judgement was as a robe and a diadem’ (Job 29:14-15). While Job was the poor’s benefactor and advocate, this was the ensign of his honour; it clothed him as a robe and crowned him as a diadem. This is that which takes off the odium and obloquy and makes others speak well of religion when they see good works as handmaids waiting upon this queen.

4 Good works are in some sense more excellent than faith; in two respects:

Because they are of a more noble diffusive nature. Though faith be more needful for ourselves, yet good works are more beneficial to others. Faith is a receptive grace. It is all for self-interest. It moves within its own sphere. Works are for the good of others, and it is a more blessed thing to give, than to receive.

Good works are more visible and conspicuous than faith. Faith is a more occult grace. It may lie hidden in the heart and not be seen, but when works are joined with it, now it shines forth in its native beauty. Though a garden be never so decked with flowers, yet they are not seen till the light comes. So the heart of a Christian may be enriched with faith, but it is like a flower in the night. It is not seen till works come. When this light shines before men, then faith appears in its orient colours.

If this be the effigy of a good man, that he is of a merciful disposition, then it sharply reproves those that are far from this temper. Their hearts are like the scales of the Leviathan, ’shut up together as with a close seal’ (Job 41:15). They move only within their own circle, but do not indulge the necessities of others. They have a flourishing estate, but like the man in the gospel, they have a withered hand and cannot stretch it out to good uses. They have all as for themselves, not for Christ. These are akin to the churl Nabal. ‘Shall I take my bread and my water and give it unto men, whom I know not whence they be?’ (1 Samuel 25:11). It was said of the emperor Pertinax, that he had a large empire but a narrow scanty heart.

There was a temple at Athens which was called the Temple of Mercy. It was dedicated to charitable uses; and it was the greatest reproach to upbraid one with this, that he had never been in the Temple of Mercy. It is the greatest disgrace to a Christian to be unmerciful. Covetous men, while they enrich themselves, debase themselves, setting up a monopoly and committing idolatry with Mammon, thus making themselves lower than their angels, as God made them lower than his angels. In the time of pestilence, it is sad to have your houses shut up, but it is worse to have your hearts shut up. How miserable is it to have a sea of sin and not a drop of mercy! Covetous hearts, like the Leviathan, are ‘firm as a stone’ (Job 41:24). One may as well extract oil out of a flint, as the golden oil of charity out of their flinty hearts. The philosopher says that the coldness of the heart is a presage of death. When men’s affections to works of mercy are frozen, this coldness of heart is ominous and sadly portends that they are dead in sin. We read in the law that the shellfish was accounted unclean. This might probably be one reason, because the meat of it was enclosed in the shell and it was hard to come by. They are to be reckoned among the unclean who enclose all their estate within the shell of their own cabinet and will not let others be the better for it. How many have lost their souls by being so saving!

There are some who perhaps will give the poor good words and that is all. ‘If a brother or sister be naked and destitute of food and one of you say to them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body, what doth it profit?’ (James 2:15). Good words are but a cold kind of charity. The poor cannot live as the chameleon upon this air.’ Let your words be as smooth as oil, they will not heal the wounded. Let them drop as the honeycomb, they will not feed the hungry. ‘Though I speak with the tongues of angels and have not charity, I am but as a tinkling cymbal’ (1 Corinthians 13:1). It is better to be charitable as a saint than eloquent as an angel. Such as are cruel to the poor, let me tell you, you unchristian yourselves. Unmercifulness is the sin of the heathen (Romans 1:31). While you put off the bowels of mercy you put off the badge of Christianity. Saint Ambrose says that when we do not relieve one whom we see ready to perish with hunger, we are guilty of his death. If this rule hold true there are more guilty of the breach of the sixth commandment than we are aware of. St James speaks a sad word: ‘For he shall have judgement without mercy that hath showed no mercy’ (James 2:13). How do they think to find mercy from Christ, who never showed mercy to Christ in his members? Dives denied Lazarus a crumb of bread and Dives was denied a drop of water. At the last day behold the sinner’s indictment, ‘I was an hungered and ye gave me no meat; I was thirsty and ye gave me no drink’ (Matthew 25:42). Christ does not say, ‘Ye took away my meat’, but ‘Ye gave me none; ye did not feed my members’. Then follows the sentence, ‘Depart from me, ye cursed’. When Christ’s poor come to your doors and you bid them depart from you, the time may come when you shall knock at heaven’s gate, and Christ will say, Go from my door, ‘Depart from me, ye cursed’.

In short, covetousness is a foolish sin. God gave the rich man in the gospel that appellation, ‘Thou fool’ (Luke 12:20). The covetous man does not enjoy what he possesses. He embitters his own life. He discruciates himself with care either how to get or how to increase or how to secure an estate. And what is the issue and result? Often as a just reward of sordid penuriousness, God blasts and withers him in his outward estate. That saying of Gregory Nazianzen is to be seriously weighed: God many times lets the thief take away and the moth consume that which is injuriously and unmercifully withheld from the poor.

Before I leave this matter, I am sorry that any who pass for honest men should be brought into the indictment. I mean, sorry that any who profess Christianity should be impeached as guilty of this sin of covetousness and unmercifulness. Sure I am that God’s elect put on ‘bowels of mercies’ (Colossians 3:12); but I tell you that devout misers are the reproach of Christianity. They are wens and spots in the face of religion. I remember Aelian in his History reports that in India there is a griffin having four feet and wings, his bill like the eagle’s. It is hard whether to rank him among the beasts or the fowl. So I may say of penurious votaries, they have the wings of profession by which they seem to fly to heaven, but the feet of beasts, walking on earth and even licking the dust. It is hard where to rank these, whether among the godly or the wicked. Oh take heed that, seeing your religion will not destroy your covetousness, at last your covetousness does not destroy your religion. The fabulist tells a story of the hedgehog that came to the cony-burrows in stormy weather and desired harbour, promising that he would be a quiet guest, but when once he had gotten entertainment, he set up his prickles and never left till he had thrust the poor conies out of their burrows. So covetousness, though it has many fair pleas to insinuate and wind itself into the heart, yet as soon as you have let it in, this thorn will never leave pricking till it has choked all good beginnings and thrust all religion out of your hearts.

I proceed next to the exhortation to beseech all Christians to put on ‘bowels of mercies’. Be ready to indulge the miseries and necessities of others. Saint Ambrose calls charity the sum of Christianity, and the apostle makes it the very definition of religion. ‘Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and the widows in their affliction’ (James 1:27). The Hebrew word for ‘poor’ signifies ‘one that is empty’ or ‘drawn dry’. So the poor are exhausted of their strength, beauty, substance; like ponds they are dried up. Therefore let them be filled again with the silver streams of charity. The poor are as it were in the grave. The comfort of their life is buried. Oh Christians, help with your merciful hands to raise them out of the sepulchre. God ’sendeth his springs into the valleys’ (Psalm 104:10). Let the springs of your liberality run among the valleys of poverty. Your sweetest and most benign influence should fall upon the lower grounds. What is all your seeming devotion without bounty and mercifulness? I have known many, says Basil, pray and fast, but relieve not such as are in distress. They are for a zeal that will put them to no charges. What are they the better (says he) for all their seeming virtue? We read that the incense was to be laid upon the fire (Leviticus 16:13). The flame of devotion must be perfumed with the incense of charity. Aaron was to have a bell and a pomegranate. The pomegranate, as some of the learned observe, was a symbol of good works. They lack the pomegranate (says Gregory Nazianzen) who have no good works. The wise men not only bowed the knee to Christ, but presented him with gold, myrrh and frankincense (Matthew 2:11). Pretences of zeal are insufficient. We must not only worship Christ but bestow something upon his members. This is to present Christ with gold and frankincense. Isaac would not bless Jacob by the voice, but he feels and handles him, and supposing them to be Esau’s hands, he blessed him. God will not bless men by their voice, their loud prayers, their devout discourses, but if he feel Esau’s hands, if their hands have wrought good works, then he blesses them.

Let me exhort you therefore to deeds of mercy. Let your fingers drop with the myrrh of liberality. Sow your golden seed. In this sense it is lawful to put out your money to use when you lay it out for good uses. Remember that excellent saying of Augustine, Give those things to the poor which you cannot keep that you may receive those things which you cannot lose. There are many occasions of exercising your mercifulness. ‘The poor goes to the wall.’ Hear the orphans’ cry; pity the widows’ tears. Some there are who want employment. It would do well to set their wheel a-going. Others who are past employment: be as eyes to the blind and feet to the lame. In some cases whole families are sinking if some merciful hand does not help to shore them up. Before I press arguments to liberality and munificence, there are three objections lie in the way which I shall endeavour to remove:

1 We may give and so in time come ourselves to want.

Let Basil answer this. Wells (says he), which have their water drawn, spring ever more freely. ‘The liberal soul shall be made fat ’ (Proverbs 11:25). Luther speaks of a monastery in Austria which was very rich while it gave annually to the poor, but when it left off giving the monastery began to decay. There is nothing lost by doing our duty. An estate may be imparted, yet not impaired. The flowers yield honey to the bee yet do not hurt their own fruit. When the candle of prosperity shines upon us we may light our neighbour that is in the dark and have never the less light ourselves. Whatever is disbursed to pious uses, God brings it in some other way. As the loaves in breaking multiplied or as the widow’s oil increased by pouring out (1 Kings 17:10).

2 I cannot do so much as others — erect churches, build hospitals, augment libraries, maintain scholars at the university.

If you cannot do so much, yet do something. Let there be much goodwill though there be not much wealth to go with it. The widow’s two mites cast into the treasury were accepted (Luke 21:14). God (as Chrysostom observes) looked not at the smallest of her gift, but at the largeness of her heart. In the law, he that could not bring a lamb for an offering, if he brought but two turtledoves, it sufficed. We read that the people brought ‘gold and silver, and goats, hair, to the building of the tabernacle’ (Exodus 35:22-24); on which place (says Origen), ‘I desire, Lord, to bring something to the building of thy temple, if not gold to make the mercy-seat on, if not silk to make the curtains on, yet a little goats’ hair, that I may not be found in the number of those that have brought nothing to thy temple’.

3 But I do not have anything to bestow upon the necessities of others.

Have you anything to bestow upon your lusts? Have you money to feed your pride, your Epicurism? And can you find nothing to relieve the poor members of Christ?

Admit this excuse to be real, that you do not have such an estate; yet you may do something wherein you may express your mercy to the poor. You may sympathise with them, pray for them, speak a word of comfort to them. ‘Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem’ (Isaiah 40:2). If you can give them no gold, you may speak a word in season which may be as ‘apples of gold in pictures of silver’. Nay more, you may be helpful to the poor in stirring up others who have estates to relieve them. As it is with the wind, if a man be hungry the wind will not fill him, but it can blow the sails of the mill and make it grind corn for the use of man. So though you do not have an estate yourself to help him who is in want, yet you may stir up others to help him. You may blow the sails of their affections, causing them to show mercy, and so you may help your brother by a proxy.

Having answered these objections let me now pursue the exhortation to mercifulness. I shall lay down several arguments which I desire may be weighed in the balance of reason and conscience.

1 To be diffusively good is the great end of our creation. ‘Created in Christ Jesus unto good works’ (Ephesians 2:10). Every creature answers the end of its creation. The star shines, the bird sings, the plant bears; the end of life is service. He that does not answer his end in respect of usefulness, cannot enjoy his end in respect of happiness. Many, says Seneca, have been long in the world, but have not lived. They have done no good: ‘a useless weight of earth’. A useless person serves for nothing but to ‘cumber the ground’. And because he is barren in figs he shall be fruitful in curses (Hebrews 6:8).

2 By mercifulness we resemble God who is a God of mercy. He is said to ‘delight in mercy’ (Micah 7:18). ‘His tender mercies are over all his works, (Psalm 145:9). He requires good for evil, like the clouds which receive ill vapours from us but return them to us again in sweet showers. There is not a creature lives but tastes of the mercies of God. Every bird, says Ambrose, in its kind sings hymns of praise to God for his bounty, but men and angels in a more particular manner taste the cream and quintessence of God’s mercies.

What temporal mercies have you received! Every time you draw your breath you suck in mercy. Every bit of bread you eat, the hand of mercy carves it to you. You never drink but in a golden cup of mercy.

What spiritual mercies has God enriched some of you with! Pardoning, adopting, saving mercy! The picture of God’s mercy can never be drawn to the full. You cannot take the breadth of his mercy, for it is infinite, nor the height of it, for it ‘reacheth above the clouds’, nor the length of it, for it is ‘from everlasting to everlasting’ (Psalm 103:17). The works of mercy are the glory of the Godhead. Moses prays, ‘Lord, show me thy glory’ (Exodus 33:18). Says God, ‘I will make all my goodness to pass before thee’ (verse 19). God accounts himself most glorious in the shining robes of his mercy. Now by works of mercy we resemble the God of mercy. We are bid to draw our lines according to this copy. ‘Be ye merciful, as your Father also is merciful’ (Luke 6:36).

3 Alms are a sacrifice. ‘To do good and to communicate, forget not, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased’ (Hebrews 13:16). When you are distributing to the poor, it is as if you were praying, as if you were worshipping God. There are two sorts of sacrifices; expiatory the sacrifice of Christ’s blood; and gratulatory the sacrifice of alms. This (says holy Greenham) is more acceptable to God than any other sacrifice. The angel said to Cornelius, ‘Thy alms are come up for a memorial before God’ (Acts 10:4). The backs of the poor are the altar on which this sacrifice is to be offered.

4 We ourselves live upon alms. Other creatures liberally contribute to our necessities. The sun does not have its light for itself but for us; it enriches us with its golden beams. The earth brings us a fruitful crop, and to show how joyful a mother she is in bringing forth, the psalmist says ‘The valleys are covered over with corn, they shout for joy, they also sing’ (Psalm 65:13). One creature gives us wool, another oil, another silk. We are fain to go a-begging to the creation. Shall every creature be for the good of man and man only be for himself? How absurd and irrational is this!

5 We are to extend our liberality by virtue of a membership: ‘That thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh’ (Isaiah 50:7). The poor are ‘of the same clay’. The members by a law of equity and sympathy contribute one to another. The eye conveys light to the body, the heart blood, the head spirits. That is a dead member in the body which does not communicate to the rest. Thus it is in the body politic. Let no man think it is too far below him to mind the wants and necessities of others. It is pity but that hand should be cut off which disdains to pluck a thorn out of the foot. It is spoken in the honour of that renowned princess, the Empress of Theodosius the Great, that she herself visited the sick and prepared relief for them with her own imperial hands.

6 We are not lords of an estate, but stewards, and how soon may we hear the word, ‘Give an account of thy stewardship, for thou mayest be no longer steward!’ (Luke 16:2). An estate is a talent to trade with. It is as dangerous to hide our talent as to spend it (Matthew 25:25, 30). If the covetous man keeps his gold too long, it will begin to rust, and the rust of it will witness against him (James 5:3).

7 The examples of others who have been renowned for acts of mercy and munificence.

Our Lord Christ is a great example of charity, he was not more full of merit than bounty. Trajan the Emperor rent off a piece of his own robe to wrap his soldiers’ wounds. Christ did more. He rent his flesh; He made a medicine of his body and blood to heal us. ‘By his stripes we are healed’ (Isaiah 53:5). Here was a pattern of charity without a parallel.

The Jews are noted in this kind. It is a rabbinical observation that those who live devoutly among the Jews distribute a tenth part of their estate among the poor, and they give so freely (says Philo the Jew) as if by giving they hope to receive some great gratuity. Now if the Jews are so devoted to works of mercy, who live without priest, without temple, without Messiah, shall not we much more profess our faith in the blessed Messiah!