Galatians 1:10 For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ. I. THE HUMOUR OF DESIRING TO BE PLEASED, AND THE DANGER OF IT. A parasite is more welcome to us than a prophet. He is our apostle who will bring familiar and beloved arguments to persuade us to that to which we have persuaded ourselves already, and further our motion to that to which we are flying. Men would rather be cozened with a pleasing lie, than saved with a frowning and threatening truth. The causes from which this desire to be pleased proceedeth, and its hitter effects. 1. (1) And, first, it hath no better original than defect, than a wilful and negligent failing in those duties to which nature and religion have obliged us, a leanness and emptiness of the soul, which, not willing to fill itself with righteousness, filleth itself with air, with false counsels and false attestations, with miserable comforts. "It is a thing soon done, and requireth no labour nor study, to be pleased." We desire it as sick men do health, as prisoners do liberty, as men on the rack do ease: for a troubled spirit is an ill disease; not to have our will is the worst imprisonment; and to "condemn a man's self in that which he alloweth" and maketh his choice (Romans 14:22), is to put himself upon the rack. We may see it in our civil affairs and matters of lesser alloy: when anything lieth upon us as a burden, how willing are we to cast it off! When we are poor, we dream of riches, and make up "that which is not" with that which may be (Proverbs 23:5). When we have no house to hide our heads, we build a palace in the air. We are unwilling to suffer, but we are willing, nay, desirous, to be eased. And so it falleth out in the managing of our spiritual estate: we do as the apostle exhorteth (though not to this end), "cast away everything that presseth down" (Hebrews 12:1); but so cast it away as to leave it heavier than before; prefer a momentary ease, which we beg or borrow or force from things without us, before that peace which nothing can bring in but that grief and serious repentance which we put off with hands and words as a thing irksome and unpleasing. (2) And thus, in the second place, proceedeth even from the force and power of conscience within us, which, ii we will not hearken to it as a friend, will turn Fury, and pursue and lash us; and if we will not obey her dictates, will make us feel her whip. This is our judge and our executioner. 2. Let us now see the danger of this humour, and the bitter effects it doth produce. (1) And, first, this desire to be pleased placeth us out of all hope of succour, leaveth us like an army besieged when the enemy hath cut off all relief. It is a curse itself, and carrieth a train of curses with it. It maketh us blind to ourselves, and not fit to make use of other men's eyes. (2) For, in the second place, this humour, this desire to be pleased, doth not make up our defects, but maketh them greater; doth not make vice a virtue,but sin more sinful. For he is a villain indeed that will be a villain, and yet be thought a saint; such a one as God will spew out of His mouth. (3) For, in the third place, this humour, this desire to be pleased, doth not take the whip from conscience, but enrageth her; layeth her asleep, to awake with more terror. For conscience may be "seared" indeed (1 Timothy 4:2), but cannot be abolished; may sleep, but cannot die, but is as immortal as the soul itself. Conscience followeth our knowledge; and it is impossible to chase that away, impossible to be ignorant of that which I cannot but know. It is not conscience but our lusts that make the music. II. We proceed now to lay open the other evil humour, of pleasing men, Which is more visible and eminent in the text. And indeed to desire to be pleased and to be ready to please, saith Isidore Pelusiot, "to flatter and to be flattered," bear that near relation the one to the other that we never meet them asunder. It is the devil's net, in which he catcheth two at once. If there be an itching ear, you cannot miss but you shall find a flattering tongue. If the king of Sicily delight in geometry, the whole court shall swarm with mathematicians. If Nero be lascivious, his palace shall be turned into a stew or brothelhouse, or worse. And, first, we must not imagine that St. Paul doth bring in here a cynical morosity or a Nabal-like churlishness; that none may speak to us, and we speak nothing but words; that we should "make a noise like a dog, and so go round about the city" (Psalm 59:6-14); that we should be as thorns in our brethren's sides, ever pricking and galling them. What, then, is that which here St. Paul con. demneth? Look into the text, and you shall see Christ and men as it were two opposite terms. If the man be in error, I must not please him in his error; for Christ is truth: if the man be in sin, I must not please him; for Christ is righteousness. So when men stand in opposition to Christ, when men will neither hear His voice nor follow Him in His ways, but delight themselves in their own, and rest and please themselves in error as in truth, to awake them out of this pleasant dream, we must trouble them, we must thunder to them, we must disquiet and displease them. For who would give an opiate pill to these lethargies? To please men, then, is to tell a sick man that he is well; a weak man, that he is strong; an erring man, that he is orthodox; instead of purging out the noxious humour, to nourish and increase it; to smooth and strew the ways of error with roses, that men may walk with ease and delight, and even dance to their destruction; to find out their palate, and to fit it; to envenom that more which they affect, as Agrippina gave Claudius the emperor poison in a mushroom. What a seditious flatterer is in a commonwealth, that a false apostle is in the Church. They are as loud for the truth as the best champions she hath; but either subtract from it, or add to it, or pervert and corrupt it, that so the truth itself may help to usher in a lie. When the truth itself doth not please us, any lie will please us; but then it must carry with it something of the truth. For instance: to acknowledge Christ, but with the law, is a dangerous mixture: it was the error of the Galatians here. III. You see now what it is to please men, and from whence it proceedeth, from whence it springeth, even from that bitter root, the root of all evil, the love of the world. Let us now behold that huge distance and inconsistency which is between these two, the pleasing of men, and the service of Christ: "If I yet please men, I am not the servant of Christ." 1. And, first, we cannot do both, not serve men and Christ, no more than you can draw the same straight line to two points, to touch them both (Matthew 6:24). 2. Secondly. The servant must have his eye upon his master; and as he seeth him do, must do likewise. Power cannot flatter; and mercy is so intent on its work that it thinketh of nothing else. To work wonders to please men were the greatest wonder of all. Application: 1. For conclusion, then: Let them who are set apart to lead others in the way of truth and righteousness take heed. 2. And of the person by His doctrine. 3. And therefore, in the last place, let us all, both teachers and hearers, purge out this evil humour of pleasing and being pleased: and "let us," as the apostle exhorteth, "consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works" (Hebrews 10:24). Let us "speak truth every one to his neighbour; for we are members one of another" (Ephesians 4:25). (A. Faringdon.) Parallel Verses KJV: For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ. |
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