Daniel 6:1-14

The Promotion of Daniel

Dan 6:1-14

"Of whom Daniel was first." That is the explanation of all that follows. Do not let us lose ourselves in the details of a story which has entranced us since our childhood. When we began to hear the story we did not listen to such words as these "Of whom Daniel was first"; we were then taken up with the lions, the den, the night spent in great trouble and danger: now we have had time to look away to reasons, to first thoughts, to beginnings and causes. Here we find the story in one sentence "Of whom Daniel was first." Not only first in some chronological sense, or in some mechanical sense, but first altogether, obviously, dominantly first; everybody knowing it, although some owned it with bated breath. "This Daniel was preferred above the presidents and princes." The word "preferred" scarcely brings out all the meaning: substitute for it the better term "outshone"; then we read, "This Daniel outshone the presidents and princes." There was more light in him than in any of them; he was a man of divine genius; he was characterised by what we commonly express by the term "inspiration"; when he spoke there was wisdom in his speech; there was no hesitation, no spirit of doubt or controversy underlying what he said; all his words seemed to come from an infinite height, and to belong to the eternal reality and fitness of things. If other men spoke first they were sorry they ever opened their lips upon the subject when Daniel declared his judgment; he simply eclipsed them all, put them into comparative darkness; his words were light: his syllables were flashes of glory. He will have to pay for this.

All primacy has to be paid for. Do not understand that men go forward to any possessions they please up banks of glory, slopes of flowers, fancy work written in imaginary paradises. A Burmese student has lately been contesting with European claimants and candidates, and he has taken everything before him. He said the other day, "Everything is possible here to a man who works." That is an old English word. What a rebuke to those who do not toil! If the Burmese student so successful had used a long word, how many thousands of English youths would have found that long word a grand opening for a thousand excuses! But he explained his position by a very simple term, that term being none other than the good old English term "works." His primacy was paid for. Some men pay for it by work, and others pay for it by work and suffering too. There is no spirit so cruel as the spirit of jealousy; and yet men ought to compel themselves to fight that spirit every day in the week. That is a fine theological training; that is a noble spiritual education. A brother has been applauded; do not put your fingers in your ears, but listen to the applause: how it rises, swells, multiplies; and not one cheer of all the tumultuous acclamation is for you, but for him: hear it; pray yourself out of the unworthy feeling that dislikes it. That will do you good all the days of your life. If you can pray yourself into an answering Amen, mayhap you may come to join the gracious tumult, and do so not to be seen of men, but to express the emotion and the appreciation of a healthy heart. Go where your rivals are praised; read the criticisms that lift them up into larger public light and notoriety: do not scan the criticisms, and say reluctantly and half-whisperingly that you did see something of them; get them by heart: they will be bitter in the mouth, but they will sweeten as they descend; get them well into you; fight the devil on his own ground; be glad that you are not first. These are the lessons that come to us from the history of jealousy; we recognise them, we repeat them word for word: but do we repeat them as a recitation, or pronounce them as a testimony and a faith? Sometimes we think how good a thing it must be to be the outshining Daniel. It is, and it is not; everything depends upon other circumstances and elements than the mere outshining.

Men have to pay for all exaltation; a sense of responsibility comes with it where it is honest and worthy, and men do not ascend to the primary positions instantly, but gradually, and as they ascend they become accustomed to the air, so that when they do reach the throne it seems as if they had but a step to take from the common earth to the great altitude. Thus we are trained, graduated, perfected, not by suddenness, abruptness, not by any vulgarity of government, but by that fine shading and graduation which is all but imperceptible, and which only makes itself known in all the fulness of its reality and value when we are prepared to accept the throne, the crown, the sceptre, humbly, modestly. How could Daniel bear all this exaltation? Because it was nothing to him. He had been in prayer. The man who prays three times a day, really prays, whose window opens upon heaven, cannot receive any honour; he cannot be flattered. If Darius had asked him to take the throne it would have been but a trifle to Daniel. A man who has been closeted with God cannot be befooled by earthly baubles and temporal vanities. It is with these things as with miracles. We have often had occasion to say that miracles may be approached from one of two points. Everything depends upon the point of origin chosen by the mind for the purpose of travelling towards the miracles. A man travels towards them from the earth, from limitations that are patent and oppressive, from observations that are narrow and cloudy and few in number; and he says when he struggles up the hill of difficulty, It is impossible that miracles, that these miracles, can ever have occurred. Another man descends upon them, comes out of the sanctuary of the invisible where he has been long with God, and when he comes upon what are termed the miracles he reads them as commonplaces, wonders at their smallness, takes God's own estimate of them, and sees in a penitent heart, a praying soul, a mightier miracle than can be seen in any department of nature, controlled, regulated, by a higher law, and directed to unsuspected and unimagined uses. So with this greatness of such men as Daniel; it is not greatness to them: it is but a new responsibility, another opportunity for doing good, a larger opening for higher usefulness. The man should always be greater than his office; the author should always be greater than his book; the picture should be nothing compared with the picture the artist wanted to paint. The musician does well to set aside his thousand-voiced organ because it is useless when he wants to express the ineffable. If we prayed aright, if we loved God truly, then all honours would be accepted with an easy condescension, and every gift and recognition and promotion would be used with modesty, and every honour given by men would not be despised, but would be used to the promotion of the highest ends of being. It is thus the Daniels of the world sit upon their thrones; verily, they sit upon them; they use them, they are mere temporary conveniences and symbols to them; the real king is intellectual, spiritual, moral, sympathetic, invisible, divine. It is useless for us to wish to be what Daniel was; we shall be what Daniel was, and where he was, when we have the same qualifications. The universe is not being built by an unskilled carpenter; it is being constructed I mean that inward and spiritual universe of which all other universes are but the scaffolding by a divine Builder; and he will not put the top stone in the foundation, or the foundation stone in the pinnacle; he will put us just where we ought to be. Daniel and Paul, Peter and John, the seraph all flame, the cherub all contemplation, each will have his place. O foolish soul, do not build thyself into God's wall; let the Builder handle thee, and be glad that thou hast any place in the spiritual masonry.

What was it that accounted for Daniel's primacy, Daniel's influence? The explanation is given in some words that should be remembered "because an excellent spirit was in him." Define the word "excellent" by all its possible meanings; for the occasion will take upon itself all that is dignified in intellect, all that is tender in moral feeling, all that is noble in spiritual and moral judgment. The spirit that was in Daniel was "excellent" genial, tender, sympathetic, quite large in its capacity, holding within its magnanimity all sorts and conditions of men, seeing something good in the worst of them. Anybody can see infirmities; the dullest eye may detect a cripple: it requires an eye quickened and strengthened by divinest ministries to see good or the soul of good in things evil. Sometimes men require but the warmth of fraternal recognition to blossom into quite other men. What flower can grow under frowning clouds, and what flower does not struggle to grow when the sun is doing all he can with the little root? So Daniel made an empire within an empire; he developed men who before were unrecognised; to come near him was to come into the sunshine; to hear him was to hear music; men did not grow less in his presence, but greater, not weaker, but stronger; and they felt that all his primacy was held in trusteeship, and that whatever good he could do to others he would do, and thus multiply himself not by selfishness, but by beneficence the true multiplication, the right royal road to ultimate and permanent coronation.

What will an excellent spirit do for a man? Read the history of Daniel, and find the answer. Daniel was a captive; when does he complain of his captivity? His spirit is free, his soul is not in bonds, and therefore it becomes of little consequence where his body is. Does he whine and moan about his captivity? Is the groan always in his throat? Is the frown upon his dejected countenance? If you would find real joy, healthy gladness, look at Daniel. He lives in the unseen: he endures as seeing the invisible; he goes right up to heaven to find answers to the enigmas of dream and vision, and he comes back from heaven's throne with replies to human necessity. He who is spiritually minded thinks nothing of little local bodily captivity. Some people are all complaints; you never hear one cheerful word from them. They would die if they were cheerful; they would die of amazement, they would be so frightened at themselves if ever they were caught singing anything gladsome that they would expire on the spot Their only hope is in the indulgence of their infirmity. An excellent spirit is not in them, the spirit of youthfulness, the spirit of hopefulness, the Christian spirit. One man who had this spirit in abundance said, "Yea, and we glory exceedingly in tribulations also." That was triumph; that was the power of Christ. An excellent spirit raises men to supremacy, and other men are glad when they are so raised, for they know the more wealth they have, the more the poor will have; the wiser they are, the better directed will be the whole nation.

Yet here we come upon words we gladly would have omitted from the history "Then the presidents and princes sought to find occasion against Daniel concerning the kingdom." They tested his policy at every point; they pressed all their weight down upon the policy and purpose of Daniel in things imperial; but that policy bare all the burden "They could find none occasion nor fault, forasmuch as he was faithful, neither was there any error or fault found in him." Then what should they have said? They ought to have said thus: Any religion that will make a man so faithful, so trusty, so real, and so beneficent, is a good religion, though we cannot explain it, and though we never heard of it before. Christianity would not hesitate to say that of heathenism. If heathenism can make men not only honourable, true, faithful, industrious which it may have done but if it can make them spiritual, holy, if it can give them such a sense of triumph over death as not to accept it as a fate or as an annihilation or an absorption into the sum total, if it can make them look upon death with the eyes of victors, saying to death, Where is thy sting? to the grave, Where is thy victory? if it can translate men from time into eternity, not to be forgotten, but to be developed in endless progress, Christianity would say so, it would recognise the miracle; it might even say, There is no further occasion for me to be here, for all my work has been anticipated and accomplished by an enlightened paganism. But Christianity has not found that to be the case. Christianity acknowledges all your Platos and all your moralists, but it says, This is not vital; it is not sufficient; it does not go to the root and core of things; the attitude is artistic, the manner is excellent, the calculation is admirable, but there is no regeneration of the soul in all the process; and that is what Christianity has come to do: to create men anew in Christ Jesus. The pagans therefore should have said, A religion that keeps Daniel so right in his action and policy must be a good religion, although we cannot understand its metaphysics, and although it is opposed in deadly hostility to all our Babylonian and Chaldean conceptions and imaginings. Why not reason so in modern civilisation? Here the Christian has great opportunity for doing good; he may not be able to explain the metaphysics of his Christianity, but what a chance he has for verifying its morality! And to morality the whole thing must come at some point or other. A man can never be so transcendently pious as to take out a licence to be wicked. If you are not correct in your accounts you cannot be correct in your prayers. Your piety is a mistake and a farce if it be not upheld and elucidated with dazzling illustration by your behaviour. Men then in some instances will be constrained to say that a piety which expresses itself in such conduct must be good. Through your morality men may come into God's own sanctuary; through your noble behaviour men may begin to inquire about the Cross which accounts for it: that is your chance. The penetration which belongs to metaphysical reasoning you may not possess; the power which inheres in expository and hortatory eloquence may not be your gift; but the humblest, youngest, simplest man may show what his Christianity has done for him by his industry, his punctuality, his faithfulness, his obedience, his reliableness in all circumstances, his ability to bear the test of every analysis and every pressure. So thus we may form ourselves, by the grace of God, into a great body of witnesses, each in his own way explaining the divine kingdom, and accounting for the holiest conduct in human life.

What was to be done? Daniel must be killed. Paganism has no other way of treating its enemies; heathenism must get its enemies out of the way: they must be poisoned, they must be imprisoned, they must be dashed from great heights, they must be thrown to lions, they must be burned with fire. That is the vulgar process of paganism. We know the story: the poor king Pilate before the time, the Old Testament Pilate was inveigled into signing something that appealed to his vanity. He was quite willing to be God for a month; it lay within the scope of Oriental vanity to be God for thirty days; a lunar month or a calendar month either would do for a man who was asked to be vice-president of the universe, and do what he liked. "Wherefore King Darius signed the writing and the decree." Daniel knew all about it, and when the writing was signed he went into his house and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime. Some men you cannot write down. Kings cannot put them down; decrees cannot kill their patriotism; and even votes of Parliament cannot turn aside the noble enthusiasm of a pure purpose. Parliament has locked up all kinds of Daniels; kings have signed all sorts of decrees against praying people; persons who were eccentric, erratic, insane, have been sent to prison, have had all their goods sold in the market-place, have been branded, have been disabled by the cutting off of limbs, have had their ears wrung, their eyes gouged out, their tongues cut out of their mouths, and still they have given thanks before God as they did aforetime. Nothing was injured but the apparatus; it was only the mechanical part that was at all brought into infirmity and suffering: "Fear not them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do"; they cannot kill the soul: while the soul is alive the man is alive. Men have prayed in prison; men have turned dungeons into churches; ay, fissured rocks, caverns given over to the sovereignty of night, have heard music that has been denied to loftiest cathedral arch, music that only martyrs, hunted men, could utter. A happy, healthy man who has all he wants cannot sing like a soul that is in trouble; in its muffled music there is a pathos that pleases God.

Daniel's answer was what our answer ought always to be he went on praying. That is the only answer that God asks from us. When the Bible is attacked, publish another edition of two million copies. Oh, spare the Cross the patronage of another "defence" in the form of an elaborate and unintelligible book. When men question the reality, utility, practicability, of prayer, pray on; do not rise from your knees to conduct a debate, nothing comes from such a process. When men ask if the Cross is true in all its highest suggestions, answer by uncomplaining endurance, by patience, by forgiveness, by magnanimity. When people ask if it is possible for sin to be pardoned, because they have got some idea of all things abiding as they were under a severe reign of continuity, prove it by your spirit, by releasing the enemy who has done you most injury, by praying on the very Cross itself. It may be when they hear, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do," that that prayer may do more for their conversion than all the abstract and metaphysical theology that is symbolised by the Cross itself. It is on the Cross men pray their mightiest prayers; it is on the Cross we learn what God is by feeling first the hunger created by his absence; it is on the Cross that men see the finishing of divine purpose on one side and the beginning of divine purpose on the other.

When men ask if the history of Daniel is literally true, what is their reason for asking it? It must be a frivolous one. That the history of Daniel is true has been proved every day since Daniel lived. There is nothing in the mere thing itself if it be not repeated in all history, repronounced and confirmed by all succeeding ages. To-day primacy brings jealousy; today "an excellent spirit" wins its way in society at great expense and by incurring great penalty; today men are seeking to put down praying souls and to break down all spiritual religion: it is so ghostly, so interior, so subjective in its operations, and then expresses itself in such broad and graphic moralities; and today the true Daniel-spirit regards the king's decree when it interferes with matters religious as a dead letter. Let the king say, "Pray," heed him not; he has no right so to command: if he exhort, listen to him; if he command, despise him, and pray on; if he say, "Do not pray," open all your windows Jerusalemward, and cry unto the Lord with a mighty heart-cry, and let the king's decree be burned. This spiritual religion is a divine gift; it is not under human decrees or royal patronage or imperial direction; it is a question of the soul, of the conscience, the judgment, the moral imagination; it belongs to the internal man: let every man be persuaded in his own mind. We owe our security, as we owe our tranquillity, to the Daniels of preceding ages; other men laboured, and we are entering into their labours. Let us not forget "the dead but sceptred monarchs, who still rule our spirits from their urns." Civilisation was never wrought out by delicate, sensitive, self-preserving persons, who never gave any offence; the highest civilisation has been wrought out and secured again and again by men who have turned the world upside down revolutionary souls, children of flame, enthusiasts, persons who were accounted by a cold world as beside themselves. Thus was Paul characterised; thus was Christ characterised: "He hath a devil," said the people; "why hear ye him? he worketh by Beelzebub; he is the prince of the evil powers." If they have done these things to the Lord they will not spare the servant. What we need now for one little space is persecution. We have things too much our own way. We open the church in the middle of the day now. Thirty days' wandering in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented, might take some of the polish off our piety; but it would add inexpressibly to its energy.