The Bed and Its Covering

"For the bed is shorter than that a man can stretch himself on it: and the covering narrower than that he can wrap himself in it."—Isaiah 28:20.

OD HAS SO made men, that there are two things essential for their comfort, if not for their very existence, namely, sleep and clothing. Had God so pleased it, he might have made man an everlasting watcher, upon whose eyes the mists of night never should descend, and upon whose eyelids the fingers of sleep never should be placed. Perhaps angelic spirits never sleep. Day without night they circle God's throne rejoicing, and ceaselessly they chant his praise. Perhaps their unflagging wings are always stretched for duty, and their untiring voices are ever occupied with song. But manifestly it is not so with man. We need "kind nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep." If we could not sleep, should we not even wish for death? Let sleep be long withholder from our eyelids, if we had no other disease our strength must become prostrate, and the fire of life would smoulder into the ashes of death. Sleep, therefore, is essential even to the very existence of our bodies on earth. Clothing also is needful for our comfort, and, at least in some climates, absolutely necessary for our very existence. God has made the animal creation of such a kind, that they grow their clothing upon their own backs. For the horse and for the sheep no loom works, nor cloth the shuttle hasten in its course. Their backs are their own webs, and they fashion their own garments, as if to teach us, that man alone is imperfect, and needs to long beyond himself: Other creatures can readily find their own habitations, and produce for themselves out of themselves; but man feels his nakedness, and must either seek for the fig leaf of his own righteousness, or else the Lord God must make for him a dress with which he may array himself and stand completely covered. Dress, I say, is essential to man—dress and sleep.
Now, I think it may be readily granted, that man's body is, after all, only a picture of his inner being: just what the body needs materially, that the soul needs spiritually. The soul, then, needs two things. It requires rest, which is pictured to us in sleep. The soul needs a bed upon which it may repose quietly and take its ease. And, again, the soul needs covering, for as a naked body would be both uncomfortable, unseemly, and dangerous; much more would the naked soul be unhappy, noxious to the eye of God, and utterly miserable in itself.
Now, our text tells us that men have sought for rest and for clothing where they are not to be found; that they have gone about to make a bed for themselves which is shorter than that they can stretch themselves upon it; and that they have also sought to make coverings for themselves which have turned out to be narrower than that they can wrap themselves in them.
We shall speak, first, of what man has done, and of his vain and futile attempts to find rest and clothing for his soul;and then, afterward, we shall briefly attempt to show how God has accomplished this, and has given to the believer a couch upon which he can to his utmost length and yet find that the bed is long enough, and how the Lord has given him a garment in which he may grow, but he shall always find that, broad as he shall become in the magnitude of his experience or of his sin, yet shall this covering be always broad enough to cover him.
I. Well, then, let us take the first figure. The bed is shorter than that a man can stretch himself on it. MEN TRY, THEN, TO MAKE BEDS ON WHICH THEIR SOULS MAY REST. One of the most uncomfortable things in the world, I should think, would be a spare bed—a bed so spare that a man should not have room stretch himself on it. I cannot conceive how miserable a poor wretch must be who would be condemned to seek an unresting rest, an uneasy ease on a couch shorter than his body. But that is just the condition of all men while they are seeking a rest anywhere else but in the "rest that remaineth for the people of God." With reference to a man's present aims, and present attainments, all that he can ever get on earth is a bed shorter than that he can stretch himself on it. Then, in the next place, we shall notice as to the future world, that all that man can do, if we come to consider it, is too little to give ease to the heart.
First then as to the present world, how many beds are there of marks own invention. One man has made himself a bedstead of gold; the pillars thereof are of silver, the covering thereof is of Tyrian purple, the pillows are filled with down, such as only much fine gold could buy him; the hangings he hath embroidered with threads of gold and silver, and the curtains are drawn upon rings of ivory. Lo, this man hath ransacked creation for luxuries, and invented to himself all manner of sumptuous delights. He gets unto himself broad acres and many lands; he adds house to house, and field to field; he digs, he toils, he labors, he is in hopes that he shall get enough, a sufficiency, a satisfactory inheritance. He proceeds from enterprise to enterprise, he invests his money in one sphere of labor, and then another. He attempts to multiply his gold, until it gets beyond all reckoning. He becomes a merchant prince, a millionaire, and he says unto himself; 'Soul, take thine ease; eat, drink, and be merry; thou hast much goods laid up for many years." Do you mat envy this man his bed? Are there not some of you, whose only object in life is to get such a couch for yourselves? You say, "He has well-feathered his nest; would to God that I could do the same for myself!" Ah, but do you know that this bed is shorter than that he can stretch himself upon it? If you cast yourself upon it for a moment, the bed is long enough for you, but it is not long enough for him. I have often thought that many a man's riches would be sufficient for me, but they are not sufficient for him. If he makes them his God, and seeks in in them his happiness, you never find the man has money enough, his lands are still too narrow and his estate too small. When he begins to stretch himself, he finds there is something wanted; if the bed could only be made a little longer, then, he thinks, he could be quiet and have room enough. But when the bed is lengthened, he finds he has grown longer, too, and when his fortune has grown as big as the bedstead of Og, king of Bashan, even then he finds he cannot lie upon it easily. Nay, we read of one man who stretched himself along the whole world which he had conquered; but he found there was me room, and he began to weep because there were not other worlds to conquer. One would have thought a little province would have been enough for him to rest in. Oh, no; so big is man when he stretches himself, that the whole world does not suffice him. Nay, if God should give to the avaricious all the mines of Peru, all the glittering diamonds of Golconda, all the wealth of worlds, and if he were then to transmute the stars into gold and silver, and make us emperors of an entire universe till we should talk of constellations as men talk of hundreds, yea, and talk of universes as often talk of thousands, even then the bed would not be long enough whereon we might stretch our ever-lengthening desires. The soul is wider than creation, broader than space; give it all, it would be still unsatisfied, and man would not find rest. You say, "That is strange: if I had a little more I should be very well satisfied." You make a mistake: if you are not content with what you have you would not be satisfied if it were doubled. "Nay," says one, "I should be." You do not know yourself. If you have fixed your affection on the things of this world, that affection is like a horse-leech; it cries, "Give! give!" It will suck, suck, suck to all eternity, and still cry, "Give, give!" and though you give it all, it has not gotten enough. The bed, in fact, "is shorter than that a man can stretch himself on it."
Let us look in another direction. Other men have said. "Well. I do not care for gold and silver; thank God I have no avarice." But they have been ambitious. "Oh," says one, "it I might be famous, what would I not do? Oh, if my name might be handed down to posterity, as having done something, and having been somebody, a man of note, how satisfied would I be!" And the man has so acted that he has at last made for himself a bed of honor. He has become famous. There is scarce a newspaper which does not record his name. His name is become a household word; nations listen to his voice; thousands of trumpets proclaim his deeds. He is a man, and the world knows it, and stamps him with the adjective "great:" he is called "a great man." See how soft and downy is his bed. What would some of you give to rest upon it! He is fanned to sleep by the breath of fame, and the incense of applause smokes in his chamber. The world waits to refresh him with renewed flattery. Oh, would you not give your ears and eyes if you might have a bed like that to rest upon. But did you ever read the history of famous men, or hear them tell their tale in secret? "Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown," even though it be the laurel coronet of honor. When the man is known, it is not enough; he asks for wider praise. There was a time when the approbation of a couple of old women was a fame to him; now the approbation of ten thousand is nothing. He talks of men as if they were but flocks of wild asses and what he looked up to once as a high pinnacle is now beneath his feet. He must go higher and higher, and higher, though his head is reeling, though his brain is whirling, though his feet are slipping, he must go higher. He has done a great thing; he must do more. He seems to stride across the world; he must leap further yet, for the world will never believe a man famous unless he constantly outdoes himself. He must not only do a great thing to-day, but he must do a greater thing to-morrow, the next day a greater still, and pile his mountains one upon another until he mounts the very Olympus of the demigods. But suppose he gets there, what does he say? "Oh, that I could go back to my cottage, that I might be all unknown, that I might have rest with my family and be quiet. Popularity is a care which I never endured until now, a trouble that I never guessed. Let me lose it all; let me go back." He is sick of it; for the fact is, that man never can be satisfied with anything less than the approbation of heaven; and until conscience gets that, all the applause of senates and of listening princes, would be a bed shorter than a man could stretch himself upon it.
There is another bed on which man thinks he could rest. There is a watch, a painted harlot, who wears the richest gems in her ears and a necklace of precious things about her neck. She is an old deceiver. She was old and shrivelled in the days of Bunyan; she painted herself then, she paints now, and paint she will as long as the world endureth. And she gaddeth forth, and men think her young and fair and lovely, and desirable: her name is Madam Wanton. She keeps a house wherein; she feasteth men, and maketh them drunken with the wine of pleasure, which is as honey to the taste, but is venom to the soul. This witch, when she can, entices men into her bed. "There," she says, "there, how daintily have I spread it!" It is a bed, the pillars whereof are pleasure; above is the purple of rapture and beneath is the soft repose of luxurious voluptuousness. Oh, what a bed is this! Solomon once laid in it, and many since his time have sought their rest there. They have said, "Away with your gold and silver: let me spend it, that I may eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow I die. Tell me not of fame, I care not for it. I would sooner have the pleasures of life, or the joys of Bacchus, than the laurel of fame. Let me give myself up to the intoxication of this world's delights, let me be drowned in the butt of Burgundy of this world's joys." Have you ever seen such men as that? I have seen many and wept over them, and I know some now, they are stretching themselves on that bed, and trying to make themselves happy. Byron is just a picture of such men, though he outdid others. What a bed was that he stretched for himself. Was ever libertine more free in his vices? was ever sinner more wild in his blasphemy? was ever poet more daring in his flights of thought? was ever man more injurious to his fellows than he? And yet what did Byron say? There is a verse which just tells you what he felt in his heart. The man had all that he wanted of sinful pleasure, but here is his confession—