Earthly and Heavenly Care
Bp. Huntington. 1 Peter 5:5-7 Likewise, you younger, submit yourselves to the elder. Yes, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility… The first difficulty in ridding ourselves of irreligious care is in distinguishing it from that better kind of care which is a duty. While St. Paul bids the Philippians "be careful for nothing," he commends the Corinthians for their carefulness, classing it with the graces of self-purification and zeal. He says he would have the disciples "without carefulness"; yet there is plainly a limit to this recommendation, for he exhorts them to "be careful to maintain good works," and takes upon himself the "care of the churches." How shall we at once have care and cast care away? There must be a principle that reconciles these apparent disagreements. It will not do to answer that the difference is one of quantity. It is common to say that the great mistake about earthly care is in allowing too much of it; that it is innocent in moderate measures. But there are kinds of care so purely selfish, so earthly, so poisoned with envy, avarice, or the passion for admiration, that they are evil irrespective of all questions of more or less. Christ does not form souls into His like ness by such rules. He breathes into them new desires, baptizes them into a new spirit. Equally vain is it to undertake to strike out a Christian course by saying we will distinguish between the objects of our anxiety — as by being careful for the spirit and negligent of the body; careful for faith and hope and charity, but negligent of daily business, household, and society. This is not Christ's righteousness. Jesus shows us the Father Himself taking care of the fowls of the air, of sheep and oxen, and of the little fibres of our bodily frames. Whatever care is right at all is right here, as well as hereafter. And the burden that we are to cast on the Lord is the burden of the life that now is. At this point precisely we strike the true distinction and the Christian doctrine. All right and lawful care is just that which we can at all times, and in all places, carry with us to our Lord, to rest it on that sympathising heart in Him which has already carried our griefs, and healed the disorder of the world by the stripes of His sacrifice. It is the care which keeps the responsibility of life without despairing under it. It is willing suffering, and unwillingness is the only intolerable burden. Rid of that, nay future care is gone. The forbidden care is that which we cannot carry with us to God or cast contentedly into His keeping. It hinders the affections when they try to rise heavenward. It doubts whether Christ is still near at hand and His grace sufficient. This is earthly care, unprofitable, unreasonable, unholy care — the care that wears out men and women before their time. We can take this principle with us into each of the three great regions where anxiety is most apt to become excessive. We have a world without us, a world within us, and a world before us, where our responsibility is accompanied at every step with care. 1. In the world without us we have seen how carefully we are called to live. Blessed is the man who, having done his best, can settle himself calmly into God's order for him, put anxiety behind him at the end of each day's work, reckon results as God's alone, believe that God takes care of ships and harvests as well as of rituals and revelations, and so cast every burdensome care on Him. 2. There is a world before us. The very mystery of that veiled country seems to tempt the imagination to people it with alarms. Take no thought for the morrow as tomorrow, as something lying outside of our control, held by God's hand for purposes of His own. Accept the heavenly order. Behold the lilies how they grow. 3. There is a world within us, where the spiritual formation of us goes on and our eternity is making for us every hour. Doubtless there are some minds that never thought of it as possible that any care about their spiritual salvation and the things of religion could be wrong. Yet if you would come to the heights of holy living with Christ and His saints, you must learn that impatience does not cease to be impious because it goes to church, nor does a complaining spirit honour the Redeemer though it uses the vocabulary of piety. If your anxiety is only about your salvation as a selfish and exclusive thing, it is earthly care, and needs to be cast off. (Bp. Huntington.) Parallel Verses KJV: Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble. WEB: Likewise, you younger ones, be subject to the elder. Yes, all of you clothe yourselves with humility, to subject yourselves to one another; for "God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble."