Sermon 134: Seek First the Kingdom

04:215 An Introductory Comment

1That this is Wesley’s second sermon has been established by Professor Heitzenrater’s analysis,

1

‘John Wesley’s Early Sermons’, pp. 110-12.

which also manages to overturn a hallowed Methodist tradition based on a misreading of Wesley’s Journal for October 16, 1771, and thereafter perpetuated through the nineteenth century—confirmed by a facsimile publication of it as Wesley’s First Sermon.

2

London, Charles H. Kelly, 1903.

It was then romanticized by Curnock’s imaginative reconstruction of its alleged circumstances.

3

Curnock, I.60.

Wesley’s diary shows that he wrote this sermon on Matthew 6:33 during the fortnight of November 7-21, 1725, presumably in his quarters at Christ Church; he preached it first at nearby Binsey on November 21. The manuscript survives in the Colman Miscellany in the Methodist Archives in Manchester on fourteen numbered pages, numbers 8 and 9 being left blank. The front paper cover has the number ‘2’ written on it in John Wesley’s hand, ‘proof’ of its place in the sequence of these manuscript sermons. There are also other, later, notations on this cover, in other hands (as, e.g., ‘For: Hen. Moore’). On the back cover there are finer lines in Wesley’s cipher:

“

[17]25—

At Binsey, at Buckland—

At Stanton and Broadway

At Wroote, Haxey and Epworth ([17]26)

”

Then, in Wesley’s longhand, there follows a rather different list of the places where he records preaching this sermon:

“

Preached at Buckland

at Stanton

at Wroote

at Broadway

at Binsey 1725

at Stanton Harc[our]t [17]27

at South Lye

at Whatton Aug. 20 [1727]

”

204:216The discrepancies in sequence between the two lists have no recorded explanation. What matters is that, as an apprentice preacher, Wesley found Matt. 6:33 a congenial text and chose to repeat the sermon in small churches near Oxford when invited, as he often was.

3What is most obvious about this second sermon is that it takes up where ‘Death and Deliverance’ had left off—with the ars moriendi within the larger perspective of sovereign grace. But it quickly moves to the consequential topics of the Christian life in this world, oriented toward our blessed deliverance by death. Within such a perspective Wesley can stress God’s bountiful providence and unfailing mercy. There is, however, an almost equal emphasis on God’s kingdom and its imperatives for righteousness here on earth and on the Christian’s sure expectation of an appropriate heavenly reward. Such a vision is then balanced by a closing comment of the joys of holy living here and now. The sermon concludes with a conventional Anglican ascription (see No. 1, Salvation by Faith, III.9 and n.).

Seek First the Kingdom

Matthew 6:33

In the sixth chapter of St. Matthew at the thirty-third verse are these words:

Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.

1[1.] Although we are but strangers and pilgrims in this world, and know not how soon, but are sure that e’er long, we shall leave it, yet are we usually as deeply concerned for the things of this life as if we were designed to continue in it for ever. Insomuch that observing how necessary food and raiment are to our subsisting with comfort in our present station, we are apt to let them take up too much of our thoughts, and to seek them with too much care and anxiety. And that this is not a fault peculiar to our age may appear in that God’s own people were not free from it. They were so much taken up with needless cares of this kind that our Lord has been pleased to set aside [a] great part of this chapter to 04:217convince them of the folly of such proceedings. To this purpose he makes use of several powerful yet obvious arguments in the verses preceding that [which] I have repeated. First, says he: ‘No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one and love the other; or else he will hold to the one and despise the other’—as if he had said: ‘You must not imagine you can secure your eternal interests and your temporal by addicting yourselves equally to the service of both. ’Tis impossible at once to serve two masters, two especially which are so directly contrary to each other: for either you will hate the one and love the other, the affections not being capable of fixing at the same time on two so different objects; or, if you do not proceed so far as to hate either, yet will ye hold to the one, so as to do his work diligently, and so far despise the other as to slight his commands.’ ’Tis therefore absolutely necessary to give yourselves up to one or the other; to cleave wholly either to the Creator or the creature; for ‘ye cannot serve God and mammon.’

[Matt. 6,] ver. 24 [N.B. Quotation marks have been added].

2[2.] And why indeed should you take care for the things of this world, since there is one greater than you who himself careth for you?

Why should you disquiet yourselves with endless solicitude, since all things necessary for life may be procured without it? ‘Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?’

Ver. 25.

And is it likely he who gave you the greater should refuse the less? Will he who gave you being itself neglect to supply you with such things as are necessary to sustain it? Observe how he deals with the other parts of his creation: ‘Behold’, for instance, ‘the fowls of the air; they sow not, neither reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them’—and how can you suppose he would be negligent of man, for whose service chiefly these meaner creatures were made! Can there then be any excuse for this carking, distrustful temper? Especially since it serves to no 04:218manner of purpose: for ‘which of you by taking thought’ can make any considerable improvement even in his own body, ‘can add one cubit to his stature?’

Ver. 27.

3[3.] And ‘why take ye thought’, why are ye disquieted, ‘about raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin; and yet I say unto you that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass’, the common product of the field, ‘which today is’, appears beautiful and glorious, ‘and tomorrow is cast into the oven’, is destroyed and seen no more; ‘shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?’

—ye who after so many promises, and so many daily instances of his goodness, dare not trust so indulgent, so careful a father?

4[4.] Since, then, if you do take thought for the things of the world you must renounce your claim to the happiness God has promised to his servants (it being impossible to serve two masters); since you need not, in that he who gave you life and a body will not fail of providing needful sustenance for them as he does constantly for even the inferior parts of the creation; and since, lastly, these uneasy reflections are utterly useless, as not enabling you so much as to add a cubit to your stature, [then it follows:] ‘take no thought what ye shall eat or drink, or wherewithal ye shall be clothed.’

When you have used your honest endeavours for these things, and omitted no lawful method of procuring necessaries or conveniences, be not careful and solicitous about the event, but immediately check any distrustful thoughts that may arise in your souls. ’Tis enough for the Gentiles, for those heathen parts of the world which have very imperfect notions of the divine Providence, to seek after these things in so foolish a manner, by a method so unlikely to succeed. But to you, who are not ignorant either of the goodness or power of your heavenly Father, and are likewise assured that ‘he knoweth ye have need of all these things’, that he is well apprised of all those desires and appetites which he himself has implanted in your nature; to you, I say, I will point out a more sure way of coming at such things as are necessary or convenient for you: 04:219‘Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.’

Ver. 33.

5[5.] In order to perceive the full meaning of these words let us consider first what this method is which our Saviour here prescribes: ‘Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness;’ and, secondly, the promise annexed to it;

‘and all these things shall be added unto you.’

6[6.] The kingdom which our blessed Lord here requires us to seek is that which he himself assures us is not of this world.

All things here are subject to corruption or decay. But the crown which God has prepared for those who diligently seek it is incorruptible and fadeth not away. But lest we should imagine any to have a claim to these eternal mansions beside those that do the will of their heavenly Father, we are expressly commanded to seek his righteousness as well as his kingdom: which word, though in the strictest sense it contains only our duty to our neighbour, yet implies here, as in many other places of Holy Scripture, the sum of the Christian religion. Whatever virtues are recommended to us by reason, especially as assisted by revelation, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are pure—in a word, the whole of our duty both towards God, ourselves, and our neighbour—are here included in the word ‘righteousness’. And although this may in one sense be said to be ours, as being in some measure owing to our own endeavours, working together with the Holy Spirit of God, yet is it very justly ascribed to him and termed his righteousness, since he is the confirmer and perfecter, as well as the infuser of it.

704:220[7.] The attainment of this, and the kingdom of God, which is no other way attainable, we are here directed to make our first, as well as our chief study; to consider in the beginning of every undertaking whether it be proper or likely in any degree to promote the glory of God, or peace and goodwill among men

—the great end and design of all religion; in a word (it not being my purpose to descend to particular duties) to let it be always our first care to observe those great commandments under which our Saviour comprises the whole duty of a Christian: ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy mind,’ with the whole bias of thy understanding, thy will, and thy affections; and, ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbour’, that is, every man, ‘as thyself.’

8[8.] Though the sure expectation of that inestimable reward that remains eternal in the heavens for those who thus behave themselves on earth would sufficiently influence the conduct of all considerate persons, yet lest any should be prejudiced by the prospect of present advantages (the mind, like the eye, representing most objects small when placed at a great distance), God has been graciously pleased, that wicked men may have nothing to plead in their defence, to give a promise of the goods of this world as well as the next to those who make it their first business to seek his righteousness. As a consequence of this, over and above eternal happiness, ‘all these things shall be added unto you.’

9[9.] In which promise two things are chiefly observable: the certainty and the extent of it.

10[10.] The certainty of this, as well as all other promises, depends on the credit of the author, who is no less a person than God himself—one who can neither deceive others nor be himself deceived, since he is a true as well as an all-knowing Being. He is not a man, that he should lie, nor the son of man,

that either his knowledge or power should be limited. We are well assured he can do what he will, and he has engaged his inviolable Word to do what he can for us, unless we are wanting to ourselves. Here, 04:221therefore, we fix our belief, without any danger of disappointment: ‘For the Lord of hosts hath spoken, and who shall disannul it?’

[Cf.] Isa. 14:27.

11[11.] We come in the next place to consider the extent of this promise made to those who sincerely seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness. And this, we may observe, is unlimited and universal. He saith not ‘many’ or ‘most’, but ‘all these things shall be added unto you’—all things necessary, as the Apostle speaks, for life and godliness,

all things that in any wise conduce to our real happiness. A promise to the same effect he formerly made by the mouth of his servant David, the introduction to which shows us how insufficient our natural abilities are to procure us necessaries without the special assistance of his Providence. ‘The lions’, saith he, ‘do lack and suffer hunger’—so little does their great strength avail them; ‘but they who seek the Lord shall want no manner of thing that is good.’ And if we have everything that is good, what farther can we desire? What is really good for us God undoubtedly knows best, to whom the inmost frame and constitution of every heart is open, and from whom no secret, and therefore neither that of making us happy, is hid.

12[12.] It cannot indeed be denied that the children of this world have often their share in what are usually called the goods of it, such as health, honour, and affluence of fortune. But as these are nowhere promised them, so it is more than they have any reason to expect, though God is pleased of his infinite wisdom to suffer it. Nor is it always a mercy, but frequently a judgment on those men, that they thrive in the world and have riches in possession; it being very evident that if they give not God the glory of what they have, if they manage idly, or neglect to improve, the talents committed to their charge, they had infinitely better have been without them. For to the careless or unjust servant those very things which should have been for his health will infallibly prove an occasion of falling. How much more desirable is the condition of those who commit themselves and the success of their endeavours to providence; who by making it their care to seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, both secure to 04:222themselves an eternity of future happiness, and all things necessary and convenient for their present subsistence!

13[13.] Hither then repair all ye that labour and are heavy laden; all ye that toil unsuccessfully to purchase the goods of this world, and are oppressed with the sore burden of care and anxiety of any kind; and I, saith our Lord, will give you rest.

Come unto me, ye who are thoughtful about many things, ye who earnestly desire to taste of happiness, or to be relieved from the pressure of some heavy misfortune, and I will show you how ye shall find quiet for your souls. Is any man struggling with the bitterness of extreme want? Let him take counsel of me, who myself sustained it, when I had not where to lay my head. Is anyone sensible of the sharper pangs of a wounded spirit, to see his labours openly destroyed by the strong hand of the oppressor, or his reputation covertly attacked by groundless reports or undeserved censure? Lo! I who was myself a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief will deliver him and set him at rest. What man is he that lusteth to live happily, and would fain see good days? Behold, I am he who am both able and ready to save those who hear my voice out of all their troubles. Cast ye all your care on me, and I will exalt you in due time. Be ye firmly persuaded that the things you so much desire either are not for your real advantage, however they may appear to you who see through a glass darkly; or that if they are they shall most certainly be added to those that learn of me when I, the most proper judge, see a convenient season.

14[14.] Hard, very hard, one would think, are the conditions to be performed by us before we can be partakers of these his gracious promises, since so very few, even among men of the most refined understanding, think the terms he has proposed worth accepting! Surely something highly unreasonable, if not wholly impracticable, must be required on our part, since we have frequent instances of those who submit to any toil or hardship which human nature is capable of sustaining to procure the bare necessaries of life, rather than make use of this method of 04:223acquiring them; especially considering their utmost endeavours are very often unsuccessful, and all their best-laid designs blasted in a moment. Whereas this other way of obtaining them has at least this advantage, that it is infallibly certain of success, and can no more fail than can the truth of him who proposes it. ‘He hath showed thee, O man,’ what to do. Let us then see what cruel conditions, what insuperable difficulties lie before us. Nay, ‘what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?’

What doth he require of thee but those previous dispositions of mind which are absolutely necessary to qualify thee for the enjoyment either of present or future happiness? What, O man, doth he require of thee, but to tread that path, in seeking temporal conveniences, which will infallibly lead thee both to them and to those eternal mansions of joy where thou, O Christ, O gracious Promiser, with the Holy Ghost, art most high in the glory of God the Father!

15[15.] To which adorable and ever-blessed Trinity, Three Persons and one God, be ascribed, as is most due, all honour, majesty, and dominion, both now and for evermore! Amen!