2.02.09. Personal adorning

IX. PERSONAL ADORNING.

“Whose adorning let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.” — 1 Peter 3:3-4. IN our day some books and magazines devote themselves exclusively to female dress and ornament. When you open them you expect nothing else than pictorial representations or artistic descriptions of the newest fashions and the most admired adornments. But the Bible! when you turn to it, you consider that you bid farewell to all these trifles, and plunge into the deepest things of the human spirit — plunge, in some measure, according to your capacity, even into the deep things of God.

Yet here, in the Word of life, we have fallen upon a text that deals with female attire, condemning one style of adorning, and commending another. Let us listen to what our Maker says to us regarding the most becoming dress and the most effective ornaments. He who formed our bodies, and breathed into them living souls, knows best what we should put on in order to set off his workmanship to the best advantage. Hear our Father in heaven when he tells us what style of apparel will make his children beautiful.

God loves beauty of every kind, both the beauty of nature and the beauty of holiness. How do we know that?

Because everything that he makes is beautiful. There is nothing ugly in creation as it comes from his hands. All the works of God are useful indeed, but all are ornamental too. The tree shows lovely flowers before it bears nourishing fruit. Such is creation as a whole. Flowers and fruit are everywhere combined. The sky, whether it is studded with stars by night, or strewn with fleecy clouds by day, is beautiful. The dome of heaven is grander than any that men have ever made. The carpet that covers the ground is studded with flowers, as well as the canopy that overhangs our dwelling. What work of man is so exquisitely ornamented as the leopard’s skin and the butterfly’s wing? Our works of taste are nothing but imitations, more or less successful, of the patterns which have been given to us in the mount — in the higher sphere of creative art. The chief works of our greatest masters are not original The sunset, the sea, the landscape, outspread on canvas, and hanging in royal halls, on which successive generations have gazed admiring, are only copies more or less accurately taken from the divine originals. The works of nature are beautiful on all sides, and on all sides alike beautiful. It is not a bright exterior, and a rough ungainly interior; it is not a polished side to the public road, and a slovenly rubble wall on the shaded side.

True beauty is beauty all over, whether any observing eye should see it or not. Nor is the most elaborate design or the most exquisite colour reserved for the most enduring objects. The snow crystals, and the frosted tracery on the windows, are as perfect in design and execution as the monarchs of the forest that outlast fifty human generations.

Man is the chief of God’s works, and enjoys most of his care. Man was placed highest, but has fallen from his high estate. He was made most beautiful, but has disfigured himself by sin. When his best work was damaged, the Creator did not give it up, and give it over. He framed a plan to restore. He desires to have his own image renewed. He desires to look upon his world again with complacency, and to call it good. When the prodigal returned to his father he was in a wretched plight. He bore the marks of his sin and misery. His countenance was wan through want and his clothing was filthy rags. The swineherd bore traces of his mean employment when he appeared again in his father’s sight.

“Bring forth the fairest robe, and put it on him: put a ring on his finger, and shoes on his feet.” The father gave commandment for becoming ornaments as well as the necessary covering. Thus our Father in heaven, when we return to him, sees us defiled and dishonoured; but he will not permit us to remain in an unsightly and dishonoured plight. He will make his adopted children fit for their place and their company. He will make them like the children of a king. Beggars come to Christ; but none remain beggars in his presence, A man of feeble intellect, in the north of Scotland, was wont, like most of his class, to be very slovenly in his appearance. To this weakling the gospel of Christ came in power. He accepted God’s covenant love, and found himself a child of the family. Soon after this change the minister met him on a Sabbath morning, and was struck with his unwonted cleanness, and the efforts he had made in his own fashion to ornament his person. Accosting him kindly, the minister said, “ You are braw to-day, Sandy,” “He was braw Himser the day,” replied Sandy reverently; meaning that Jesus, when he rose from the grave on the first day of the week, was arrayed in the divine glory and the beauty of holiness. The Lord on high, who rejoices to receive the little ones, would, methinks, be pleased to see Sandy’s Sunday clothes and to hear Sandy’s simple answer. When a gold coin of the kingdom has by long usage lost the image and superscription of the king, they bring it back to the sovereign from whom it originally issued. The king will renew and restore. None other can. But the process cannot be accomplished by rubbing the surface. The defaced coin must be cast into the furnace and melted.

Then it is recast, and comes out a new creature. In the act of renewing, the king’s image is restored. By such a process, and not otherwise, may God’s image be renewed in a soul that has lost it by sin. “ Put off the old man, and put on the new.”

There is a true analogy between physical beauty and spiritual holiness. In all languages the same names are applied to both. These parallels abound on all sides. For example, truth is like a straight line, and falsehood like a crooked one. Every one comprehends easily what is meant by the great white throne. And the fine linen, clean and white, is expressly defined to be “the righteousness of saints.”

“This man,” said the Pharisees, speaking with their lips a truth which they did not comprehend, “this man receiveth sinners.” Yea, receiveth sinners. On this side they are poured in sinners; on that side they emerge saints. Who are these, then, who stand around the throne in white clothing, with palms in their hands? These are they who entered at the gospel call, in filthy rags, and have washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb.

Peter in this text undertakes to tell how the uncomely may be rendered beautiful. Here is the true adorning; and it is for us, for all. Whosoever will, let him take it. The call of the gospel compels the homeless, naked, hungry wanderers to come into the banqueting hall; and if any one is found there without the wedding garment, his want is due to his own obstinacy, for the King offers it free to all his guests.

Still deeper goes the apostle’s thought when he arrives at the details of the recommended ornaments. “ Not that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel f — what then? “ Let it be the hidden wxin of the heart’’ Strange prescription! when the guests, picked up from the highways and hedges in all their rudeness and rags, must be made fit to sit at the King’s table. Get them suitably adorned at once. How?

“ The hidden man” in the heart of each. So then the ornament which will make human beings really comely is called “ the man.” What man? The hidden man. He is himself invisible, and yet it is his indwelling that will make the wearer’s face to shine.

Adam was the first man. He was beautiful when he came from his Maker’s hands, but he was not hidden. He was the visible head of creation when God pronounced it good.

Behind him, unseen, was another Man — the original, the pattern Man — in whose image Adam was formed. Adam was but a copy of the divine original. Adam was disfigured by his fall into sin. Then, it was not another copy taken, which might have been spoilt like the first, but the hidden Man himself who came into the world, and revealed himself to restore humanity. When he had finished transgression and made an end of sin, and brought in an everlasting righteousness, he ascended again to heaven, and remains hidden from our sight. But he who said, “ It is expedient for you that I go away,” said also, “ Lo, I am with you alway.” It is Christ dwelling in a Christian that makes him beautiful. It is not, Lo, here, or, Lo, there; — the kingdom of God is within you. The apostolic expression, “Christ in you, the hope of glory,” explains how the hidden man of the heart imparts more than earth-born winsomeness to the countenance and the life of those who walk with God in the world.

There is a whole Christ in every disciple who lives up to his privileges, as there is a whole sun in the cup of every flower that opens to his shining. Suppose the sun should say to the flowers, “ Lo, I am with you always,” and afterwards remain high in the heavens; the flowers could not complain that the sun had broken his promise. It is expedient for them that he should remain distant: by remaining distant he is able to dwell in the heart of each, its light and life. It is thus with our Sun of Righteousness, “ If any man open, I will come in.” When this ornament is worn in the heart within, its beauty is seen on the outward life. I once met with an unexpected and interesting illustration of this principle in the Gobelin Tapestry Factory near Paris. The web, in course of construction, was suspended perpendicularly from the ceiling to the floor. The operator was concealed behind it. Beside him — f or I was permitted to go within the veil to inspect his work — he had a fine picture by a master on canvas. At every thread that he shot through the extended work he took another look of this picture. He was reproducing on the external surface of the web, feature by feature, the picture, in this case of a royal personage which he kept beside himself under the veil unseen. He continually looked at his hidden pattern, and continually advanced with the visible duplicate, that grew into form and beauty in his hands. The sight, with the thought which it suggested, startled me. Here is the picture of a true Christian life. The workman’s business is to make his visible life an epistle of Jesus Christ. But he must have the model beside himself — within. On this pattern he must frequently look, that he may reproduce outwardly the exact features of the original. When it is Christ in you — “ the hidden man of the heart” — some faint but true features of the Lord will be legible on your life and spirit. In general, a likeness of Christ is in the life of a Christian; and, in particular, “ a meek and quiet spirit.” This is not the only ornament which the children of the family put on, but it is one of the most decisive marks of their birthright and their station. It was the feature which the Lord expressly specified when he invited his disciples to imitate his ways: “ Learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart” (Matthew 11:29). As this is the most characteristic feature of a disciple, it is, perhaps, as the world goes, the most difficult to acquire and exhibit. But though it be the chief, it is not the only fruit and evidence of faith.

Indeed, if it stood alone, it would not be so precious. It must have others to leian upon. It so happens that in the specific case recorded in the Acts, in which the world outside recognized by the conduct of the apostles that they were Christ’s, it was the opposite quality of courage that constituted the distinguishing feature. It was when they saw the boldness of Peter and John that they took knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus.

One of the instructions given by Paul for the conduct of life runs in these terms: “ In the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world; holding forth the word of life” (Php 2:15-16). The lantern of the lighthouse has many sides, and it revolves. It does not always present the same side to the observer. The sides, moreover, may be of different colours, so that now the lantern throws over the waters a white, now a green, and now a red light, — all lights and all useful, and all exhibited from the same beacon-tower, but all diverse the one from the other. Thus stand Christians conspicuous — set on a hill, and seen from afar. As they turn round in the varied business of life, they display now one and now another grace of the Spirit; but if they are true, and not too much blotted by contact with the earth, on every side they give forth evidence that they have been with Jesus. As a meek and quiet spirit is one of the most useful features to bring out of a believer’s life, it is one of the most difficult to get in. When, in the processes of art, a new and beautiful colour is about to be transferred to a fabric, the hardest portion of the task sometimes is to discharge the dyes that are already there. A terrible process of scalding must be applied to take out the old ere you can successfully impart the new. In like manner, the anger and pride and selfishness that have first possession present the greatest obstacle to the infusion of a meek and gentle spirit into a man. If there be a royal, there is certainly no easy road to this consummation. Nothing will suffice but the old apostolic prescription — “ Put off the old man, put on the new.”

It is a striking, bold, and original conception, to propose that an ornament should be hidden in the heart. Ordinarily, we understand that an ornament, from its very nature, must be worn in a conspicuous position. When it is hidden, how useful and valuable soever it may be, it ceases to be an adorning. But in the spiritual sphere the law is reversed. That which is put on makes the wearer loathsome; that which is hidden within makes him beautiful. Meekness is spoiled when it is set up for show. The bloom was rubbed off from the devotion of the Pharisees when it was exposed at the corner of the streets; their charity was soured by the sound of a trumpet, like milk in a thunderstorm. The meekness that is hidden is the meekness that adorns. When it is not hidden, it is no longer meekness. This ornament, moreover, is incorruptible. This epithet is peculiarly relevant. With the exception of the metals and minerals, ornaments are, for the most part, perishable commodities. Bain soils them; the sun bums their beauty out. In the accidents of life they are worn or torn, or stolen or lost. The rose and lily that bloom on the cheek are not perennial; the wrinkles of age are creeping on to drive them off and take their place. All these adornings are corruptible. This text recommends one that will never fade. Age makes it mellower, but not less sweet. As it is not a colour of the decaying body, but a grace of the immortal spirit, it will pass unharmed through the dark valley, and bloom in greater beauty on the other side. It will make the ransomed from among men very comely in the eyes of angels, when they stand together round the throne, and serve their common Lord.

One grand concern with buyers is to obtain garments that will last — garments whose fabric will not waste, and whose colours will not fade. There is one Seller in the great market of the world who assures the permanence of his wares. Hear ye him: “ Buy of me gold tried in the fire, that ye may be rich; and white raiment, that ye may be clothed.” In this apparel the redeemed shall shine, when the sun shall have grown dim with age and the stars fallen from heaven like unripe figs.

Yet another quality is noticed of the recommended adorning — it is costly. In the sight of God, and of the godly, it is “ of great price.” In the market of the world, alas! we, like inexperienced children, are often cheated.

We pay a great price for that which is of no value. We are often caught by the glitter, and accept a base metal for gold. He who counts this ornament precious knows its worth. The righteousness of the saints is dear to God in a double sense. It is both beloved and costly. “ Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass 5” but it was not possible.

“He saved others; himself he cannot save.” The price must be paid. The just gave himself for the unjust. The beauty of a new nature and an immortal life for fallen man were bought with a great price. The “ unspeakable gift” of God was laid down to obtain it. It cost the Redeemer much to get the “ filthiness purged out” of his people, and get them made meet for the inheritance of the saints in light. Nothing shall enter that defileth: the bride shall be adorned to meet her Husband. The ransomed of the Lord, when they come to Zion, will constitute the crown that adorns their Redeemer’s brow.

These are the jewels for which he paid an unspeakable price, and which he will wear as his crown of rejoicing in that day. The practical lesson is very clear and very forcible. We should be fellow-workers with God in keeping off, or casting off, with all diligence, every spot from our own hearts and lives which the Lord that bought us would not like to look upon. “ Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.”