"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. 11:29-30
I propose to remark especially on the first clause of each
of these verses--"Take my yoke upon you--for my yoke is
easy."
I. In enquiring upon this subject the first question is,
What is intended by this yoke? The yoke of Christ is his
revealed will, his authority. The word here rendered yoke
literally means a band, or something that binds.
II. What is it to take the yoke of Christ?
1. To take the yoke of Christ is to accept his will as our
universal rule of action.
2. To take Christ's yoke is to enter into a voluntary state
of entire subjection to him.
3. To take Christ's yoke is to commit ourselves to a state
of voluntary, loving, confiding servitude.
4. To take Christ's yoke is to commit ourselves to
universal obedience to Christ from love to him, sympathy
with him, and confidence in him. This is no doubt the
true idea of taking Christ's yoke upon us.
III. Christ's yoke is easy.
1. This the text affirms. The meaning of the word is
agreeable, gentle, gracious, useful, kind.
2. Christ's yoke is easy because it is love's yoke. It is
good-will universally to us. Every requirement is imposed
upon us for our own good, and the highest good of the
great family of which we are members. Christ's will is
never arbitrary, never capricious, never selfish, requires
nothing of us at any time without the strictest reference to
our own highest good.
3. His yoke is easy because he never prohibits anything,
and never imposes upon us any restraint except for our
own good, or for the good of the race to which we
belong. If at any time he restrains us, or deprives us of
anything that we would like, it is love's restraint. He sees
that it would be injurious to us, injurious to the world,
and consequently dishonorable to him; and therefore
enlightened love compels him to restrain us.
We are ignorant, often not able to judge for ourselves; we
often suppose ourselves to need that which would greatly
injure us. He is infinitely wise, his love is always directed
by infinite wisdom; and therefore in everything in which
he commands or restrains us, love is his only motive.
4. The service which we are required to render him is
only a love-service. It consists wholly in love, and its
spontaneous fruits and results. He requires nothing but
what love will willingly, and joyfully, and spontaneously
do. He requires us to love him; and surely this
requirement cannot be grievous, inasmuch as he
presents to us infinite reasons for loving him.
5. Christ's yoke is easy because the state of servitude into
which we voluntarily enter, is a state of the highest
liberty, the truest, most perfect liberty. It is just that
course of life and conduct which, above all others, a
loving heart prefers. It is really doing just as we please. A
heart that loves Christ supremely, is the only heart that
really takes this yoke of Christ. Now this loving state of
mind prefers above all other courses of life just that
which Christ requires. It is therefore doing according to
our own highest pleasure to do his pleasure; and
therefore his service is the truest and highest liberty.
6. Christ's yoke is easy, because, although a state of
subjection, it is the very opposite of a state of bondage.
Although his yoke is a band, still it is love's band. It is
the opposite of slavery. This service rendered to Christ is
not a legal con-straint or re-straint. It is not slavish fear, it
is not the thumbscrew of conscience to a must-do, a
must-serve-the Lord; but it is a preference of him and his
service so deep and radical, and all-pervading, that no
other conceivable way or course of life is so agreeable as
just that which Christ requires.
7. Christ's yoke is easy because it is not only agreeable,
but in the highest degree useful to ourselves, to our
friends, to the world, to the kingdom of Christ.
As I have already said, the word rendered easy, means
sometimes useful, agreeable, kind, gentle, gracious. If
Christ's requirements were such as consulted only his
interests and not our own, his yoke might not be so easy.
But since he loves us, is aiming by his requirements to
secure our own highest good, has no selfish end
whatever in view in any case, his yoke is truly easy in the
sense of being in the highest degree useful to us.
8. Christ's yoke is easy because he only requires a love-
service; and he gives us a love-reward. He does not
stipulate to pay us upon the principle of justice; nor do
we stipulate to serve him for pay. He has no servants but
love-servants. Those that sympathize with him, that love
his person, are devoted to the great interests for which he
lives, and have entire confidence in him. In short, all his
servants serve him because they love him and love his
service. To all such he gives a love-reward. It is not pay
on the score of justice, it is not what they deserve, but
what his bountiful love is pleased to give them. He gives
them more than pay, more than a reward on the principle
of justice, infinitely more. His servants all prefer to leave
the reward with his love, they want no stipulation as to
wages. We serve him because we love him, and he
rewards us because he loves us. All this makes his yoke
very easy.
9. Christ's yoke is just as easy as enlightened, true love
can make it. I said enlightened love, I said true love; that
is neither enlightened nor true love that indulges children
to their own injury, that suffers them to act upon their
impulses without restraint or requirement. Christ loves
us too well to indulge us to our hurt. His love is too true
to let us go ungoverned, and grow up in self will and
perverseness. This yoke is a state of servitude for our
own highest good and hence for his glory. He subjects us
to his will, and requires us to seek his pleasure because
his pleasure is always good. He does not make us slaves,
and compel us to serve him in order to promote his
interests, without reference to our own. The service which
he requires of us does indeed glorify him just for the
reason that he governs us for our own good. For if he did
not govern us for our own good, it would not be glorious
for him to govern us. If the service which he requires of
us were not for our own highest good, it would be
disgraceful to him, and not for his glory. But because his
government is entirely unselfish, because his heart is set
upon doing us good, because he has been willing to deny
himself for the purpose of promoting our good, because
he brings us into a state of voluntary subjection that he
may restrain us from doing ourselves and those around
us any harm, and requires of us just that course of life
which shall conduce most to our peace, our comfort, our
highest good in time and in eternity, therefore the yoke is
easy and the service redounds to his glory.
10. The things which he requires of us are most in
accordance with our whole nature. This state of servitude
is in entire accordance with our own highest reason, with
the most enlightened dictates of our conscience, with the
truest, most healthy, and most rational gratification of
our every susceptibility of our being. He lays no appetite
or passion under any restraint but for our own highest
good. So it is with every restraint, every cross, every
trial--every thing in his whole treatment of us is
demanded by our nature and relations as the condition
of our highest well-being.
11. In short, Christ's yoke is easy because it is really
more of a divine charm or enchantment, than a yoke of
bondage. The soul enters into a state of servitude, and
takes this yoke, because constrained by a view of his
love. It continues in this service, and clings to this state
of servitude, because bound fast by the cords of this love
of Christ. In short, this servitude consists in just this, it
is the soul's continual offering of itself as a living
sacrifice to Christ, a mere yielding of itself to the divine
charm of Christ's all-prevailing love. The soul is drawn in
this servitude, and not driven. It is called with an
effectual calling; it is persuaded by an effectual
persuasion; it is overcome and conquered, and subdued,
and held by the charm of Christ's love.
IV. I enquire in the next place, To whom is this yoke of
Christ easy?
1. Not to the hypocrite who only professes to take it, but
does not in fact love the Savior. There are many who
profess to be religious, and to be the servants of Christ,
who are continually complaining of the severity of the
servitude. To them his commandments are grievous, his
yoke is heavy, unendurable. They will sing,
"Reason I love, her counsels weigh,
And all her words approve;
But still, I find it hard to obey,
And harder still to love."
This class of persons are living in the seventh of Romans.
They make their resolutions, and as often break them.
They cry out, "O wretched man that I am." The Bible has
said, "Wisdom's ways are ways of pleasantness, and all
her paths are peace." It has also said that Christ's
"commandments are not grievous." And in this text we
have Christ's own testimony that his yoke is easy. But
there are many professors of religion who regard religion
as a thorny way.
"True, 'tis a strait and thorny way,"
they say. With them it is not as "the shining light that
shineth more and more unto the perfect day." Their
experience is not in accordance with the Bible at all. They
do not find their religion a peace-giving religion. They do
not know the kingdom of God in their experience to be
"righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost."
The fact is, they have made a radical mistake; they have
not taken Christ's yoke. They have taken the yoke of the
law upon stiff necks, and therefore they find their religion
a perfect bondage. Let no such one suppose himself to
be really in the accepted service of Christ.
2. Christ's yoke is not easy to the selfish, who only take it
outwardly, from fear or hope of reward. There are many
who profess to be Christians, who have no true love to
Christ himself, no true sympathy with him, so
consequently they have no joy in his service, no pleasure
in it for its own sake. They have undertaken to be
religious simply to secure something for themselves; and
they work hard to make something out of it. But they do
not find Christ's yoke easy because it is not a
spontaneous love-service. It is not that course of life
which above all others they choose because they love the
Savior supremely, but it is something which they must
comply with as a condition of being saved. It will not do
to lose their souls, therefore they must be religious at
any rate, though they find it exceedingly hard to be so.
But this is not Christ's yoke, this is not a love-service;
this band is not a band of love that binds them to the
cross of Christ.
3. Christ's yoke is not easy to the self-willed. There are
those who profess to be religious whose wills have never
been subdued to Christ. They are like unweaned children;
and they are continually chafing in their bondage as if
Christ's yoke were iron. Of course their state of servitude
is not a love-service, is not the true yoke of Christ.
4. Christ's yoke is not easy to any who are not
constrained by his love.
But it is easy to every one who really understands what
his yoke is, and truly takes it upon himself. It is easy to
all who truly choose Christ as their sovereign Lord , their
Head, their Savior, who enter into sympathy with him and
have confidence in him, who make common cause with
him and merge their will in his, who in all things trust
him. To all this class, who thus really take this yoke upon
them, it is easy. And I might add, that the same is true of
all the burdens which he really imposes upon us. Christ's
yoke is easy and his burden is light to all truly loving,
confiding, and submissive souls.
REMARKS.
1. Then let it be understood that Christ's real yoke, or the
true service of Christ, is never hard. His real yoke is
never heavy. It is self-will and selfishness that at any time
fault the yoke or the service of Christ.
2. If what we call religion is burdensome, it is not Christ's
yoke, it is not Christ's religion. If we make an uphill
business of it, and if we find it "hard to obey, and harder
still to love," Christ says to us, Who has required this at
your hand? What I require of you is a love-service, not
this slavish service.
If you love me not, if you do not serve me from love, I
abhor your doings. Let no one think himself truly
religious whose religion is a bondage, and not the
highest liberty.
3. Whatever is hard in religion is made so by our want of
heart, our want of love, our want of confidence; and is
therefore not Christ's yoke at all. It is not true religion, it
is not Christian liberty, but legal bondage.
4. All truly religious duties are easy. If we make them
hard, they are not a love-service, and not what Christ
requires. If we make them hard we spoil them. If we go
complainingly about his service, grumbling about the
difficulties and the hardness of his service, he loathes
our bondage, he cannot accept it.
5. Let it be understood, then, that they who make religion
a hard, up hill matter, have no Gospel religion. They are
wearing, not Christ's yoke, but the yoke of the law; and
that, too, laid upon their stiff-neckedness and
unbrokenness of heart.
6. This subject will throw light upon the true nature of the
Christian warfare. This is not hard, a something to which
we are to be screwed up, and whipped up, by our
conscience. It is only love to Christ spontaneously
resisting temptation to displease him. It is not hard work
for the most affectionate husband or wife to resist
infidelity to him or her whom each loves most. This
resistance is not that to which we are whipped up by a
mere sense of obligation, or fear of consequences. It is
the spontaneous resistance of love to that which is
entirely inconsistent with it. Such is the Christian warfare.
7. Nothing that love cannot well afford to do is ever
required of us in our Christian life. Of course if
everything is for our highest good, as well as for the
highest glory of Christ, love can well afford to do it, or
abstain from it.
8. Love cannot afford to have one of Christ's
commandments abated, nor one of his prohibitions
relaxed. His will is perfect; his true service is the
perfection of liberty; his true yoke is as easy as possible.
9. Let no one judge of Christ's religion by the common
representations of it. Should we judge of Christ's religion,
from the complaints of many of its professors, we should
infer that Christ kept his children on short allowance, that
he required "brick without straw," that he is a hard
master and even a cruel slaveholder. Their mouths are
full of complaints. They do not hesitate to say in their
prayers and in their conversation that which implies that
Christ's commandments are most grievous, that his yoke
is too heavy to be borne, that he supplies their spiritual
wants so sparingly that he keeps them little short of
absolute famine and starvation. Nay, they represent the
commandments as beyond the possibility of obedience,
and the service which he requires as so entirely above
their reach, that by no grace received in this life are they
ever able to obey him. Now this is surely as opposite to
the teachings of Christ and this text, as possible. Just
compare this text and many similar ones, to the old
confession of faith, that "no man, since the fall, is able,
either in his own strength or by any grace received in this
life, to obey the commandments of God."
Where did they get this? Is this in accordance with
Christ's teaching in this text? Is this according to the text
in which it is said, that "his commandments are not
grievous," and that all "his ways are ways of pleasantness
and all his paths are peace"? The fact is, that Christ's
religion has been grossly misrepresented by it
professors.
Such a statement as this in the confession of faith is a
stumbling block, and as contrary to the teachings of
Christ as possible.
10. You that are not Christians may see your mistake in
this regard. You have been misled. You have been
deceived by the complaining spirit that you have heard
among professed Christians. You have thought religion
was hard, something unendurable, impracticable,
something not suited to your present nature, relations,
and condition. But those that have stumbled you are not
Christians. If you would read your Bible you would see
that these complaints are not the Christian spirit; and that
all this talking and praying which really implies that
religion is an up-hill matter, something so far above our
reach as to keep the mind in a constant strain that is
unendurable by human nature--that this is all a mistake.
The fact is, the kingdom of God, when it is really
established in the soul, is "righteousness, and peace, and
joy in the Holy Ghost." It is the charm of Christ's love
revealed to the soul, sweetly drawing it away into a
perpetual offering of itself to a delightful love-service to
Christ. Everything that is hard about it is made so by
unbelief, by a want of love, by self-will. All that, therefore,
is without the pale of Christ's true service. Whatever is
not done for love, is no acceptable service rendered to
Christ.
11. Those of you whose religion is a bondage, can in the
light of this subject discover your mistake. Who has
required this bond-service at your hands? Christ is no
slave-holder. He employs no slave-drivers to whip you to
duty. If the law as a schoolmaster had brought you to
Christ, you would have escaped from this bondage.
But, beloved, do not mistake your bond-service for true
religion. Do not mistake the yoke of the law for the yoke
of Christ. Do not mistake, do not mistake this drudgery in
which you engage, and which you call religion, for that
spontaneous love-service which Christ requires. The
difficulty is, you have not taken Christ's yoke.
12. In the light of this subject, all professors of religion
can see whether and how far you really serve Christ. Do
you ever find passages in your experience, in which all is
a spontaneous love-service, natural, peaceful, joyous? If
you have never had this experience, you have never yet
come to Christ at all. If you have had this experience and
have fallen from it, you have fallen from the real
acceptable service of Christ.
Your present state, and your present religion, is not a
Christian state of mind, nor the accepted service of
Christ. You have fallen into the bondage of your own
unbelief. And who has required this bond-service at your
hand? This is not Christ's yoke.
13. How much ruinous misapprehension exists in regard
to what constitutes the Christian religion. The great mass
of professors of religion are in such bondage--and the
same is true, I fear, of many ministers,--that they grossly
misrepresent the religion of Jesus. By their teaching, by
their prayers, by all that you see and hear from them, you
would get the impression that the religion of Christ is the
most difficult, up-hill, unendurable task, that ever any
one undertook. It amounts to a gross libel upon the
religion of Jesus. They profess to be Christ's disciples,
profess to wear Christ's yoke; and yet "it is that which
neither we nor our fathers have ever been able to bear."
Alas! that Christ is so dishonored, so contradicted, so
misrepresented, his religion presented in such a
repulsive light as to frighten the young, and make them
think it is unendurable, except as the less of two evils. It
may be a less evil, they think, to wear this yoke of iron
than to go to hell; but it is at best so hard, so void of
comfort, so almost unendurable, that for this life, to say
the least, a course of sin is far preferable to Christ's
religion. So far as this world is concerned, they cannot
afford to be religious. It is only to escape from hell that
the thought, or the effort, can be endured. But how gross
is this misrepresentation; and how fatal is the delusion
that this fastens upon the minds of those that are not
religious.
14. It is not merely a ruinous misapprehension to those
who are without, but to those who belong to the church
and yet are living a life of bondage. Their
misapprehension of the religion of Jesus is destructive. It
is not only a stumbling block to others, but the ruin of
their own souls. When will these bondmen learn that this
is not what Christ requires at their hands? He pities your
agonizing struggles to wear the yoke of the law which
neither you nor your fathers have been able to bear. He
beseeches you to really give him your hearts, to enter
into his love-service, to take his sweet yoke of love upon
you that you may breathe easily and walk at liberty as the
sons of God.
15. What folly to make only a pretense of being Christ's
servants, to pretend only to wear his yoke. This is of no
use. To render him any other than a love-service is not
truly to serve him at all; you gain nothing by it to
yourselves; you do no good to others by this bond-
service; you do not meet the wishes of Christ at all. What
motive then can you have for this folly? Do you not know
that Christ is greatly dishonored by those that leave their
hearts in the world, and consequently make their religion
a bondage? I beseech you misrepresent him not; deceive
not yourselves. Mislead no others. Serve him lovingly, or
attempt not to serve him at all. Take his easy yoke and
render him a love-service, or no service at all. "The Lord
loveth a cheerful giver," and a cheerful giver only. He will
not accept a service that is not a heart-service, that is not
a free-service.
16. Remember that all duty acceptably performed, must
be free, it must be cheerful, it must be loving. Let no one
deceive himself by supposing that he does his duty,
when he does it in the spirit of bondage, and not from
love.
17. From what has been said, it must be seen that there
is real enjoyment in wearing Christ's true yoke, in all true
religion, in all that Christ really requires.
We always enjoy pleasing those whom we most love. In
this we necessarily find our truest and highest
enjoyment, in the promotion of the honor and in doing
the pleasure of those whom we supremely love.
Whatever is not enjoyed, is not true religion. We often
hear people say they do not enjoy religion. They are
religious, they say, but they are not at present enjoying
religion. But this is a mistake. If they have true religion,
that is, the religion of love, it must in its very workings,
produce enjoyment.
18. If you look steadily at this subject, you will see how
much Christ's account of his real service differs from the
common experience. Now, is Christ's account of his own
religion to be taken as true? or are we to suppose these
experiences, that are really inconsistent with it, are true
religion? Christ's own account of his religion must stand!
He has told us what service is acceptable to him, and he
is to be the judge in such matters. Let no one pretend
that his experience is Christian, unless he finds that
Christ's yoke is easy.
19. This false, but common experience, is the world's
great stumbling block, and legal ministers are helping
forward the calamity. Really, many of the representations
from the pulpit are such a gross misrepresentation of the
true religion of Jesus, that whole churches are in
bondage and the ungodly without the church are perfectly
afraid of religion.
20. Christ is not responsible for these slavish
experiences. They are only the result of selfishness and
unbelief. He cannot away with them, he abhors them.
They are his dishonor, the church's stumbling block, and
the world's ruin.
21. Christ's true service is the soul's true rest. In
immediate connection with the text, you remember he
said "ye shall find rest unto your souls." True religion is
truly the soul's recreation, the soul's amusement, the
soul's highest liberty; it is the rest of faith, the deep
repose of loving confidence. It is love, and only love,
with its spontaneous fruits. This is the whole of it; and
this is the best and truest sense the soul's rest.
22. The real service which Christ requires of us could not
be easier and still be real. Did he require less than love
with all its spontaneous fruits, it would not be real. But if
it is love and its spontaneous fruits, it could not be
easier.
23. We cannot afford to have less to do than Christ calls
upon us to do. We need not fear to have more to do than
is for our own highest good.
24. We cannot afford to have less to bear, fewer crosses,
fewer duties, fewer burdens. We cannot afford to have
anything lighter, anything easier, or anything more
agreeable. The whole of his service is the most useful, the
most truly agreeable, the most in accordance with our
whole nature and all our relations, of any course of life
possible or conceivable.
And now what do you say? Will you that never have taken
Christ's yoke, now take it? Will you now offer yourself a
willing sacrifice to be Christ's living servant forever? Will
you who have worn the bondage of the law, lay it aside,
give up your selfishness, your self-seeking, your unbelief,
and truly embrace Christ, and take his easy yoke, and
find rest for your souls?
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. 11:29-30
I propose to remark especially on the first clause of each
of these verses--"Take my yoke upon you--for my yoke is
easy."
I. In enquiring upon this subject the first question is,
What is intended by this yoke? The yoke of Christ is his
revealed will, his authority. The word here rendered yoke
literally means a band, or something that binds.
II. What is it to take the yoke of Christ?
1. To take the yoke of Christ is to accept his will as our
universal rule of action.
2. To take Christ's yoke is to enter into a voluntary state
of entire subjection to him.
3. To take Christ's yoke is to commit ourselves to a state
of voluntary, loving, confiding servitude.
4. To take Christ's yoke is to commit ourselves to
universal obedience to Christ from love to him, sympathy
with him, and confidence in him. This is no doubt the
true idea of taking Christ's yoke upon us.
III. Christ's yoke is easy.
1. This the text affirms. The meaning of the word is
agreeable, gentle, gracious, useful, kind.
2. Christ's yoke is easy because it is love's yoke. It is
good-will universally to us. Every requirement is imposed
upon us for our own good, and the highest good of the
great family of which we are members. Christ's will is
never arbitrary, never capricious, never selfish, requires
nothing of us at any time without the strictest reference to
our own highest good.
3. His yoke is easy because he never prohibits anything,
and never imposes upon us any restraint except for our
own good, or for the good of the race to which we
belong. If at any time he restrains us, or deprives us of
anything that we would like, it is love's restraint. He sees
that it would be injurious to us, injurious to the world,
and consequently dishonorable to him; and therefore
enlightened love compels him to restrain us.
We are ignorant, often not able to judge for ourselves; we
often suppose ourselves to need that which would greatly
injure us. He is infinitely wise, his love is always directed
by infinite wisdom; and therefore in everything in which
he commands or restrains us, love is his only motive.
4. The service which we are required to render him is
only a love-service. It consists wholly in love, and its
spontaneous fruits and results. He requires nothing but
what love will willingly, and joyfully, and spontaneously
do. He requires us to love him; and surely this
requirement cannot be grievous, inasmuch as he
presents to us infinite reasons for loving him.
5. Christ's yoke is easy because the state of servitude into
which we voluntarily enter, is a state of the highest
liberty, the truest, most perfect liberty. It is just that
course of life and conduct which, above all others, a
loving heart prefers. It is really doing just as we please. A
heart that loves Christ supremely, is the only heart that
really takes this yoke of Christ. Now this loving state of
mind prefers above all other courses of life just that
which Christ requires. It is therefore doing according to
our own highest pleasure to do his pleasure; and
therefore his service is the truest and highest liberty.
6. Christ's yoke is easy, because, although a state of
subjection, it is the very opposite of a state of bondage.
Although his yoke is a band, still it is love's band. It is
the opposite of slavery. This service rendered to Christ is
not a legal con-straint or re-straint. It is not slavish fear, it
is not the thumbscrew of conscience to a must-do, a
must-serve-the Lord; but it is a preference of him and his
service so deep and radical, and all-pervading, that no
other conceivable way or course of life is so agreeable as
just that which Christ requires.
7. Christ's yoke is easy because it is not only agreeable,
but in the highest degree useful to ourselves, to our
friends, to the world, to the kingdom of Christ.
As I have already said, the word rendered easy, means
sometimes useful, agreeable, kind, gentle, gracious. If
Christ's requirements were such as consulted only his
interests and not our own, his yoke might not be so easy.
But since he loves us, is aiming by his requirements to
secure our own highest good, has no selfish end
whatever in view in any case, his yoke is truly easy in the
sense of being in the highest degree useful to us.
8. Christ's yoke is easy because he only requires a love-
service; and he gives us a love-reward. He does not
stipulate to pay us upon the principle of justice; nor do
we stipulate to serve him for pay. He has no servants but
love-servants. Those that sympathize with him, that love
his person, are devoted to the great interests for which he
lives, and have entire confidence in him. In short, all his
servants serve him because they love him and love his
service. To all such he gives a love-reward. It is not pay
on the score of justice, it is not what they deserve, but
what his bountiful love is pleased to give them. He gives
them more than pay, more than a reward on the principle
of justice, infinitely more. His servants all prefer to leave
the reward with his love, they want no stipulation as to
wages. We serve him because we love him, and he
rewards us because he loves us. All this makes his yoke
very easy.
9. Christ's yoke is just as easy as enlightened, true love
can make it. I said enlightened love, I said true love; that
is neither enlightened nor true love that indulges children
to their own injury, that suffers them to act upon their
impulses without restraint or requirement. Christ loves
us too well to indulge us to our hurt. His love is too true
to let us go ungoverned, and grow up in self will and
perverseness. This yoke is a state of servitude for our
own highest good and hence for his glory. He subjects us
to his will, and requires us to seek his pleasure because
his pleasure is always good. He does not make us slaves,
and compel us to serve him in order to promote his
interests, without reference to our own. The service which
he requires of us does indeed glorify him just for the
reason that he governs us for our own good. For if he did
not govern us for our own good, it would not be glorious
for him to govern us. If the service which he requires of
us were not for our own highest good, it would be
disgraceful to him, and not for his glory. But because his
government is entirely unselfish, because his heart is set
upon doing us good, because he has been willing to deny
himself for the purpose of promoting our good, because
he brings us into a state of voluntary subjection that he
may restrain us from doing ourselves and those around
us any harm, and requires of us just that course of life
which shall conduce most to our peace, our comfort, our
highest good in time and in eternity, therefore the yoke is
easy and the service redounds to his glory.
10. The things which he requires of us are most in
accordance with our whole nature. This state of servitude
is in entire accordance with our own highest reason, with
the most enlightened dictates of our conscience, with the
truest, most healthy, and most rational gratification of
our every susceptibility of our being. He lays no appetite
or passion under any restraint but for our own highest
good. So it is with every restraint, every cross, every
trial--every thing in his whole treatment of us is
demanded by our nature and relations as the condition
of our highest well-being.
11. In short, Christ's yoke is easy because it is really
more of a divine charm or enchantment, than a yoke of
bondage. The soul enters into a state of servitude, and
takes this yoke, because constrained by a view of his
love. It continues in this service, and clings to this state
of servitude, because bound fast by the cords of this love
of Christ. In short, this servitude consists in just this, it
is the soul's continual offering of itself as a living
sacrifice to Christ, a mere yielding of itself to the divine
charm of Christ's all-prevailing love. The soul is drawn in
this servitude, and not driven. It is called with an
effectual calling; it is persuaded by an effectual
persuasion; it is overcome and conquered, and subdued,
and held by the charm of Christ's love.
IV. I enquire in the next place, To whom is this yoke of
Christ easy?
1. Not to the hypocrite who only professes to take it, but
does not in fact love the Savior. There are many who
profess to be religious, and to be the servants of Christ,
who are continually complaining of the severity of the
servitude. To them his commandments are grievous, his
yoke is heavy, unendurable. They will sing,
"Reason I love, her counsels weigh,
And all her words approve;
But still, I find it hard to obey,
And harder still to love."
This class of persons are living in the seventh of Romans.
They make their resolutions, and as often break them.
They cry out, "O wretched man that I am." The Bible has
said, "Wisdom's ways are ways of pleasantness, and all
her paths are peace." It has also said that Christ's
"commandments are not grievous." And in this text we
have Christ's own testimony that his yoke is easy. But
there are many professors of religion who regard religion
as a thorny way.
"True, 'tis a strait and thorny way,"
they say. With them it is not as "the shining light that
shineth more and more unto the perfect day." Their
experience is not in accordance with the Bible at all. They
do not find their religion a peace-giving religion. They do
not know the kingdom of God in their experience to be
"righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost."
The fact is, they have made a radical mistake; they have
not taken Christ's yoke. They have taken the yoke of the
law upon stiff necks, and therefore they find their religion
a perfect bondage. Let no such one suppose himself to
be really in the accepted service of Christ.
2. Christ's yoke is not easy to the selfish, who only take it
outwardly, from fear or hope of reward. There are many
who profess to be Christians, who have no true love to
Christ himself, no true sympathy with him, so
consequently they have no joy in his service, no pleasure
in it for its own sake. They have undertaken to be
religious simply to secure something for themselves; and
they work hard to make something out of it. But they do
not find Christ's yoke easy because it is not a
spontaneous love-service. It is not that course of life
which above all others they choose because they love the
Savior supremely, but it is something which they must
comply with as a condition of being saved. It will not do
to lose their souls, therefore they must be religious at
any rate, though they find it exceedingly hard to be so.
But this is not Christ's yoke, this is not a love-service;
this band is not a band of love that binds them to the
cross of Christ.
3. Christ's yoke is not easy to the self-willed. There are
those who profess to be religious whose wills have never
been subdued to Christ. They are like unweaned children;
and they are continually chafing in their bondage as if
Christ's yoke were iron. Of course their state of servitude
is not a love-service, is not the true yoke of Christ.
4. Christ's yoke is not easy to any who are not
constrained by his love.
But it is easy to every one who really understands what
his yoke is, and truly takes it upon himself. It is easy to
all who truly choose Christ as their sovereign Lord , their
Head, their Savior, who enter into sympathy with him and
have confidence in him, who make common cause with
him and merge their will in his, who in all things trust
him. To all this class, who thus really take this yoke upon
them, it is easy. And I might add, that the same is true of
all the burdens which he really imposes upon us. Christ's
yoke is easy and his burden is light to all truly loving,
confiding, and submissive souls.
REMARKS.
1. Then let it be understood that Christ's real yoke, or the
true service of Christ, is never hard. His real yoke is
never heavy. It is self-will and selfishness that at any time
fault the yoke or the service of Christ.
2. If what we call religion is burdensome, it is not Christ's
yoke, it is not Christ's religion. If we make an uphill
business of it, and if we find it "hard to obey, and harder
still to love," Christ says to us, Who has required this at
your hand? What I require of you is a love-service, not
this slavish service.
If you love me not, if you do not serve me from love, I
abhor your doings. Let no one think himself truly
religious whose religion is a bondage, and not the
highest liberty.
3. Whatever is hard in religion is made so by our want of
heart, our want of love, our want of confidence; and is
therefore not Christ's yoke at all. It is not true religion, it
is not Christian liberty, but legal bondage.
4. All truly religious duties are easy. If we make them
hard, they are not a love-service, and not what Christ
requires. If we make them hard we spoil them. If we go
complainingly about his service, grumbling about the
difficulties and the hardness of his service, he loathes
our bondage, he cannot accept it.
5. Let it be understood, then, that they who make religion
a hard, up hill matter, have no Gospel religion. They are
wearing, not Christ's yoke, but the yoke of the law; and
that, too, laid upon their stiff-neckedness and
unbrokenness of heart.
6. This subject will throw light upon the true nature of the
Christian warfare. This is not hard, a something to which
we are to be screwed up, and whipped up, by our
conscience. It is only love to Christ spontaneously
resisting temptation to displease him. It is not hard work
for the most affectionate husband or wife to resist
infidelity to him or her whom each loves most. This
resistance is not that to which we are whipped up by a
mere sense of obligation, or fear of consequences. It is
the spontaneous resistance of love to that which is
entirely inconsistent with it. Such is the Christian warfare.
7. Nothing that love cannot well afford to do is ever
required of us in our Christian life. Of course if
everything is for our highest good, as well as for the
highest glory of Christ, love can well afford to do it, or
abstain from it.
8. Love cannot afford to have one of Christ's
commandments abated, nor one of his prohibitions
relaxed. His will is perfect; his true service is the
perfection of liberty; his true yoke is as easy as possible.
9. Let no one judge of Christ's religion by the common
representations of it. Should we judge of Christ's religion,
from the complaints of many of its professors, we should
infer that Christ kept his children on short allowance, that
he required "brick without straw," that he is a hard
master and even a cruel slaveholder. Their mouths are
full of complaints. They do not hesitate to say in their
prayers and in their conversation that which implies that
Christ's commandments are most grievous, that his yoke
is too heavy to be borne, that he supplies their spiritual
wants so sparingly that he keeps them little short of
absolute famine and starvation. Nay, they represent the
commandments as beyond the possibility of obedience,
and the service which he requires as so entirely above
their reach, that by no grace received in this life are they
ever able to obey him. Now this is surely as opposite to
the teachings of Christ and this text, as possible. Just
compare this text and many similar ones, to the old
confession of faith, that "no man, since the fall, is able,
either in his own strength or by any grace received in this
life, to obey the commandments of God."
Where did they get this? Is this in accordance with
Christ's teaching in this text? Is this according to the text
in which it is said, that "his commandments are not
grievous," and that all "his ways are ways of pleasantness
and all his paths are peace"? The fact is, that Christ's
religion has been grossly misrepresented by it
professors.
Such a statement as this in the confession of faith is a
stumbling block, and as contrary to the teachings of
Christ as possible.
10. You that are not Christians may see your mistake in
this regard. You have been misled. You have been
deceived by the complaining spirit that you have heard
among professed Christians. You have thought religion
was hard, something unendurable, impracticable,
something not suited to your present nature, relations,
and condition. But those that have stumbled you are not
Christians. If you would read your Bible you would see
that these complaints are not the Christian spirit; and that
all this talking and praying which really implies that
religion is an up-hill matter, something so far above our
reach as to keep the mind in a constant strain that is
unendurable by human nature--that this is all a mistake.
The fact is, the kingdom of God, when it is really
established in the soul, is "righteousness, and peace, and
joy in the Holy Ghost." It is the charm of Christ's love
revealed to the soul, sweetly drawing it away into a
perpetual offering of itself to a delightful love-service to
Christ. Everything that is hard about it is made so by
unbelief, by a want of love, by self-will. All that, therefore,
is without the pale of Christ's true service. Whatever is
not done for love, is no acceptable service rendered to
Christ.
11. Those of you whose religion is a bondage, can in the
light of this subject discover your mistake. Who has
required this bond-service at your hands? Christ is no
slave-holder. He employs no slave-drivers to whip you to
duty. If the law as a schoolmaster had brought you to
Christ, you would have escaped from this bondage.
But, beloved, do not mistake your bond-service for true
religion. Do not mistake the yoke of the law for the yoke
of Christ. Do not mistake, do not mistake this drudgery in
which you engage, and which you call religion, for that
spontaneous love-service which Christ requires. The
difficulty is, you have not taken Christ's yoke.
12. In the light of this subject, all professors of religion
can see whether and how far you really serve Christ. Do
you ever find passages in your experience, in which all is
a spontaneous love-service, natural, peaceful, joyous? If
you have never had this experience, you have never yet
come to Christ at all. If you have had this experience and
have fallen from it, you have fallen from the real
acceptable service of Christ.
Your present state, and your present religion, is not a
Christian state of mind, nor the accepted service of
Christ. You have fallen into the bondage of your own
unbelief. And who has required this bond-service at your
hand? This is not Christ's yoke.
13. How much ruinous misapprehension exists in regard
to what constitutes the Christian religion. The great mass
of professors of religion are in such bondage--and the
same is true, I fear, of many ministers,--that they grossly
misrepresent the religion of Jesus. By their teaching, by
their prayers, by all that you see and hear from them, you
would get the impression that the religion of Christ is the
most difficult, up-hill, unendurable task, that ever any
one undertook. It amounts to a gross libel upon the
religion of Jesus. They profess to be Christ's disciples,
profess to wear Christ's yoke; and yet "it is that which
neither we nor our fathers have ever been able to bear."
Alas! that Christ is so dishonored, so contradicted, so
misrepresented, his religion presented in such a
repulsive light as to frighten the young, and make them
think it is unendurable, except as the less of two evils. It
may be a less evil, they think, to wear this yoke of iron
than to go to hell; but it is at best so hard, so void of
comfort, so almost unendurable, that for this life, to say
the least, a course of sin is far preferable to Christ's
religion. So far as this world is concerned, they cannot
afford to be religious. It is only to escape from hell that
the thought, or the effort, can be endured. But how gross
is this misrepresentation; and how fatal is the delusion
that this fastens upon the minds of those that are not
religious.
14. It is not merely a ruinous misapprehension to those
who are without, but to those who belong to the church
and yet are living a life of bondage. Their
misapprehension of the religion of Jesus is destructive. It
is not only a stumbling block to others, but the ruin of
their own souls. When will these bondmen learn that this
is not what Christ requires at their hands? He pities your
agonizing struggles to wear the yoke of the law which
neither you nor your fathers have been able to bear. He
beseeches you to really give him your hearts, to enter
into his love-service, to take his sweet yoke of love upon
you that you may breathe easily and walk at liberty as the
sons of God.
15. What folly to make only a pretense of being Christ's
servants, to pretend only to wear his yoke. This is of no
use. To render him any other than a love-service is not
truly to serve him at all; you gain nothing by it to
yourselves; you do no good to others by this bond-
service; you do not meet the wishes of Christ at all. What
motive then can you have for this folly? Do you not know
that Christ is greatly dishonored by those that leave their
hearts in the world, and consequently make their religion
a bondage? I beseech you misrepresent him not; deceive
not yourselves. Mislead no others. Serve him lovingly, or
attempt not to serve him at all. Take his easy yoke and
render him a love-service, or no service at all. "The Lord
loveth a cheerful giver," and a cheerful giver only. He will
not accept a service that is not a heart-service, that is not
a free-service.
16. Remember that all duty acceptably performed, must
be free, it must be cheerful, it must be loving. Let no one
deceive himself by supposing that he does his duty,
when he does it in the spirit of bondage, and not from
love.
17. From what has been said, it must be seen that there
is real enjoyment in wearing Christ's true yoke, in all true
religion, in all that Christ really requires.
We always enjoy pleasing those whom we most love. In
this we necessarily find our truest and highest
enjoyment, in the promotion of the honor and in doing
the pleasure of those whom we supremely love.
Whatever is not enjoyed, is not true religion. We often
hear people say they do not enjoy religion. They are
religious, they say, but they are not at present enjoying
religion. But this is a mistake. If they have true religion,
that is, the religion of love, it must in its very workings,
produce enjoyment.
18. If you look steadily at this subject, you will see how
much Christ's account of his real service differs from the
common experience. Now, is Christ's account of his own
religion to be taken as true? or are we to suppose these
experiences, that are really inconsistent with it, are true
religion? Christ's own account of his religion must stand!
He has told us what service is acceptable to him, and he
is to be the judge in such matters. Let no one pretend
that his experience is Christian, unless he finds that
Christ's yoke is easy.
19. This false, but common experience, is the world's
great stumbling block, and legal ministers are helping
forward the calamity. Really, many of the representations
from the pulpit are such a gross misrepresentation of the
true religion of Jesus, that whole churches are in
bondage and the ungodly without the church are perfectly
afraid of religion.
20. Christ is not responsible for these slavish
experiences. They are only the result of selfishness and
unbelief. He cannot away with them, he abhors them.
They are his dishonor, the church's stumbling block, and
the world's ruin.
21. Christ's true service is the soul's true rest. In
immediate connection with the text, you remember he
said "ye shall find rest unto your souls." True religion is
truly the soul's recreation, the soul's amusement, the
soul's highest liberty; it is the rest of faith, the deep
repose of loving confidence. It is love, and only love,
with its spontaneous fruits. This is the whole of it; and
this is the best and truest sense the soul's rest.
22. The real service which Christ requires of us could not
be easier and still be real. Did he require less than love
with all its spontaneous fruits, it would not be real. But if
it is love and its spontaneous fruits, it could not be
easier.
23. We cannot afford to have less to do than Christ calls
upon us to do. We need not fear to have more to do than
is for our own highest good.
24. We cannot afford to have less to bear, fewer crosses,
fewer duties, fewer burdens. We cannot afford to have
anything lighter, anything easier, or anything more
agreeable. The whole of his service is the most useful, the
most truly agreeable, the most in accordance with our
whole nature and all our relations, of any course of life
possible or conceivable.
And now what do you say? Will you that never have taken
Christ's yoke, now take it? Will you now offer yourself a
willing sacrifice to be Christ's living servant forever? Will
you who have worn the bondage of the law, lay it aside,
give up your selfishness, your self-seeking, your unbelief,
and truly embrace Christ, and take his easy yoke, and
find rest for your souls?
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