The Peaceful Temper.
There are many particular duties in which Christianity and worldly wisdom meet, both recommending the same course. One of these is the duty mentioned in the text, viz., that of being at peace with others. The reason which worldly prudence suggests is the quiet and happiness of life, which are interfered with by relations of enmity to others. The reason which religion gives is the duty of brotherly love, of which the peaceful disposition is a part. But the frequency of the advice, under either aspect, is remarkable, and shows that there is some strong prevailing tendency in human nature by which it is opposed. Let us examine what that tendency is.
I. When we examine the tempers of men, the first thing we observe is that people rush into quarrels from simple violence and impetuosity of temper, which prevents them from waiting a single minute to examine the merits of the case and the facts of the case, but carries them forward possessed of a blind partiality in their own favour and seeing nothing but what favours their own side. (2) Again, there is the malignant temper, which fastens vindictively upon particular persons, who have been either the real or the supposed authors of some disadvantage. (3) There are some persons who can never be neutral or support a middle state of mind. If they do not positively like others, they will see some reason for disliking them; they will be irritable if they are not pleased; they will be enemies if they are not friends.
II. Peace implies the entire absence of positive ill-will. The Apostle says this is our proper relation toward all men. More than this applies to some, but as much as this applies to all. He would have us embrace all men within our love so far as to be in concord with them, not to be separated from them. Separation is inconsistent with Christian membership. On the other hand, he knows that more than this must, by the limitations of our nature, apply to the few rather than to the mass and multitude; he fixes then upon this, nothing higher and nothing lower; he fixes upon the middle ground of peace as our proper relation towards the many. You must not, he says, be at peace only with those to whom you are partial; that is easy enough. You must be at peace with those towards whom you entertain no partiality, who do not perhaps please you or suit you. This is the rule of peace which the Gospel lays down, and it must be fulfilled by standing guard at the entrance of our hearts and keeping off intruding thoughts. It was not without design that following peace and holiness were connected by the Apostle. A life of enmities is greatly in opposition to growth in holiness. All that commotion of petty animosity in which some people live is very lowering; it dwarfs and stunts the spiritual growth of persons. Their spiritual station becomes less and less in God's sight and in man's. In a state of peace the soul lives as in a watered garden, where, under the watchful eye of the Divine source, the plant grows and strengthens. All religious habits and duties, prayer, charity, and mercy, are formed and matured when the man is in a state of peace with others.
J. B. Mozley, University Sermons,p. 203.
I. Even supposing a man of unholy life were suffered to enter heaven, he would not be happy there, so that it would be no mercy to permit him to enter. We are apt to deceive ourselves, and to consider heaven a place like this earth; I mean, a place where every one may choose and take his own pleasure. But an opinion like this, though commonly acted upon, is refuted as soon as put into words. Here every one can do his own pleasure, but there he must do God's pleasure. Heaven is not like this world; it is much more like a church. For in a place of worship no language of this world is heard; there are no schemes brought forward for temporal objects, great or small, no information how to strengthen our worldly interests, extend our influence, or establish our credit. Here we hear solely and entirely of God; and therefore a church is like heaven, because both in the one and in the other there is one single sovereign subject religion brought before us. When, therefore, we think to take part in the joys of heaven without holiness, we are as inconsiderate as if we supposed that we could take an interest in the worship of Christians here below without possessing it in our measure.
II. If we wished to imagine a punishment for an unholy, reprobate soul, we perhaps could not fancy a greater than to summon it to heaven. Heaven would be hell to an irreligious man. We know how unhappy we are apt to feel at present when alone in the midst of strangers or of men of different tastes and habits from ourselves. How miserable, for example, would it be to have to live in a foreign land, among a people whose faces we never saw before, and whose language we could not learn! And this is but a faint illustration of the loneliness of a man of earthly dispositions and tastes thrust into the society of saints and angels. How forlorn would he wander through the courts of heaven!
III. If a certain character of mind, a certain state of the heart and affections, be necessary for entering heaven, our actions will avail for our salvation chiefly as they tend to produce or evidence this frame of mind. Good works are required, not as if they had anything of merit in them, not as if they could of themselves turn away God's anger for our sins or purchase heaven for us, but because they are the means, under God's grace, of strengthening and showing forth that holy principle which God implants in the heart, and without which we cannot see Him. The separate acts of obedience to the will of God, good works as they are called, are of service to us as gradually severing us from the world of sense and impressing our hearts with a heavenly character.
J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons,vol. i., p. 1.
References: Hebrews 12:14. A. K. H. B., The Graver Thoughts of a Country Parson,3rd series, p. 124; W. Landels, Christian World Pulpit,vol. vii., p. 401; Preacher's Monthly,vol. ii., p. 359; Clergyman's Magazine,vol. x., p. 80. Hebrews 12:14; Hebrews 12:15. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xvi., No. 940.