RELIGION IN OUR SOCIAL INTERCOURSE.When the Word of God has obtained its true place in any man’s heart, it disposes at once of a hundred questions which were difficult or perplexing before. On the one hand, when we have the divine standard of right and wrong set up, it becomes immediately apparent that one class of actions are right, are just, are necessary, on the part of all who would make God’s will their rule. On the other hand, it becomes no less apparent that another class of actions are distinctly prohibited. No man who believes the Word of God to be his word can do these things.But between these two, or the decidedly right and the decidedly wrong, there are some actions whose moral character it is not so easy to adjust. They are not so exactly described in the Word of God. They lie on the debateable territory between the right and the wrong. They may partake of the one character or the other, according to the circumstances in which they are performed. They may be right, for example, for me in sickness, but wrong for me in health; or the reverse.Now, it is generally among these undecided cases that a man’s principles are exposed to the greatest strain.No one who professes to respectT-15the Wordof God can refuse to do what is decidedly right, and as little can he refuse to shun the decidedly forbidden. If he do not shun it, he is detected as offering to the Bible only the mockery of respect—to its God only the semblance of homage. He has extinguished the lamp of life, and deliberately walks in darkness.THE SABBATH LAW.THESABBATHLAW.In regard, for example, to the Sabbath law, certain things are distinctly commanded, and other things are as distinctly forbidden. There can be no doubt in any mind which has bowed to the supremacy of God, or recognised his right of property in us and ours, that he claims a seventh part of our time as his own, to be employed in his service and in preparing for his abode for ever. Our blessedness here and hereafter is thus involved in that law; and all objections to spend the Sabbath with God, are suggested by ignorance of what is at once our chief good and our chief end—God.But it is equally certain that works of necessity and mercy are not prohibited; and it is regardingthesethat a man’s principles are put to the most decisive test. It is not possible to lay down any rule applicable to every case, for what is necessity at one time may be no necessity at another; or what is mercy in one case—for instance, to the aged and the feeble—may be indolence and sloth in others. Between the unvarying right, then, and the unvarying wrong, lies the territory where men are tried as moral agents. Will they use their liberty, or will they abuse it?Will they grasp at feigned reasons for violating the Sabbath law? Will they be guided by the necessity which God creates, or will they fabricate pleas and pretences for themselves, under cover of which the law of God may be broken, and the consciences of men entangled or defiled?THE EXCELLENT OF THE EARTH.Now, our ordinary Social intercourse belongs to the class for which it is difficult or impossible to lay down rules which are applicable to all occasions. It is a divine maxim from which we cannot swerve, that our “speech should be always with grace, seasoned with salt.” Whatever is offensive or unholy should not be once named among us; but still it is difficult to lay down any rules which apply to every case. On the one hand, there are men with whom intercourse the most cordial may be cherished, nay, earnestly coveted. Where “they that fear the Lord speak often one to another, while the Lord hearkens and hears,” the man of God may expect to find what will gladden his soul.THEEXCELLENTOF THEEARTH.“The excellent of the earth” can impart blessings of the highest order, for the law of the Lord is on their lips. But, on the other hand, there are the profane, the godless, who walk through the world trampling on the laws of the Eternal, and with these we can hold no willing intercourse, unless we would catch their spirit, and at last share their doom—“The companion of fools shall be destroyed.” But between these two classes there are various shades of character; and it is in reference tothesethat our difficulties in life actually occur.THE ASSEMBLY OF THE UNGODLY.There is one passage in the Word of God39which may throw light upon this subject. A patriarch is speaking of certain cruel deeds, which he contemplates with strong emotion. Aware that man cannot be much in contact with what is immoral without being polluted, or associate with the profane without learning profanity, he thus expresses, in graphical language, the recoil of a pure or an upright mind:THEASSEMBLYOF THEUNGODLY.“O my soul, come not thou into their secret; unto their assembly, mine honour, be not thou united.” He is referring to his own sons, but he feels that his honour would be laid in the dust were he associated with them in some of their doings; and he therefore plants a beacon over the spot of danger, to warn us away from what may end in death. He enforces the words, “Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness.” He, in substance, asserts what Paul asserted seventeen centuries thereafter, “Evil communications corrupt good manners.” He takes up the language of John, and says in effect, “He that bids God-speed to an ungodly man becomes a partaker of his evil deeds;” and thus we have, at least, a general rule for universal guidance—The godly cannotchoosethe godless for their associates.To illustrate this point, we observe: Enter some societies. Listen to the conversation which excites; notice the amusements which exhilarate—the pleasures which impart the greatest gladness. Mightthey not all exist in a world where the Son of God is unknown—where no need of him is felt, and no reference to him made? It could not be discovered from such social intercourse, that men are sinners, that they need a Saviour, or that there is one pressed on their acceptance by the God whom they have offended; nay, a single reference to these things would cast a cloud over the scene, would turn its mirth into muteness, and be regarded as an offence.FORBIDDEN INTERCOURSE.FORBIDDENINTERCOURSE.Now, wherever that is common, the earnest Christian cannot prosper; his soul must pine; it is deprived of what is to it like vital air, and plunged into an atmosphere of azote. There may be cases where duty compels some humble believer to witness such things, and at the sight his heart must be sore pained within him; but where the language of Canaan is not spoken, where the things of God are not relished, where He, the soul, and eternity do not obtain the prominence which heavenly wisdom has assigned to them, a child of God will not willingly go; he will never go of choice; duty may compel, but the feelings of the soul even in that case must be like those of the Jews by the rivers of Babylon, when they said, “How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?” Children are reared—friends are entertained—sometimes the dead are buried, amid unequivocal proofs that God is forgotten; and should not a believer in Jesus “flee these things?”LIKE ATTRACTS LIKE.LIKEATTRACTSLIKE.Wherever we look in the wide domain of nature,we may notice that it is an universal law—Like attracts like. We do not find a timid bird associating with its natural enemy, a bird of prey. They fight.—We do not find the gentler animals seeking to associate with the beasts of prey.—We do not see the men of high civilization associating, in common life, with the savage or the gross—there is always something monstrous or unnatural where that universal law is outraged. Such a thing is commented on as a marvel, a departure from the established order of nature. Just as the fishes of the deep have their element, and the birds of the air have theirs, there is a broad unvarying line separating the different orders of creatures in the world which God has made.REPULSIONS.Now, to apply this to our present subject, that law reigns with more than common force in the domain of grace. Has the truth of God taken possession of any man’s soul? Has the wisdom which comes from above been consulted? Is God’s revealed mind placed high above the highest of all authorities? Then from that day, that man cannot repose, with the confidence of cordial friendship, upon him who turns the truth of God into a lie, or the authority of God into a name: there must be a separation, however painful it may be. Does the love of Christ constrain any heart and soul? Under that constraining power, do old things pass away, and all things become new? Then, “unto the assembly of the ungodly, mine honour, be not thou united,” becomes the language of that soul. Hasany man felt that salvation must take precedence of all besides, in the mind of a rational being?REPULSIONS.Then that man cannot consent, or choose to consort, with those who are ripening their souls for an undone eternity, in spite of the warnings of their God. Has any man felt that the high concerns of an infinite futurity demand instant attention, and adjustment on the earliest possible day? Then that man can be no willing party to the wide conspiracy formed by worldly men against that futurity, and all that is momentous there. Has any man discovered that, to live only for the present hour and its pleasures, is to sink to the level of the beasts which perish? or that to be a coward before man’s frown, and to have no fear of God’s, is to act an impious part? Then the man who has made such a discovery will take up the language of the patriarch; he will shun the company of men who prefer what debases to what ennobles, for he clearly sees, or deeply feels, that their company is contamination.Since these things are so, the general law in grace is established—There can be no friendship,of choice, between a godly and a worldly man. Their hearts, their feelings and sympathies, cannot coalesce upon the most momentous of all topics—God, eternity, and the soul; and just as water repels fire, or fire water; just as the vulture cannot and does not choose the dove for its mate, the soul of a man who loves God, who believes in the Saviour, and who would grow in holiness, is repelled and chilled by the assemblieswhere these great realities are ignored. He cannot, without self-inflicted degradation, walk in the counsel of the ungodly, or stand in the way of sinners, or sit in the seat of the scorner.THE WISDOM OF SCRIPTURE.THE WISDOMOF SCRIPTURE.But it has already been noticed, that there is nothing strained, nothing extreme or overdone, in the Word of God. Whether it be giving a command, or issuing a prohibition, it is always wise, always considerate as to man’s condition—if we may presume with such a word, it is always judicious. We are more and more struck with that fine peculiarity of the Bible the longer we study its ever-blessed pages.Now, in connection with our Social intercourse in common life with men not godly, we have an instance of this considerate care in the Word of God.In writing to one of the churches,40Paul had occasion to lay down rules for their dealings with unholy men. He prohibits such intercourse; and in giving the prohibition, he points to some of the impious by name. After indicating their crimes—too gross to be lightly mentioned—he adds, “Yet not altogether must ye refuse to company with such men,for then must ye needs go out of the world.” In other words, the believer has duties to do in the world; and these he must discharge. His principles may be put to the test; his heart may be pained and vexed; what he hears and sees may distress or imperil him; but still, even amid such trials, duty,when it is duty,must be done. A man is not merely not at liberty—he is forbidden, to flee from his post. He is to lean the more on God when temptation meets him in the path of duty; but he may not forsake the path. He has duties perhaps to unconverted kindred, and to those who depend on him in life. He has duties to discharge to the Church and to God, and these no man is free to forsake. On the one hand, the most lovely earthly affection is to be put aside whenever it opposes the will of God; but, on the other, we are to remember, that wherever God has placed us, He will keep us—as our day is, so our strength will be. But do we rush into danger unsent? Do we meet it while we are in pursuit of pleasure, and not in the path of duty? Then we may expect to fall; nay, we have fallen already. By tempting God, we have unnerved ourselves, and shame and confusion may be the result.THE YOUNG CONVERT.THEYOUNGCONVERT.In connection with this, we observe that perhaps there never was a young convert, who, during the first days or weeks after his conversion, had not thoughts of fleeing from the post where the renewing Spirit found him. Aware of its dangers, perhaps groaning under its temptations, that young soul would flee, and seek that in change which can be found only in the unchanging One.Now, are the engagements of that young convert really sinful? Is he violating God’s law? Is he, for the sake of gold, or honour, or any selfish end, sojourning near some focus of sin? Then all thatmust be abandoned; conversion, while these things are retained, is a thing impossible.But, on the other hand, are the lines of that young convert cast only amid trials, and not actual sins? Has He who appoints the boundaries of our habitations, appointed ours where faith is put to the proof, and the need of Almighty grace more clearly demonstrated? Then, by that grace, that young Christian must stand; even there it may be with him as it was with the three children in the tyrant’s furnace when it was heated seven times. The highest display of the power of truth, the brightest trophy to the triumph of grace, is to see some devoted believer holding fast the faith without wavering at the post of duty, alike against the scorn of the money-worshipper and the grossness of the unblushingly profane; and, blessed be God, his grace is sufficient even for that.THE WORLD AN OBJECT OF PITY.But farther: While the Christian, in his social intercourse, tries to shun the society of godless men, he is to make it plain thathe shuns, because he loves them. We assume that that Christianwillshun them; for he is bound to that by a law both in nature and in grace. But his motive is not that of spiritual pride. It has nothing akin to the feeling which dictated the words, “Stand by, for I am holier than thou;” nay, he is to show that he withdraws, because he cannot countenance what is ruinous to man and opposed to the mind of God. While we try to make religion felt, it must be the religion of love, and not of haughtiness or of bigotry.THE WORLDAN OBJECTOF PITY.Weshould remember that the world is a poor jaded world, and calls for pity rather than for wrath: its men have no resting-place either for the body or the soul; it has no antidote for its misery, no remedy for its disease. It is the shipwrecked seaman on his raft, trying to quench his burning thirst with the water of the ocean, only to make that thirst more burning still. It is the body weighed down with dropsy to the grave’s edge, yet seeking relief in what only augments its misery. And all that should awaken pity for the world in our intercourse with it. Be it made plain, that we can be no parties to the world’s ruin; we cannot trample on the Word of God to gratify the sinner’s love of sin. Nay, if we be Christians indeed, if we have in us the spirit of Him who died for the ungodly, we must love the sinner too well to countenance him in his ways. Our shunning of him, wherever duty will permit, is to be our silent protest against what the holy God so emphatically describes as “drowning men in perdition.” Love, wisdom, God, all demand that course.THE WORLD’S DEADENING POWER.And, to re-enforce all this, let it be remembered that we cannot associate of choice with wicked men without bringing our own religion into doubt.THE WORLD’SDEADENINGPOWER.Our relish for communion with God is blunted. Our love to the holy and the pure is lessened. The world to come fades away into dimness, and even a child of God is thus prone to catch the world’s spirit by intercourseof choicewith worldly men. All this is notorious in regard to those haunts where the prideof life is pampered, and where the children of folly squander in frivolity or guilt the hours which are given to prepare for eternity and its joys. But it is true also of more ordinary social intercourse; and the man who loves his own soul will guard, by the grace of God, against the first approach to the world’s godless ways, as he would against the first drop in a poisoned cup, or the first inch of a stiletto.THE TRUE LIGHT.We feel, however, that we must repeat the warning—Be sure that you display the religion of love, not of bigotry, in separating from the world.THE TRUELIGHT.Let your light shine before men, but be sure that it is the true light—Heaven’s.—There is a vessel sweeping across the deep. It is night, and her hundreds on board are locked in the insensibility of sleep. But suddenly there is a collision, a crash; her timbers are breaking up; and the hundreds who slept so securely a few breaths before, are now screaming out their agonies as they sink to rise no more. And what caused that disaster and these watery graves? The man at the helm just mistook the light, and, in doing so, hurried some hundreds into eternity. In like manner, we may exhibit a false phase of Christianity which shall tend only to ruin. It may not be God’s light, but sparks which we ourselves have kindled, and these may only drive men nearer to destruction.But hitherto we have done little more than attempt to show how and why they that fear God should separate from those who have no fear of Himbefore their eyes. We have endeavoured to show that a godly man cannot go down to the world’s level without dragging Christ’s religion along with him. We have been urging the followers of the Saviour never to let the world think that the Christian and it are the same in their likings and pursuits. If we leave the world under that conviction, we have given an uncertain sound, and we have therefore endeavoured to make it plain that there is a broad, clear, deep line drawn by the Eternal God between the world and the church—between the converted and the unconverted—the man who lives for earth and the man who lives for God. They do not pass into each other by imperceptible shades, like the colours of the rainbow; they are separated like mid-day and midnight; they are different in nature, in liking, in pursuits, and in end.THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS.THECOMMUNIONOF SAINTS.All this, however, is only preparatory to telling how the godly should proceed in their intercourse with each other.—A prophet has said that “they who fear the Lord speak often one to another;” he has added, that “the Lord hearkens and hears,” and assured us, moreover, that “a book of remembrance is kept before the Lord for them that fear him and think upon his name.” Now, amid such employments, what can be the topics but the common salvation? What can engross the mind more than the death which Christ accomplished at Jerusalem, when he finished transgression, made an end of sin, and brought in an everlasting righteousness? What butthe love of the Redeemer, and the mercies to which that love opened the way, can occupy such men’s souls? Holiness, and its author, the Spirit; grace, and its fountain, God; its channel, the Redeemer; glory, and the Almighty One who made it sure by his blood; that which is perfect “when the former things shall have passed away;”—these and kindred topics may well animate the souls and strengthen the faith of the people of God. It is amid employments like these that their hearts may burn within them, like the hearts of the disciples while they walked with the Saviour to Emmaus. It is thus that foretastes of the heavenly joys are obtained, thus that clusters are brought from Eshcol, and thus that the earnest of the purchased possession is at once secured and rejoiced in. To have a relish for such holy and hallowing employments, is a proof that we are born from above; our soul’s native land is there; and to have no such relish is a proof that the soul is dead to the holiest and the noblest things.TRUTH IN THE HEART.TRUTH INTHE HEART.But enough to have indicated this; none can completely fill up the sketch, for “eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for them that love him.” Still, however, where the truth of God is in the heart, it will well up. Attempts may be made to repress a gushing spring; but it will rise at another place, and another, and another, spreading verdure and fertility wherever it flows. Now, the truth in the heart is a well of water springingup unto eternal life. It waters the waste, it purifies the vile, and fits us for that home where nothing that defiles can enter.MARRIAGE.MARRIAGE.There is one sphere, that of married life, regarding which we offer a closing sentence. Considering the importance which is attached to that relation, and its mighty influences for good or ill, alike on our time and our eternity, nothing can surprise us more than the recklessness with which it is often formed. How rarely is the guidance of the Holy One sought! How little is his will consulted! How limited is the influence which eternal things are allowed to exert in the choice on either side! And who will marvel, then, if not a few make shipwreck of the faith and a good conscience, just at the threshold of their marriage-chamber? Who will wonder to see so many hearts broken, so many wives worse than widowed, so many children worse than orphans, the promise of godliness given in youth all blighted—the book, the house, the day of God, deserted? When He himself has been left out of view, it is as easy as the downward current of a stream, to abandon all besides.But wherever the lamp of life illumines a soul, this relation should be peculiarly directed by it. The results are for life, nay, they are for eternity; and they who leave the Eternal God out of view in forming such a bond, are digging a pit into which they are sure to fall, or laying a snare in which they will assuredly be taken. The grace of God may winsuch parties after all; but that can only be in His own holy sovereignty, according to his word, “I was found of them that sought me not,” for the man who ventures here without the guidance of the Wonderful, the Counsellor, is gambling with a stake which may be eternal death.—Marriage was meant to double man’s happiness, and, when contracted in the fear of God, it accomplishes his purpose; on other terms, its misery is unspeakable.THE HEROES OF TRUTH—LUTHER.CALVIN—KNOX—CHALMERS.THEHEROESOF TRUTH—LUTHER.One closing sentence more. The difficulty and delicacy which are often felt in ordering our Social intercourse, makes a wise decidedness essential. To follow the right path implies self-denial; and, what is often worse, it may compel us to shun those whom we perhaps fondly love in the bonds of nature. Now, to arm us for this, we should call to mind that all the men who have signally served their God have been remarkable for decision—they were everywhere spoken against; their names were often a hissing and a byword, because they were decided for the ways of God against the ways of man. Paul was thus decided, and we know that, for his reward, he had to fight with wild beasts, and contend with wilder men. Luther was thus decided, and Romanists, in every age and land, have poured forth their enmity against him.CALVIN—KNOX—CHALMERS.Calvin was decided, and men have piled calumny upon calumny in their attempt to crush him. Knox was decided, and shared the same portion—he is sharing it still. Chalmers was decided, and had to live and die in armour. Thetruth, and nothing but the truth of God, was their guide—“Not the light which leaves us darker;Not the gleams that come and go;Not the mirth whose end is madness;Not the joy whose fruit is woe.”—The banner which the Eternal gave to be displayed, these men held up, that all might learn to rally round it; and the times on which we have fallen are such as require a wise decision, a holy boldness, a close walk with God, like the times of these heroes of the truth.
RELIGION IN OUR SOCIAL INTERCOURSE.
When the Word of God has obtained its true place in any man’s heart, it disposes at once of a hundred questions which were difficult or perplexing before. On the one hand, when we have the divine standard of right and wrong set up, it becomes immediately apparent that one class of actions are right, are just, are necessary, on the part of all who would make God’s will their rule. On the other hand, it becomes no less apparent that another class of actions are distinctly prohibited. No man who believes the Word of God to be his word can do these things.
But between these two, or the decidedly right and the decidedly wrong, there are some actions whose moral character it is not so easy to adjust. They are not so exactly described in the Word of God. They lie on the debateable territory between the right and the wrong. They may partake of the one character or the other, according to the circumstances in which they are performed. They may be right, for example, for me in sickness, but wrong for me in health; or the reverse.
Now, it is generally among these undecided cases that a man’s principles are exposed to the greatest strain.No one who professes to respectT-15the Wordof God can refuse to do what is decidedly right, and as little can he refuse to shun the decidedly forbidden. If he do not shun it, he is detected as offering to the Bible only the mockery of respect—to its God only the semblance of homage. He has extinguished the lamp of life, and deliberately walks in darkness.
THE SABBATH LAW.
THESABBATHLAW.In regard, for example, to the Sabbath law, certain things are distinctly commanded, and other things are as distinctly forbidden. There can be no doubt in any mind which has bowed to the supremacy of God, or recognised his right of property in us and ours, that he claims a seventh part of our time as his own, to be employed in his service and in preparing for his abode for ever. Our blessedness here and hereafter is thus involved in that law; and all objections to spend the Sabbath with God, are suggested by ignorance of what is at once our chief good and our chief end—God.
But it is equally certain that works of necessity and mercy are not prohibited; and it is regardingthesethat a man’s principles are put to the most decisive test. It is not possible to lay down any rule applicable to every case, for what is necessity at one time may be no necessity at another; or what is mercy in one case—for instance, to the aged and the feeble—may be indolence and sloth in others. Between the unvarying right, then, and the unvarying wrong, lies the territory where men are tried as moral agents. Will they use their liberty, or will they abuse it?Will they grasp at feigned reasons for violating the Sabbath law? Will they be guided by the necessity which God creates, or will they fabricate pleas and pretences for themselves, under cover of which the law of God may be broken, and the consciences of men entangled or defiled?
THE EXCELLENT OF THE EARTH.
Now, our ordinary Social intercourse belongs to the class for which it is difficult or impossible to lay down rules which are applicable to all occasions. It is a divine maxim from which we cannot swerve, that our “speech should be always with grace, seasoned with salt.” Whatever is offensive or unholy should not be once named among us; but still it is difficult to lay down any rules which apply to every case. On the one hand, there are men with whom intercourse the most cordial may be cherished, nay, earnestly coveted. Where “they that fear the Lord speak often one to another, while the Lord hearkens and hears,” the man of God may expect to find what will gladden his soul.THEEXCELLENTOF THEEARTH.“The excellent of the earth” can impart blessings of the highest order, for the law of the Lord is on their lips. But, on the other hand, there are the profane, the godless, who walk through the world trampling on the laws of the Eternal, and with these we can hold no willing intercourse, unless we would catch their spirit, and at last share their doom—“The companion of fools shall be destroyed.” But between these two classes there are various shades of character; and it is in reference tothesethat our difficulties in life actually occur.
THE ASSEMBLY OF THE UNGODLY.
There is one passage in the Word of God39which may throw light upon this subject. A patriarch is speaking of certain cruel deeds, which he contemplates with strong emotion. Aware that man cannot be much in contact with what is immoral without being polluted, or associate with the profane without learning profanity, he thus expresses, in graphical language, the recoil of a pure or an upright mind:THEASSEMBLYOF THEUNGODLY.“O my soul, come not thou into their secret; unto their assembly, mine honour, be not thou united.” He is referring to his own sons, but he feels that his honour would be laid in the dust were he associated with them in some of their doings; and he therefore plants a beacon over the spot of danger, to warn us away from what may end in death. He enforces the words, “Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness.” He, in substance, asserts what Paul asserted seventeen centuries thereafter, “Evil communications corrupt good manners.” He takes up the language of John, and says in effect, “He that bids God-speed to an ungodly man becomes a partaker of his evil deeds;” and thus we have, at least, a general rule for universal guidance—The godly cannotchoosethe godless for their associates.
To illustrate this point, we observe: Enter some societies. Listen to the conversation which excites; notice the amusements which exhilarate—the pleasures which impart the greatest gladness. Mightthey not all exist in a world where the Son of God is unknown—where no need of him is felt, and no reference to him made? It could not be discovered from such social intercourse, that men are sinners, that they need a Saviour, or that there is one pressed on their acceptance by the God whom they have offended; nay, a single reference to these things would cast a cloud over the scene, would turn its mirth into muteness, and be regarded as an offence.
FORBIDDEN INTERCOURSE.
FORBIDDENINTERCOURSE.Now, wherever that is common, the earnest Christian cannot prosper; his soul must pine; it is deprived of what is to it like vital air, and plunged into an atmosphere of azote. There may be cases where duty compels some humble believer to witness such things, and at the sight his heart must be sore pained within him; but where the language of Canaan is not spoken, where the things of God are not relished, where He, the soul, and eternity do not obtain the prominence which heavenly wisdom has assigned to them, a child of God will not willingly go; he will never go of choice; duty may compel, but the feelings of the soul even in that case must be like those of the Jews by the rivers of Babylon, when they said, “How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?” Children are reared—friends are entertained—sometimes the dead are buried, amid unequivocal proofs that God is forgotten; and should not a believer in Jesus “flee these things?”
LIKE ATTRACTS LIKE.
LIKEATTRACTSLIKE.Wherever we look in the wide domain of nature,we may notice that it is an universal law—Like attracts like. We do not find a timid bird associating with its natural enemy, a bird of prey. They fight.—We do not find the gentler animals seeking to associate with the beasts of prey.—We do not see the men of high civilization associating, in common life, with the savage or the gross—there is always something monstrous or unnatural where that universal law is outraged. Such a thing is commented on as a marvel, a departure from the established order of nature. Just as the fishes of the deep have their element, and the birds of the air have theirs, there is a broad unvarying line separating the different orders of creatures in the world which God has made.
REPULSIONS.
Now, to apply this to our present subject, that law reigns with more than common force in the domain of grace. Has the truth of God taken possession of any man’s soul? Has the wisdom which comes from above been consulted? Is God’s revealed mind placed high above the highest of all authorities? Then from that day, that man cannot repose, with the confidence of cordial friendship, upon him who turns the truth of God into a lie, or the authority of God into a name: there must be a separation, however painful it may be. Does the love of Christ constrain any heart and soul? Under that constraining power, do old things pass away, and all things become new? Then, “unto the assembly of the ungodly, mine honour, be not thou united,” becomes the language of that soul. Hasany man felt that salvation must take precedence of all besides, in the mind of a rational being?REPULSIONS.Then that man cannot consent, or choose to consort, with those who are ripening their souls for an undone eternity, in spite of the warnings of their God. Has any man felt that the high concerns of an infinite futurity demand instant attention, and adjustment on the earliest possible day? Then that man can be no willing party to the wide conspiracy formed by worldly men against that futurity, and all that is momentous there. Has any man discovered that, to live only for the present hour and its pleasures, is to sink to the level of the beasts which perish? or that to be a coward before man’s frown, and to have no fear of God’s, is to act an impious part? Then the man who has made such a discovery will take up the language of the patriarch; he will shun the company of men who prefer what debases to what ennobles, for he clearly sees, or deeply feels, that their company is contamination.
Since these things are so, the general law in grace is established—There can be no friendship,of choice, between a godly and a worldly man. Their hearts, their feelings and sympathies, cannot coalesce upon the most momentous of all topics—God, eternity, and the soul; and just as water repels fire, or fire water; just as the vulture cannot and does not choose the dove for its mate, the soul of a man who loves God, who believes in the Saviour, and who would grow in holiness, is repelled and chilled by the assemblieswhere these great realities are ignored. He cannot, without self-inflicted degradation, walk in the counsel of the ungodly, or stand in the way of sinners, or sit in the seat of the scorner.
THE WISDOM OF SCRIPTURE.
THE WISDOMOF SCRIPTURE.But it has already been noticed, that there is nothing strained, nothing extreme or overdone, in the Word of God. Whether it be giving a command, or issuing a prohibition, it is always wise, always considerate as to man’s condition—if we may presume with such a word, it is always judicious. We are more and more struck with that fine peculiarity of the Bible the longer we study its ever-blessed pages.
Now, in connection with our Social intercourse in common life with men not godly, we have an instance of this considerate care in the Word of God.In writing to one of the churches,40Paul had occasion to lay down rules for their dealings with unholy men. He prohibits such intercourse; and in giving the prohibition, he points to some of the impious by name. After indicating their crimes—too gross to be lightly mentioned—he adds, “Yet not altogether must ye refuse to company with such men,for then must ye needs go out of the world.” In other words, the believer has duties to do in the world; and these he must discharge. His principles may be put to the test; his heart may be pained and vexed; what he hears and sees may distress or imperil him; but still, even amid such trials, duty,when it is duty,must be done. A man is not merely not at liberty—he is forbidden, to flee from his post. He is to lean the more on God when temptation meets him in the path of duty; but he may not forsake the path. He has duties perhaps to unconverted kindred, and to those who depend on him in life. He has duties to discharge to the Church and to God, and these no man is free to forsake. On the one hand, the most lovely earthly affection is to be put aside whenever it opposes the will of God; but, on the other, we are to remember, that wherever God has placed us, He will keep us—as our day is, so our strength will be. But do we rush into danger unsent? Do we meet it while we are in pursuit of pleasure, and not in the path of duty? Then we may expect to fall; nay, we have fallen already. By tempting God, we have unnerved ourselves, and shame and confusion may be the result.
THE YOUNG CONVERT.
THEYOUNGCONVERT.In connection with this, we observe that perhaps there never was a young convert, who, during the first days or weeks after his conversion, had not thoughts of fleeing from the post where the renewing Spirit found him. Aware of its dangers, perhaps groaning under its temptations, that young soul would flee, and seek that in change which can be found only in the unchanging One.
Now, are the engagements of that young convert really sinful? Is he violating God’s law? Is he, for the sake of gold, or honour, or any selfish end, sojourning near some focus of sin? Then all thatmust be abandoned; conversion, while these things are retained, is a thing impossible.
But, on the other hand, are the lines of that young convert cast only amid trials, and not actual sins? Has He who appoints the boundaries of our habitations, appointed ours where faith is put to the proof, and the need of Almighty grace more clearly demonstrated? Then, by that grace, that young Christian must stand; even there it may be with him as it was with the three children in the tyrant’s furnace when it was heated seven times. The highest display of the power of truth, the brightest trophy to the triumph of grace, is to see some devoted believer holding fast the faith without wavering at the post of duty, alike against the scorn of the money-worshipper and the grossness of the unblushingly profane; and, blessed be God, his grace is sufficient even for that.
THE WORLD AN OBJECT OF PITY.
But farther: While the Christian, in his social intercourse, tries to shun the society of godless men, he is to make it plain thathe shuns, because he loves them. We assume that that Christianwillshun them; for he is bound to that by a law both in nature and in grace. But his motive is not that of spiritual pride. It has nothing akin to the feeling which dictated the words, “Stand by, for I am holier than thou;” nay, he is to show that he withdraws, because he cannot countenance what is ruinous to man and opposed to the mind of God. While we try to make religion felt, it must be the religion of love, and not of haughtiness or of bigotry.THE WORLDAN OBJECTOF PITY.Weshould remember that the world is a poor jaded world, and calls for pity rather than for wrath: its men have no resting-place either for the body or the soul; it has no antidote for its misery, no remedy for its disease. It is the shipwrecked seaman on his raft, trying to quench his burning thirst with the water of the ocean, only to make that thirst more burning still. It is the body weighed down with dropsy to the grave’s edge, yet seeking relief in what only augments its misery. And all that should awaken pity for the world in our intercourse with it. Be it made plain, that we can be no parties to the world’s ruin; we cannot trample on the Word of God to gratify the sinner’s love of sin. Nay, if we be Christians indeed, if we have in us the spirit of Him who died for the ungodly, we must love the sinner too well to countenance him in his ways. Our shunning of him, wherever duty will permit, is to be our silent protest against what the holy God so emphatically describes as “drowning men in perdition.” Love, wisdom, God, all demand that course.
THE WORLD’S DEADENING POWER.
And, to re-enforce all this, let it be remembered that we cannot associate of choice with wicked men without bringing our own religion into doubt.THE WORLD’SDEADENINGPOWER.Our relish for communion with God is blunted. Our love to the holy and the pure is lessened. The world to come fades away into dimness, and even a child of God is thus prone to catch the world’s spirit by intercourseof choicewith worldly men. All this is notorious in regard to those haunts where the prideof life is pampered, and where the children of folly squander in frivolity or guilt the hours which are given to prepare for eternity and its joys. But it is true also of more ordinary social intercourse; and the man who loves his own soul will guard, by the grace of God, against the first approach to the world’s godless ways, as he would against the first drop in a poisoned cup, or the first inch of a stiletto.
THE TRUE LIGHT.
We feel, however, that we must repeat the warning—Be sure that you display the religion of love, not of bigotry, in separating from the world.THE TRUELIGHT.Let your light shine before men, but be sure that it is the true light—Heaven’s.—There is a vessel sweeping across the deep. It is night, and her hundreds on board are locked in the insensibility of sleep. But suddenly there is a collision, a crash; her timbers are breaking up; and the hundreds who slept so securely a few breaths before, are now screaming out their agonies as they sink to rise no more. And what caused that disaster and these watery graves? The man at the helm just mistook the light, and, in doing so, hurried some hundreds into eternity. In like manner, we may exhibit a false phase of Christianity which shall tend only to ruin. It may not be God’s light, but sparks which we ourselves have kindled, and these may only drive men nearer to destruction.
But hitherto we have done little more than attempt to show how and why they that fear God should separate from those who have no fear of Himbefore their eyes. We have endeavoured to show that a godly man cannot go down to the world’s level without dragging Christ’s religion along with him. We have been urging the followers of the Saviour never to let the world think that the Christian and it are the same in their likings and pursuits. If we leave the world under that conviction, we have given an uncertain sound, and we have therefore endeavoured to make it plain that there is a broad, clear, deep line drawn by the Eternal God between the world and the church—between the converted and the unconverted—the man who lives for earth and the man who lives for God. They do not pass into each other by imperceptible shades, like the colours of the rainbow; they are separated like mid-day and midnight; they are different in nature, in liking, in pursuits, and in end.
THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS.
THECOMMUNIONOF SAINTS.All this, however, is only preparatory to telling how the godly should proceed in their intercourse with each other.—A prophet has said that “they who fear the Lord speak often one to another;” he has added, that “the Lord hearkens and hears,” and assured us, moreover, that “a book of remembrance is kept before the Lord for them that fear him and think upon his name.” Now, amid such employments, what can be the topics but the common salvation? What can engross the mind more than the death which Christ accomplished at Jerusalem, when he finished transgression, made an end of sin, and brought in an everlasting righteousness? What butthe love of the Redeemer, and the mercies to which that love opened the way, can occupy such men’s souls? Holiness, and its author, the Spirit; grace, and its fountain, God; its channel, the Redeemer; glory, and the Almighty One who made it sure by his blood; that which is perfect “when the former things shall have passed away;”—these and kindred topics may well animate the souls and strengthen the faith of the people of God. It is amid employments like these that their hearts may burn within them, like the hearts of the disciples while they walked with the Saviour to Emmaus. It is thus that foretastes of the heavenly joys are obtained, thus that clusters are brought from Eshcol, and thus that the earnest of the purchased possession is at once secured and rejoiced in. To have a relish for such holy and hallowing employments, is a proof that we are born from above; our soul’s native land is there; and to have no such relish is a proof that the soul is dead to the holiest and the noblest things.
TRUTH IN THE HEART.
TRUTH INTHE HEART.But enough to have indicated this; none can completely fill up the sketch, for “eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for them that love him.” Still, however, where the truth of God is in the heart, it will well up. Attempts may be made to repress a gushing spring; but it will rise at another place, and another, and another, spreading verdure and fertility wherever it flows. Now, the truth in the heart is a well of water springingup unto eternal life. It waters the waste, it purifies the vile, and fits us for that home where nothing that defiles can enter.
MARRIAGE.
MARRIAGE.There is one sphere, that of married life, regarding which we offer a closing sentence. Considering the importance which is attached to that relation, and its mighty influences for good or ill, alike on our time and our eternity, nothing can surprise us more than the recklessness with which it is often formed. How rarely is the guidance of the Holy One sought! How little is his will consulted! How limited is the influence which eternal things are allowed to exert in the choice on either side! And who will marvel, then, if not a few make shipwreck of the faith and a good conscience, just at the threshold of their marriage-chamber? Who will wonder to see so many hearts broken, so many wives worse than widowed, so many children worse than orphans, the promise of godliness given in youth all blighted—the book, the house, the day of God, deserted? When He himself has been left out of view, it is as easy as the downward current of a stream, to abandon all besides.
But wherever the lamp of life illumines a soul, this relation should be peculiarly directed by it. The results are for life, nay, they are for eternity; and they who leave the Eternal God out of view in forming such a bond, are digging a pit into which they are sure to fall, or laying a snare in which they will assuredly be taken. The grace of God may winsuch parties after all; but that can only be in His own holy sovereignty, according to his word, “I was found of them that sought me not,” for the man who ventures here without the guidance of the Wonderful, the Counsellor, is gambling with a stake which may be eternal death.—Marriage was meant to double man’s happiness, and, when contracted in the fear of God, it accomplishes his purpose; on other terms, its misery is unspeakable.
THE HEROES OF TRUTH—LUTHER.
CALVIN—KNOX—CHALMERS.
THEHEROESOF TRUTH—LUTHER.One closing sentence more. The difficulty and delicacy which are often felt in ordering our Social intercourse, makes a wise decidedness essential. To follow the right path implies self-denial; and, what is often worse, it may compel us to shun those whom we perhaps fondly love in the bonds of nature. Now, to arm us for this, we should call to mind that all the men who have signally served their God have been remarkable for decision—they were everywhere spoken against; their names were often a hissing and a byword, because they were decided for the ways of God against the ways of man. Paul was thus decided, and we know that, for his reward, he had to fight with wild beasts, and contend with wilder men. Luther was thus decided, and Romanists, in every age and land, have poured forth their enmity against him.CALVIN—KNOX—CHALMERS.Calvin was decided, and men have piled calumny upon calumny in their attempt to crush him. Knox was decided, and shared the same portion—he is sharing it still. Chalmers was decided, and had to live and die in armour. Thetruth, and nothing but the truth of God, was their guide—
“Not the light which leaves us darker;Not the gleams that come and go;Not the mirth whose end is madness;Not the joy whose fruit is woe.”—
“Not the light which leaves us darker;
Not the gleams that come and go;
Not the mirth whose end is madness;
Not the joy whose fruit is woe.”—
The banner which the Eternal gave to be displayed, these men held up, that all might learn to rally round it; and the times on which we have fallen are such as require a wise decision, a holy boldness, a close walk with God, like the times of these heroes of the truth.
RELIGION THE CROWN AND GLORY OF MAN’S LIFE.There can be no doubt that one reason why so many keep religion far away from the heart, is the supposition that it offers no present pleasure. It holds out promises, but their fulfilment appears remote, and, men fear, uncertain. It tells of enjoyment, but that enjoyment springs from causes which myriads cannot comprehend, and the whole appears to be mystical, incomprehensible, or unreal. Such pleasure as the world can yield, the worldly mind can understand at once and cordially relish. It is at hand. It even solicits attention. It seems real and palpable as well as near. While religion appears to approach in the character of a jailor to imprison, rather than of a friend to set us free and spread out joys in endless succession before us, the world comes with sparkling bribes and with congenial joys. It promises freedom unbounded, and, like the silly bird which hastens to the blaze kindled by the fowler to attract it to his snare, souls in thousands are duped, and deceived; it may happen that they are undone for ever.OUR JOYS.OURJOYS.But were it possible to impart to such minds some taste of the pleasures which are enjoyed in the paths which are peace, it would instantly be seen what injustice their views inflict upon the truth. Its joysarenotprojected into the distant future; they are nigh to us, they are even in our hearts. It does not give us a stone instead of bread, or a serpent instead of a fish—it is the world which imposes in that manner upon all who trust it. When religion comes to a worldly man to rob him of his gross or material joys, he fears that he is about to lose his all—because he knows no joy but what is earthly; and the very ways of God appear repulsive and irksome; not a few would imitate him who cried, “Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?” or, “hast thou come to torment us before the time?” But whatcanyield joy, if not the favour of God? Whatcanspread sunshine through the soul, if not the sense of sin forgiven? Whatcanimpart true nobility, if not restoration to the image of God? Whatcangive peace, if not the Prince of Peace? Whatcandry our tears or soothe our sorrows, if not He who came as a Comforter to earth, and who re-erects the kingdom of God in the soul? Amid all that plenitude of mercy, men may still persist in thinking that the truth is a bondage, and that its joys are shadowy or evanescent; but that can only be because their hearts have never bowed to the majesty or rejoiced in the love of their God.THE GAIN OF GODLINESS.THEGAIN OFGODLINESS.And this repugnance to His truth is sometimes augmented, when religion begins to be contemplated with more care than the world commonly bestows on it. When men, for example, read the words—“Godliness is profitable unto all things,having the promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come,” their perplexities sometimes increase. That godliness has the promise of the life that is to come, multitudes may passively concede, for they bestow no thought upon the subject. But when their attention is drawn to the fact, that the promise farther embraces the life that now is, men are not prepared to acknowledge the truth. Godliness does not permit a man to ask, What will my fellow-mortals approve? Its all-decisive question is, What has God said? It never pauses to inquire, What will men think? what is current, or what is countenanced among them? It goes at once to the fountain-head, and seeks to ascertain what God has decided; what standard He has set up; what aim or end proposed. That once ascertained, the godly immediately feel bound thereby. They are in a court from which there is no appeal, or a hand from which there is no escape. Now, as they cannot do as others do, as they dare not pursue the world with the intense avidity of multitudes, how can it be true that godliness has the promise of the life that now is?Moreover, are not the men called godly often hated, and persecuted, and of all men the most miserable? Is not this their promised lot—“In the world ye shall have tribulation;” or “The world shall laugh, but ye shall weep and lament?” How, then, can it be time, the question again and again recurs, that such buffeted men have the promise of the present life? Nay, does not an apostle himself confess, that,in certain conditions, Christians may be of all men the most miserable?With all these things, however, full in view, we still declare that the promise is true, and that no man really enjoys this world except the man of God. Whether it be in the Heart, that heart is the happiest whose godliness is greatest; or in the Home, that home is the most blessed where godliness is the most ascendant; or in the Workshop, that workshop is ever the best conditioned, and the most free from those things which rudely shock man’s moral nature, where the fear of God is most felt; or in the Market-place, that business is ever the most healthy, the least exposed to panics or to failure, where the lamp of life, the Bible, sheds light upon our path. Gain without godliness is gold put into a bag with holes. It is a rusted and a moth-eaten thing; it eats the flesh as doth a canker.ESAU.ESAU.Let us now, then, glance at religion in its general bearing upon the life of man on earth. It is the appointed Director of life; it is the Ornament and the joy of life; it is the prelude, the foretaste, or the earnest of the Life to come.—Viewed under these aspects, it may not be difficult to discover the folly of those who act in the spirit of Esau, and barter away their birthright for pleasures which perish in the using; or the wisdom of those who seek that righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost, which are guaranteed to the Christian by an eternal covenant.As the Director of life, then, it cannot be difficult to show that true religion is all-important.THE GUIDE, THE COUNSELLOR, THE FRIEND.THE GUIDE,THE COUNSELLOR,THE FRIEND.Can we, in the nature of things, ever find a wiser guide than the only-wise God? Is not that man under some dire infatuation, who thinks that he can discover a safer? But true religion, the religion which the Spirit of God has embodied in the Bible, just consists in being under the guidance of the Holy One, in thought, word, and deed.Can we, in the nature of things, ever find a path more pleasant than that in which the Eternal leads us? Now, the religion of truth just places us in the narrow path to glory opened up by God.Can we be sane, and at the same time pretend to select a better standard, a better rule, a better aim, than that which God prescribes? Now, pure and undefiled religion just consists in making that standard, that rule, that aim, our own. Like the ship on the ocean, driven by the wind and tost, it may often seem as if all hope were gone; but if we be godly, that is, if we have religion in the heart as the Spirit of God plants it there, One comes to us even upon the angry waves, and his presence makes a calm. Whatever be our condition, here is a Guide. Whatever be our perplexity, here is a Counsellor. Whatever be our loneliness, here is a Friend. Whatever be our tendency to wander, here is one at our right hand, proclaiming, “I am the way.” Could the heart of man be persuaded to follow the Lord fully, would he consult only for anhour with reason, and with common sense, thousands more might be found in the path which leads to glory and to honour.THE SOVEREIGNTY OF TRUTH.THESOVEREIGNTYOF TRUTH.And let it be remembered that the directions which are given to guide the godly in the way are authoritative and divine. We have more than a royal road to heaven—we have a divine one. The man whose religion is planted in the heart, is not guided by opinions, but by verdicts; and these are the verdicts of the unchanging One. They are not conjectures—they are the decisions of an infallible Judge; they are the very maxims, the very laws by which we shall be tried, when we stand before the great white throne, and the Judge of the quick and the dead. Some men act as if they were at liberty to cancel the decisions of God; to review them, and indorse or reverse them at pleasure. In this manner, the word of the Supreme, which he cannot alter without ceasing to be true, is made to bend to men’s liking; and if it will not bend, they break it. But the man who holds the lamp, and is therefore truly wise, makes it a maxim in his life that he cannot judge the Word of God—It judges him. He cannot bring his religion to the Bible—He must get his religion from it. He does not consult the sacred page with the view of welcoming or rejecting it at pleasure. Nay, it is the sovereign umpire in every perplexity. It is the director of his steps, and the sun of his soul. Guided by it, and by it alone, that man walks under the direction of the Father of lights, with whom is nodarkness at all, to that abode where the glory of God is manifested to all, and the Lamb is the light thereof.THE LAMB OUR LIGHT.THE LAMBOUR LIGHT.They who have thus surrendered their souls to the guidance of God in his Word, have felt, in their own experience, how blessed it is to have Him for their light; they never yet were in a position for which the only wise God has not made provision; the lamp of life is always trimmed by the very hand which lit it.—One is persecuted for righteousness’ sake; the man who hates the truth appears anxious to “chase him up to heaven.” But even then, the ear of faith can hear Him whom the world hated yet more, pronouncing a blessing over all who suffer in the paths of godliness.One has had to follow child after child, or brother after brother, to the tomb; but has he not been told, perhaps at the edge of the grave, of Him who is the resurrection of the body and the life of the soul; and that them who sleep in Jesus, God will bring with him from the dead?One has neither father nor mother, nor friend on earth to lean on—he is absolutely and utterly an orphan; but is he not told, “When father and mother forsake me, the Lord will take me up?” Is it not added, “I will not leave you orphans?”VICISSITUDES.VICISSITUDES.One has cherished dreams of happiness on earth—he is expecting here what God declares we can never, never find. Well, He came, and proved thathis declaration was true; in mercy and in love he came, though the lacerated heart felt that the stroke was sore. The gourd withered. The frail reed broke. The shadow flitted away. The Word of God was verified, and the happiness of earth appeared rather like the lightning flash, than the steady shining of a summer day. But did not He who wounded heal? If that soul had godliness, was it not made apparent that the sovereign Lord of all had something in store for it better than it was choosing for itself?One is tottering very near the grave. However he may cling to life, he cannot now be blind to the fact that the last resting-place of man must soon be a resting-place to him. But just then, just there, if that soul be godly, a light appears. It irradiates the tomb. It illumines the vast unknown beyond it; and almost in the language of a hosanna, such souls have passed away exclaiming, “To me to die is gain.”Or, last of all, one has felt, what many never feel, the sinfulness of sin. That soul has discovered how foolish as well as wicked it is, to contend against Omnipotence. It feels that man forsakes his own mercy by cherishing thoughts, or doing deeds opposed to the mind of God; and that as well may we expect comfort on the rack, or pleasure from the blaze which consumes us, as joy in that path which the Holy God has forbidden. According to the Word of the Lord, that soul has discovered what it is to be exposed to the wrath of God and of the Lamb; or how like the career of the suicide,or the maniac, is the course of those who live in sin unpardoned, with a soul unsaved. But it has also discovered that the Word of God has devoted passage after passage, or Psalm after Psalm, to the subject of pardon. In one aspect, that is the burden of the Bible’s lessons—to tell how free, how immediate, how complete, is the forgiveness provided by Him whose tender mercies are over all his other works. No entreaties so tender, no lessons so plain, no commands so cogent, no promises so full, as those which relate to the fountain opened for sin. The earnest soul thus discovers that the word is indeed a light to man’s feet, and a lamp to his path. It is a light shining in a dark place—a directory from heaven for man on earth—the very God of truth is there pouring encouragement, or joy, or hope, into the heart.THE PILLAR OF CLOUD AND FIRE.When we buffet with a baffling tempest, how gladdening is the glimmer even of a lamp seen through the drift, telling us of comfort and of home! When we have long been driven by the waves and tost, so that hope has fled and exertion become paralysed, how welcome the haven of our rest! When strangers have long been our only associates in a foreign land, where no familiar face was near to greet us with its smile, how pleasant to know“There is an eye will markOur coming, and look brighter when we come!”—And how much more gladdening that Word of God which irradiates the path of a believer,THE PILLAROF CLOUDAND FIRE.a pillarof cloud by day, a pillar of fire by night! In joy or in sorrow, in youth or in age, in his home, in his place of toil or of business, amid unceasing activities, or when the sands of life are ebbing low, such a man has a directory at every hour of need, a counsellor in every difficulty—enough to crown his weary life with a portion of the joy of his God.THE HALCYON.THEHALCYON.We meet with some who have manifestly no guide but passion, or feeling, or human opinion. They therefore live in a state of constant fretfulness and mental fever, at once troubling and troubled. While others have an anchor cast within the veil, these men are driven by the wind and tost. Some are kept in perfect peace, even amid the agitations of life; they are like the little bird which is said to build its nest amid the breakers of the sea, and is most calm when perched on the crest of an angry wave. Others are like the restless sea; and whence this difference? The divine directory is in the hand of the one class; it is ignored or perverted by the other. The divine mind is the mind of the one; caprice and the changing passions of a troubled soul form the standard or the tyrant of the other. To the one, truth is truth, in the heart, the home, and the place of public resort; to the other, truth is but a name.—The bodies of those who live under a directly vertical sun, reflect no shadow; at least their shadow is under their feet, and these shadowless bodies are emblems of the condition of those who live nearest to the Sun of Righteousness: like the children of thelight, they are preparing for the world where there is neither shadow nor night.THE ORNAMENT OF LIFE.THEORNAMENTOF LIFE.But godliness is the Ornament of life as well as its Director.And what is it that constitutes the beauty of a soul?—All that God has made is lovely according to its kind. Look at the little flower, and see what beauties beam upon us there. Contemplate the firmament above us, the meet type of Jehovah’s immensity; and mark the surprising loveliness which is there. Or examine the winged insect which buzzes around us, only, perhaps, to vex and to annoy—there are more beauties and more marks of wisdom in that little thing, than the science of man has yet been able to tell. Now, if even these mean, these transient, and ephemeral things, are clothed in loveliness by God, may we not expect a more exquisite beauty in that immortal thing, the soul of man? It was once in the image of God; it is capable of wearing that image again. And what is it that constitutes its beauty?THE MISERY OF SIN.We need not again reply—It is holiness. It is purity like the purity of God. It is perfection like his perfection. Sin at the first marred the moral beauty, and put all that is morally offensive in its stead. But a new creation takes place. The original loveliness begins to be restored. The beauties of holiness decorate the soul, and with the restoration of holiness the restoration of happiness begins.THE MISERYOF SIN.Give the unholy soul the wealth for which millionspant; give it an empire like that of our sovereign, on which the sun never sets. Let all that can gladden and regale be poured into the cup of an ungodly man. The mere fact that he is unholy, would leave him deformed and unseemly; his soul would be wretched, craving, aching still.—A nobleman of ancient name and brilliant powers once ranked among the most conspicuous of all who dwelt in our land. He was admired by millions, and, for a time, was “followed, flattered, sought, and sued,” wherever he appeared. But he was slightly deformed in a limb; and when his eye fell on the deformity, even from the heights of his fame, he was chafed and chagrined: it was more than a counterbalance to all the incense which was offered to his powers. Now, that nobleman was as signal for his ungodliness as he was for his powers.THE JOY OF HOLINESS.But, on the other hand, place a holy soul in a dungeon. Let the new, the holy nature which the Spirit of God imparts, be imparted to such a man. With that in his soul, let the persecutor wreathe his chains around him; let him “five times receive forty stripes save one;” let all men forsake him and flee;—still, by the grace of God, that soul would be made more like the Holy One by the very sorrows which it encountered and the tears which it shed: and it is thus that godliness becomes the ornament of life.THEJOY OFHOLINESS.As the rainbow would never be seen were it not for the clouds and the rain, the beauties of holiness would never shine so brightly were it not for the trialswhich the Spirit of God employs to promote them. Butwhenhe employs them, the soul of man is changed into the image of the Redeemer, from glory to glory. Though covered by sin with wounds and bruises and noisome sores, it is created anew, after the image of God, in righteousness and true holiness. The altogether lovely One becomes the model of that soul; and ornament after ornament is bestowed—such adornings as the eye of God can complacently regard, for they are the work of his own Spirit: they indicate the restoration of his handiwork, from the state of ruin into which it had lapsed, to the state of beauty in which it appeared when it sprang into being at his word.It is holiness, then, that is the ornament of man. Without that, no mental power, no constellation of gifts, can give beauty to our spirits, as they are seen by God. Knowledge may be power; but it is only the power of evil. Acquirements may be extensive; but they are only like gaudy trappings on a hearse, or music in a dying man’s chamber, unless truth in the heart become holiness in the life.But when Christianity is planted in the heart and soul of man, it becomes his Joy as well as his director and ornament. This is sunshine; all besides is gloom.THE VAIN PURSUIT.THE VAINPURSUIT.Upon this we need not expatiate long. It is manifest as day to all who have submitted to the guidance of reason illumined by the lamp of life, the Bible, that Christianity introduces us to the highest joy ofearth or heaven, even joy in the Holy Ghost; and while destitute of that, whatever he may possess, man is wretched, and miserable, and blind. One man seeks happiness in sin; but did he ever find it? Nay, is it not like taking fire to his bosom? Is it not like a wound to his immortal nature? O, is it not a mournful delirium, to dream of finding joy in that which caused the creation of a place of torment—which doomed a world to misery—which digs our graves—which lays us in them, and fills our homes from time to time with the voice of lamentation and woe?Another man seeks joy in wealth; but after he has all that he can grasp, is not his heart still, like the daughters of the horse-leech, crying, “Give, give?” As well attempt to satisfy the hungry body with the name of bread, as the craving soul with material things. It was created to be happy in God; and, without him, the universe cannot fill the void in man’s heart.DEATH-BEDS.Another seeks joy in friendship, or in beautiful human affection.DEATH-BEDS.But remorseless death comes: he strikes down the object to which affection clings; and where is the bereaved one now? He is well-nigh wearying for the grave, and so of all that begins and ends on earth: its blossom goes up like rottenness at last. It is simply impossible that any object whose root is in the dust can gladden the soul of man, apart from the God who made it.Has God, then, left us without joy? When we became idolaters, did he leave us to our idols, totears, and woe? Nay, there is blessedness even here below; and the knowledge, the fear, the love, and favour of God, is its fountain-head. In reconciliation to Him—in His image restored—in growing holiness—in greater and yet greater love and likeness to the Saviour of the soul—the man of God, the man who is truly rational, finds the streams of his joy. God himself is the fountain; but his blessings are the rills which flow from it: and he who has not felt this joy, is still living among shadows, and phantoms, and names. His is only the comb rifled of the honey; his is the dream without the reality; his the corruption and the death of sin, without the pleasures which flow from God into the soul.—Is the land of his fathers a source of joy to the returning exile? Is the breath of spring a source of gladness to man’s fevered brow? Is the face of nature a source of pleasure to him who has long been immured amid the damps of a dungeon? Far more than all these together, is a sense of God’s favour to the soul which has returned from its wanderings, to seek its blessedness again on the bosom of its God.VOLTAIRE.And it is to godliness, or at least some counterfeit of it, that all, or nearly all, men flee for joy at last. Some, indeed, die like the beasts that perish, without either fear or joy. Conscience is dead before the body. It occasions no alarm; and such men pass into the presence of the Judge perhaps denying his very existence. But not so all. When conscience isaroused from its long stupor by the nearness of death, how eager do some appear for the joy which religion promises! how gladly would they now grasp at what they have practically despised, perhaps for threescore years and ten!VOLTAIRE.There is one who has spent a lifetime in denying the truth as it is in Jesus. He declared that he hated the Saviour’s very name, and did all that wit and powers the most diversified could accomplish to blot it from the hearts and memories of men. That man hated the truth with a perfect hatred, and gloried in his hatred; it secured for him the applause of myriads who felt that truth to be fettering, and who rejoiced in the help of one so gifted in their attempt to banish it from the earth.—But that man is dying at last, and all is changed now. Goaded by conscience, he flees to a poor superstition—he tries to soothe his soul by believing one of the most enormous impositions ever practised upon man.He eats what he reckons, or what an abject superstition teaches him to regard as “the body, the blood, and the divinity” of Him whom he had so long blasphemed and denied; and that very superstition of that dying infidel41tells where it is that man finds or tries to find his joy after all. It is just an infidel’s method of proclaiming, “Godliness has the promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.”Or if we refer to a case less extreme than that of an avowed infidel, the same truth appears—the samelesson is taught. God and his favour alone can gladden or satisfy the soul.SIR WALTER SCOTT.SIRWALTERSCOTT.Another man, then, not less distinguished in his day than Voltaire, is passing on to his great account. Millions in many lands have admired his genius, and offered incense to his name. Wherever he moves he is followed by applauding crowds; and if ever there was one who might have been satisfied with the homage of his fellow-mortals, that was the man. Princes deemed themselves honoured by being under his roof. Royalty set him at its right hand. He added field to field. He determined to make for himself a local habitation, as he had already made for himself a name; and his mansion, once modest and humble, grew into “a romance in stone.”But the fashion of this world vanishes away, and that man must die. Before he leaves the scenes which his presence had long invested with smiles, he must read a lesson to man—had man a heart to learn it—more salutary and profound than any he had ever tried to teach. The wind of adversity blew, and shattered his fortunes and his hopes together. Death entered his abode, and one who had long been its joy was carried to the tomb. Then affliction laid its hand upon himself. The body was palsied, the mind a wreck; and amid all this, that man’s spasmodic efforts to resume his former self, rank among the most touching incidents in the chequered history of humanity. But we must listen to his own words to learn his tale of woe, and see how broken is every earthlycistern when man seeks joy from it apart from God; how shadowy and dream-like is every earthly thing apart from Him who is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.SORROW UNSOOTHED.SORROWUNSOOTHED.“When I think,” says this idol of millions, on the eve of leaving his home at the bidding of stern necessity and financial pressure; “when I think what this place now is, compared with what it has been not long ago, I think my heart will break. Lonely, aged, deprived of all my family, I am an impoverished and embarrassed man.”Farther, he thus touchingly wails: “Death has closed the dark avenue of love and friendship. I look at them as through the grated door of a burial-place, filled with monuments of those who once were dear to me, and with no other wish than that it may open for me at no distant period.”And as if to show that all his anguish did not come from without, the great Novelist says, “Some new object of complaint comes every moment. Sicknesses come thicker and thicker; friends are fewer and fewer. The recollection of youth, health, and power of activity neither improved nor enjoyed, is a poor strain of comfort.The best is, the long halt will arrive at length, and close all.”42THE MIMIC IMMORTALITY.THE MIMICIMMORTALITY.Now, it will be noticed in these extracts that it isthe gravewhich closes the vista of that greatly gifted man; at least he never refers to the bright ulterior of which the tomb might be the portal.—“I have no other wish than that the grated door of a burial-place may open for me at no distant period.”—“The best is, the long halt will arrive at length, and close all”—it is there that the mind seems to rest. It never rises into the region of immortality. It does not refer to that favour of God which is life. As far as these mournful records tell, that soul had nothing to repose on but what was soon to enwrap the body—the earth, and earthly things. Dazzled even to blindness by the mimic immortality which man bestows on man, the life and immortality of the Gospel were ignored. Steeped in the possessions which only increase the thirst which some suppose they quench, that man discovered and confessed that he was “an impoverished and embarrassed man,” when he might have exulted in the unspeakable gift, the unsearchable riches of Christ.THE BROKEN HEART.Now, it is thus that men sow the wind and reap the whirlwind, by expecting that joy from things which are seen and temporal, which can be found only in the things which are unseen and eternal; and it is thus that the men who“Hunt their misery with a zeal to die”proclaim to all who have ears to hear, that if we would have joy to the full, and blessings such as can satisfy the soul, they must be sought in Him who isour peace, “of whom and to whom are all things.” “Surely he is, or ought to be, a happy man,” said a visiter at Sir Walter Scott’s abode.THEBROKENHEART.“When I think of what it is now ... I think my heart will break”—is his own dirge-like response.But it is not merely in the high concerns of eternity that a man of God finds sources of joy. Even amid the cares and distractions of earth, he has often a peace which is independent of all earthly sources. He sees God in all events, and soon discovers that they all work together for his good: however diverse in their origin or aspect, they sweetly blend into one harmonious whole, of which blessedness is the product to a child of God. Think of the complex machinery which pours such wealth into the lap of our nation, by multiplying manifold its productive power. How intricate in its parts! how apparently incomprehensible to an inexperienced mind; yet how simple, how exquisitely beautiful in itsresults! Or think of the sunlight in which all nature rejoices. It can be decomposed into seven primary elements, yet how simple and how lovely is the product of their combination! And so it is in the various events of providence: they all blend into one harmonious result; they are all presided over by our Father who is in heaven; and they all pour into the soul of a believer more real joy than the world can know, even “when its corn and its wine are increased.”But the crown and consummation of the whole is,that godliness is not merely the Director, the Ornament, or the Joy of this life; it is the prelude to the Life that is to come.What are to be our employments in heaven? How shall we be sustained? How perceive, or feel, or rejoice? Shall we recognise in glory those whom we loved on earth?—or is the Alpha and the Omega of faith, the Alpha and the Omega of fruition? These, and a thousand other questions, are raised by the curious mind; but the most that we can say in reply is, “It doth not yet appear what we shall be.” There will be praise in glory. There will be following the Lamb. There will be satisfaction with God’s likeness. There will be the fulness of joy and pleasures for evermore. But after all, the mind, while in the body, is exhausted by the effort to comprehend what we shall be: it falls back fatigued upon the words of him who once lay on the Redeemer’s bosom, “It doth not yet appear what we shall be.”THE MILLENNIUM.T-16THE MILLENNIUM.T-16And yet there is a sense or a measure in which we can understand heaven.—In our day we hear much of the Millennium. Churches are divided on the subject. Brother differs from brother; and it is difficult indeed, definitely to fix “what saith the Lord” regarding it. But connected with the millennium there is one subject, concerning which we may speak with perfect decision on the undoubted authority of God. As the whole is composed of its parts, the blessedness of the millennial state can be composed only of the blessedness of individual souls. Now, wouldI introduce that blessed era as far as I am concerned? Then let me make sure that Christ is already personally reigning in me. Would I see the kingdom of God set up in our groaning world; and would I like to fix a day for its commencement? Then let methis daymake it sure that the king of glory is on the throne of my heart, that “Christ is in me the hope of glory.”—Whatever the millennium is to be, or whensoever it is to begin, it can, at the most, consist only of Christ’s personal reign. Now, he should be reigning at this hour in me. Be that, through grace, accomplished, and we are in preparation for the millennial glory; though the bright visions of some were turned into realities to-morrow, we should be found meet to enter on the joy of our Lord. “The millennium will never come,” said Harlan Page, “till Christians are more awake to duty.”HEAVEN.HEAVEN.And so of the eternal state. Does Christ reign in any soul now? Then, beyond the grave, that reign perfected will be heaven. Is Christ stamping on us now the image of the Eternal, and restoring what the fall ruined or effaced? Then that restoration completed will be heaven. Is Christ on earth showing us the Father? Then beyond the grave, we shall be eternally restored to the Father’s favour; and that is heaven, for his favour is life, and his loving-kindness better than life. Our joy on earth—our religion—when it is a fruit of the Spirit, is at once a preparative and a prelude to the joys of heaven. They are the same in kind, and differ only in degree. He thatis holy in a measure now, will be holy in perfection at last. He that loves the Saviour in a measure now, will love him in perfection beyond the grave; here we see the bud, on high we shall partake of the ripe and mellow fruit—all according to the words, “He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still.”Let us try to find some one who is ignorant of the great processes of nature; one of the untutored savages who still hover near the margin which separates the rational from merely animal nature. Let him be ignorant, for example, of the processes of vegetation. With the one hand show him an acorn—a thing so small that it can scarcely serve even for an infant’s toy; with the other, show him some majestic oak, beneath whose ample shade the beasts of the field and the birds of the air find a common shelter. Then tell that degraded one, that that majestic tree was once enveloped in such a little seed—how incredulous, or how amazed, would that “Stoic of the woods” appear!THE BUD—THE BLOSSOM—THE FRUIT.THE BUD—THE BLOSSOM—THE FRUIT.And the same thing happens in regard to the coming eternity. Godliness is the germ, of which eternal glory is the majestic result. Grace is the bud, of which heaven is the ample fruitage. Like the darkling savage, we may be unable to comprehend the process by which the one passes into the other. But our ability is not the measure of God’s.The onedoespass into the other; grace does pass into glory; and he is wise, heonlyis wise, who makes it his business on earth to tend that germ, or screen it from all that would crush or destroy it. He is wise who places it often in the clear shining of the Sun of Righteousness, or under the influence of Him who assures us that he will refresh it like the dew. The delicate exotic will not otherwise grow; and for want of such tending, ten thousand times ten thousand let it wither, and pine, and perish.THE RESURRECTION.GLORY—HONOUR—IMMORTALITY.THERESURRECTION.It is a saddening thing to stand by the edge of the open grave, and see dust returned to the dust. One, perhaps, with whom we have often taken sweet counsel, upon whose arm we have leant, whose soul has touched our soul, with whom we had all things in common, even to the secrets of the heart, is entombed. The cold earth must hide him, and even affection must hasten to bury him out of sight. But that very body thus consigned to corruption is yet to come forth a glorious body, when death shall be swallowed up of life.GLORY—HONOUR—IMMORTALITY.That which is sown in dishonour is to grow in glory, if united to Him who is the resurrection and the life, who has abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light in the gospel. Its home for ever is to be—“The city of the golden pavement—Seat of endless festival.”—And thus do we glance at the Spirit’s fruit in the soul—or God’s religion, not man’s—as the crown and consummation of life. We have looked at it asitshouldreign in the Heart:Doesit reign there? We have studied it as presiding in our Homes, and leading all who are there in the “way of the Lord:” To what extent has that been accomplished? We have gone, with the lamp of life in our hand, into the Workshop of the artisan, and tried to tell how it ennobles toil by sanctifying him who toils. We have taken that lamp, and tried to shed its light upon the Marts of business; and is it the case that our merchandise and our hire are holiness to the Lord? We have referred to what should be the ascendency of God’s truth in our Social Intercourse; and if it preside there, we are not far from the kingdom of heaven; nay, we are within its sacred borders, and the crown of all will be glory, honour, and immortality, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
RELIGION THE CROWN AND GLORY OF MAN’S LIFE.
There can be no doubt that one reason why so many keep religion far away from the heart, is the supposition that it offers no present pleasure. It holds out promises, but their fulfilment appears remote, and, men fear, uncertain. It tells of enjoyment, but that enjoyment springs from causes which myriads cannot comprehend, and the whole appears to be mystical, incomprehensible, or unreal. Such pleasure as the world can yield, the worldly mind can understand at once and cordially relish. It is at hand. It even solicits attention. It seems real and palpable as well as near. While religion appears to approach in the character of a jailor to imprison, rather than of a friend to set us free and spread out joys in endless succession before us, the world comes with sparkling bribes and with congenial joys. It promises freedom unbounded, and, like the silly bird which hastens to the blaze kindled by the fowler to attract it to his snare, souls in thousands are duped, and deceived; it may happen that they are undone for ever.
OUR JOYS.
OURJOYS.But were it possible to impart to such minds some taste of the pleasures which are enjoyed in the paths which are peace, it would instantly be seen what injustice their views inflict upon the truth. Its joysarenotprojected into the distant future; they are nigh to us, they are even in our hearts. It does not give us a stone instead of bread, or a serpent instead of a fish—it is the world which imposes in that manner upon all who trust it. When religion comes to a worldly man to rob him of his gross or material joys, he fears that he is about to lose his all—because he knows no joy but what is earthly; and the very ways of God appear repulsive and irksome; not a few would imitate him who cried, “Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?” or, “hast thou come to torment us before the time?” But whatcanyield joy, if not the favour of God? Whatcanspread sunshine through the soul, if not the sense of sin forgiven? Whatcanimpart true nobility, if not restoration to the image of God? Whatcangive peace, if not the Prince of Peace? Whatcandry our tears or soothe our sorrows, if not He who came as a Comforter to earth, and who re-erects the kingdom of God in the soul? Amid all that plenitude of mercy, men may still persist in thinking that the truth is a bondage, and that its joys are shadowy or evanescent; but that can only be because their hearts have never bowed to the majesty or rejoiced in the love of their God.
THE GAIN OF GODLINESS.
THEGAIN OFGODLINESS.And this repugnance to His truth is sometimes augmented, when religion begins to be contemplated with more care than the world commonly bestows on it. When men, for example, read the words—“Godliness is profitable unto all things,having the promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come,” their perplexities sometimes increase. That godliness has the promise of the life that is to come, multitudes may passively concede, for they bestow no thought upon the subject. But when their attention is drawn to the fact, that the promise farther embraces the life that now is, men are not prepared to acknowledge the truth. Godliness does not permit a man to ask, What will my fellow-mortals approve? Its all-decisive question is, What has God said? It never pauses to inquire, What will men think? what is current, or what is countenanced among them? It goes at once to the fountain-head, and seeks to ascertain what God has decided; what standard He has set up; what aim or end proposed. That once ascertained, the godly immediately feel bound thereby. They are in a court from which there is no appeal, or a hand from which there is no escape. Now, as they cannot do as others do, as they dare not pursue the world with the intense avidity of multitudes, how can it be true that godliness has the promise of the life that now is?
Moreover, are not the men called godly often hated, and persecuted, and of all men the most miserable? Is not this their promised lot—“In the world ye shall have tribulation;” or “The world shall laugh, but ye shall weep and lament?” How, then, can it be time, the question again and again recurs, that such buffeted men have the promise of the present life? Nay, does not an apostle himself confess, that,in certain conditions, Christians may be of all men the most miserable?
With all these things, however, full in view, we still declare that the promise is true, and that no man really enjoys this world except the man of God. Whether it be in the Heart, that heart is the happiest whose godliness is greatest; or in the Home, that home is the most blessed where godliness is the most ascendant; or in the Workshop, that workshop is ever the best conditioned, and the most free from those things which rudely shock man’s moral nature, where the fear of God is most felt; or in the Market-place, that business is ever the most healthy, the least exposed to panics or to failure, where the lamp of life, the Bible, sheds light upon our path. Gain without godliness is gold put into a bag with holes. It is a rusted and a moth-eaten thing; it eats the flesh as doth a canker.
ESAU.
ESAU.Let us now, then, glance at religion in its general bearing upon the life of man on earth. It is the appointed Director of life; it is the Ornament and the joy of life; it is the prelude, the foretaste, or the earnest of the Life to come.—Viewed under these aspects, it may not be difficult to discover the folly of those who act in the spirit of Esau, and barter away their birthright for pleasures which perish in the using; or the wisdom of those who seek that righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost, which are guaranteed to the Christian by an eternal covenant.
As the Director of life, then, it cannot be difficult to show that true religion is all-important.
THE GUIDE, THE COUNSELLOR, THE FRIEND.
THE GUIDE,THE COUNSELLOR,THE FRIEND.Can we, in the nature of things, ever find a wiser guide than the only-wise God? Is not that man under some dire infatuation, who thinks that he can discover a safer? But true religion, the religion which the Spirit of God has embodied in the Bible, just consists in being under the guidance of the Holy One, in thought, word, and deed.
Can we, in the nature of things, ever find a path more pleasant than that in which the Eternal leads us? Now, the religion of truth just places us in the narrow path to glory opened up by God.
Can we be sane, and at the same time pretend to select a better standard, a better rule, a better aim, than that which God prescribes? Now, pure and undefiled religion just consists in making that standard, that rule, that aim, our own. Like the ship on the ocean, driven by the wind and tost, it may often seem as if all hope were gone; but if we be godly, that is, if we have religion in the heart as the Spirit of God plants it there, One comes to us even upon the angry waves, and his presence makes a calm. Whatever be our condition, here is a Guide. Whatever be our perplexity, here is a Counsellor. Whatever be our loneliness, here is a Friend. Whatever be our tendency to wander, here is one at our right hand, proclaiming, “I am the way.” Could the heart of man be persuaded to follow the Lord fully, would he consult only for anhour with reason, and with common sense, thousands more might be found in the path which leads to glory and to honour.
THE SOVEREIGNTY OF TRUTH.
THESOVEREIGNTYOF TRUTH.And let it be remembered that the directions which are given to guide the godly in the way are authoritative and divine. We have more than a royal road to heaven—we have a divine one. The man whose religion is planted in the heart, is not guided by opinions, but by verdicts; and these are the verdicts of the unchanging One. They are not conjectures—they are the decisions of an infallible Judge; they are the very maxims, the very laws by which we shall be tried, when we stand before the great white throne, and the Judge of the quick and the dead. Some men act as if they were at liberty to cancel the decisions of God; to review them, and indorse or reverse them at pleasure. In this manner, the word of the Supreme, which he cannot alter without ceasing to be true, is made to bend to men’s liking; and if it will not bend, they break it. But the man who holds the lamp, and is therefore truly wise, makes it a maxim in his life that he cannot judge the Word of God—It judges him. He cannot bring his religion to the Bible—He must get his religion from it. He does not consult the sacred page with the view of welcoming or rejecting it at pleasure. Nay, it is the sovereign umpire in every perplexity. It is the director of his steps, and the sun of his soul. Guided by it, and by it alone, that man walks under the direction of the Father of lights, with whom is nodarkness at all, to that abode where the glory of God is manifested to all, and the Lamb is the light thereof.
THE LAMB OUR LIGHT.
THE LAMBOUR LIGHT.They who have thus surrendered their souls to the guidance of God in his Word, have felt, in their own experience, how blessed it is to have Him for their light; they never yet were in a position for which the only wise God has not made provision; the lamp of life is always trimmed by the very hand which lit it.
—One is persecuted for righteousness’ sake; the man who hates the truth appears anxious to “chase him up to heaven.” But even then, the ear of faith can hear Him whom the world hated yet more, pronouncing a blessing over all who suffer in the paths of godliness.
One has had to follow child after child, or brother after brother, to the tomb; but has he not been told, perhaps at the edge of the grave, of Him who is the resurrection of the body and the life of the soul; and that them who sleep in Jesus, God will bring with him from the dead?
One has neither father nor mother, nor friend on earth to lean on—he is absolutely and utterly an orphan; but is he not told, “When father and mother forsake me, the Lord will take me up?” Is it not added, “I will not leave you orphans?”
VICISSITUDES.
VICISSITUDES.One has cherished dreams of happiness on earth—he is expecting here what God declares we can never, never find. Well, He came, and proved thathis declaration was true; in mercy and in love he came, though the lacerated heart felt that the stroke was sore. The gourd withered. The frail reed broke. The shadow flitted away. The Word of God was verified, and the happiness of earth appeared rather like the lightning flash, than the steady shining of a summer day. But did not He who wounded heal? If that soul had godliness, was it not made apparent that the sovereign Lord of all had something in store for it better than it was choosing for itself?
One is tottering very near the grave. However he may cling to life, he cannot now be blind to the fact that the last resting-place of man must soon be a resting-place to him. But just then, just there, if that soul be godly, a light appears. It irradiates the tomb. It illumines the vast unknown beyond it; and almost in the language of a hosanna, such souls have passed away exclaiming, “To me to die is gain.”
Or, last of all, one has felt, what many never feel, the sinfulness of sin. That soul has discovered how foolish as well as wicked it is, to contend against Omnipotence. It feels that man forsakes his own mercy by cherishing thoughts, or doing deeds opposed to the mind of God; and that as well may we expect comfort on the rack, or pleasure from the blaze which consumes us, as joy in that path which the Holy God has forbidden. According to the Word of the Lord, that soul has discovered what it is to be exposed to the wrath of God and of the Lamb; or how like the career of the suicide,or the maniac, is the course of those who live in sin unpardoned, with a soul unsaved. But it has also discovered that the Word of God has devoted passage after passage, or Psalm after Psalm, to the subject of pardon. In one aspect, that is the burden of the Bible’s lessons—to tell how free, how immediate, how complete, is the forgiveness provided by Him whose tender mercies are over all his other works. No entreaties so tender, no lessons so plain, no commands so cogent, no promises so full, as those which relate to the fountain opened for sin. The earnest soul thus discovers that the word is indeed a light to man’s feet, and a lamp to his path. It is a light shining in a dark place—a directory from heaven for man on earth—the very God of truth is there pouring encouragement, or joy, or hope, into the heart.
THE PILLAR OF CLOUD AND FIRE.
When we buffet with a baffling tempest, how gladdening is the glimmer even of a lamp seen through the drift, telling us of comfort and of home! When we have long been driven by the waves and tost, so that hope has fled and exertion become paralysed, how welcome the haven of our rest! When strangers have long been our only associates in a foreign land, where no familiar face was near to greet us with its smile, how pleasant to know
“There is an eye will markOur coming, and look brighter when we come!”
“There is an eye will mark
Our coming, and look brighter when we come!”
—And how much more gladdening that Word of God which irradiates the path of a believer,THE PILLAROF CLOUDAND FIRE.a pillarof cloud by day, a pillar of fire by night! In joy or in sorrow, in youth or in age, in his home, in his place of toil or of business, amid unceasing activities, or when the sands of life are ebbing low, such a man has a directory at every hour of need, a counsellor in every difficulty—enough to crown his weary life with a portion of the joy of his God.
THE HALCYON.
THEHALCYON.We meet with some who have manifestly no guide but passion, or feeling, or human opinion. They therefore live in a state of constant fretfulness and mental fever, at once troubling and troubled. While others have an anchor cast within the veil, these men are driven by the wind and tost. Some are kept in perfect peace, even amid the agitations of life; they are like the little bird which is said to build its nest amid the breakers of the sea, and is most calm when perched on the crest of an angry wave. Others are like the restless sea; and whence this difference? The divine directory is in the hand of the one class; it is ignored or perverted by the other. The divine mind is the mind of the one; caprice and the changing passions of a troubled soul form the standard or the tyrant of the other. To the one, truth is truth, in the heart, the home, and the place of public resort; to the other, truth is but a name.—The bodies of those who live under a directly vertical sun, reflect no shadow; at least their shadow is under their feet, and these shadowless bodies are emblems of the condition of those who live nearest to the Sun of Righteousness: like the children of thelight, they are preparing for the world where there is neither shadow nor night.
THE ORNAMENT OF LIFE.
THEORNAMENTOF LIFE.But godliness is the Ornament of life as well as its Director.
And what is it that constitutes the beauty of a soul?—All that God has made is lovely according to its kind. Look at the little flower, and see what beauties beam upon us there. Contemplate the firmament above us, the meet type of Jehovah’s immensity; and mark the surprising loveliness which is there. Or examine the winged insect which buzzes around us, only, perhaps, to vex and to annoy—there are more beauties and more marks of wisdom in that little thing, than the science of man has yet been able to tell. Now, if even these mean, these transient, and ephemeral things, are clothed in loveliness by God, may we not expect a more exquisite beauty in that immortal thing, the soul of man? It was once in the image of God; it is capable of wearing that image again. And what is it that constitutes its beauty?
THE MISERY OF SIN.
We need not again reply—It is holiness. It is purity like the purity of God. It is perfection like his perfection. Sin at the first marred the moral beauty, and put all that is morally offensive in its stead. But a new creation takes place. The original loveliness begins to be restored. The beauties of holiness decorate the soul, and with the restoration of holiness the restoration of happiness begins.THE MISERYOF SIN.Give the unholy soul the wealth for which millionspant; give it an empire like that of our sovereign, on which the sun never sets. Let all that can gladden and regale be poured into the cup of an ungodly man. The mere fact that he is unholy, would leave him deformed and unseemly; his soul would be wretched, craving, aching still.—A nobleman of ancient name and brilliant powers once ranked among the most conspicuous of all who dwelt in our land. He was admired by millions, and, for a time, was “followed, flattered, sought, and sued,” wherever he appeared. But he was slightly deformed in a limb; and when his eye fell on the deformity, even from the heights of his fame, he was chafed and chagrined: it was more than a counterbalance to all the incense which was offered to his powers. Now, that nobleman was as signal for his ungodliness as he was for his powers.
THE JOY OF HOLINESS.
But, on the other hand, place a holy soul in a dungeon. Let the new, the holy nature which the Spirit of God imparts, be imparted to such a man. With that in his soul, let the persecutor wreathe his chains around him; let him “five times receive forty stripes save one;” let all men forsake him and flee;—still, by the grace of God, that soul would be made more like the Holy One by the very sorrows which it encountered and the tears which it shed: and it is thus that godliness becomes the ornament of life.THEJOY OFHOLINESS.As the rainbow would never be seen were it not for the clouds and the rain, the beauties of holiness would never shine so brightly were it not for the trialswhich the Spirit of God employs to promote them. Butwhenhe employs them, the soul of man is changed into the image of the Redeemer, from glory to glory. Though covered by sin with wounds and bruises and noisome sores, it is created anew, after the image of God, in righteousness and true holiness. The altogether lovely One becomes the model of that soul; and ornament after ornament is bestowed—such adornings as the eye of God can complacently regard, for they are the work of his own Spirit: they indicate the restoration of his handiwork, from the state of ruin into which it had lapsed, to the state of beauty in which it appeared when it sprang into being at his word.
It is holiness, then, that is the ornament of man. Without that, no mental power, no constellation of gifts, can give beauty to our spirits, as they are seen by God. Knowledge may be power; but it is only the power of evil. Acquirements may be extensive; but they are only like gaudy trappings on a hearse, or music in a dying man’s chamber, unless truth in the heart become holiness in the life.
But when Christianity is planted in the heart and soul of man, it becomes his Joy as well as his director and ornament. This is sunshine; all besides is gloom.
THE VAIN PURSUIT.
THE VAINPURSUIT.Upon this we need not expatiate long. It is manifest as day to all who have submitted to the guidance of reason illumined by the lamp of life, the Bible, that Christianity introduces us to the highest joy ofearth or heaven, even joy in the Holy Ghost; and while destitute of that, whatever he may possess, man is wretched, and miserable, and blind. One man seeks happiness in sin; but did he ever find it? Nay, is it not like taking fire to his bosom? Is it not like a wound to his immortal nature? O, is it not a mournful delirium, to dream of finding joy in that which caused the creation of a place of torment—which doomed a world to misery—which digs our graves—which lays us in them, and fills our homes from time to time with the voice of lamentation and woe?
Another man seeks joy in wealth; but after he has all that he can grasp, is not his heart still, like the daughters of the horse-leech, crying, “Give, give?” As well attempt to satisfy the hungry body with the name of bread, as the craving soul with material things. It was created to be happy in God; and, without him, the universe cannot fill the void in man’s heart.
DEATH-BEDS.
Another seeks joy in friendship, or in beautiful human affection.DEATH-BEDS.But remorseless death comes: he strikes down the object to which affection clings; and where is the bereaved one now? He is well-nigh wearying for the grave, and so of all that begins and ends on earth: its blossom goes up like rottenness at last. It is simply impossible that any object whose root is in the dust can gladden the soul of man, apart from the God who made it.
Has God, then, left us without joy? When we became idolaters, did he leave us to our idols, totears, and woe? Nay, there is blessedness even here below; and the knowledge, the fear, the love, and favour of God, is its fountain-head. In reconciliation to Him—in His image restored—in growing holiness—in greater and yet greater love and likeness to the Saviour of the soul—the man of God, the man who is truly rational, finds the streams of his joy. God himself is the fountain; but his blessings are the rills which flow from it: and he who has not felt this joy, is still living among shadows, and phantoms, and names. His is only the comb rifled of the honey; his is the dream without the reality; his the corruption and the death of sin, without the pleasures which flow from God into the soul.—Is the land of his fathers a source of joy to the returning exile? Is the breath of spring a source of gladness to man’s fevered brow? Is the face of nature a source of pleasure to him who has long been immured amid the damps of a dungeon? Far more than all these together, is a sense of God’s favour to the soul which has returned from its wanderings, to seek its blessedness again on the bosom of its God.
VOLTAIRE.
And it is to godliness, or at least some counterfeit of it, that all, or nearly all, men flee for joy at last. Some, indeed, die like the beasts that perish, without either fear or joy. Conscience is dead before the body. It occasions no alarm; and such men pass into the presence of the Judge perhaps denying his very existence. But not so all. When conscience isaroused from its long stupor by the nearness of death, how eager do some appear for the joy which religion promises! how gladly would they now grasp at what they have practically despised, perhaps for threescore years and ten!VOLTAIRE.There is one who has spent a lifetime in denying the truth as it is in Jesus. He declared that he hated the Saviour’s very name, and did all that wit and powers the most diversified could accomplish to blot it from the hearts and memories of men. That man hated the truth with a perfect hatred, and gloried in his hatred; it secured for him the applause of myriads who felt that truth to be fettering, and who rejoiced in the help of one so gifted in their attempt to banish it from the earth.—But that man is dying at last, and all is changed now. Goaded by conscience, he flees to a poor superstition—he tries to soothe his soul by believing one of the most enormous impositions ever practised upon man.He eats what he reckons, or what an abject superstition teaches him to regard as “the body, the blood, and the divinity” of Him whom he had so long blasphemed and denied; and that very superstition of that dying infidel41tells where it is that man finds or tries to find his joy after all. It is just an infidel’s method of proclaiming, “Godliness has the promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.”
Or if we refer to a case less extreme than that of an avowed infidel, the same truth appears—the samelesson is taught. God and his favour alone can gladden or satisfy the soul.
SIR WALTER SCOTT.
SIRWALTERSCOTT.Another man, then, not less distinguished in his day than Voltaire, is passing on to his great account. Millions in many lands have admired his genius, and offered incense to his name. Wherever he moves he is followed by applauding crowds; and if ever there was one who might have been satisfied with the homage of his fellow-mortals, that was the man. Princes deemed themselves honoured by being under his roof. Royalty set him at its right hand. He added field to field. He determined to make for himself a local habitation, as he had already made for himself a name; and his mansion, once modest and humble, grew into “a romance in stone.”
But the fashion of this world vanishes away, and that man must die. Before he leaves the scenes which his presence had long invested with smiles, he must read a lesson to man—had man a heart to learn it—more salutary and profound than any he had ever tried to teach. The wind of adversity blew, and shattered his fortunes and his hopes together. Death entered his abode, and one who had long been its joy was carried to the tomb. Then affliction laid its hand upon himself. The body was palsied, the mind a wreck; and amid all this, that man’s spasmodic efforts to resume his former self, rank among the most touching incidents in the chequered history of humanity. But we must listen to his own words to learn his tale of woe, and see how broken is every earthlycistern when man seeks joy from it apart from God; how shadowy and dream-like is every earthly thing apart from Him who is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.
SORROW UNSOOTHED.
SORROWUNSOOTHED.“When I think,” says this idol of millions, on the eve of leaving his home at the bidding of stern necessity and financial pressure; “when I think what this place now is, compared with what it has been not long ago, I think my heart will break. Lonely, aged, deprived of all my family, I am an impoverished and embarrassed man.”
Farther, he thus touchingly wails: “Death has closed the dark avenue of love and friendship. I look at them as through the grated door of a burial-place, filled with monuments of those who once were dear to me, and with no other wish than that it may open for me at no distant period.”
And as if to show that all his anguish did not come from without, the great Novelist says, “Some new object of complaint comes every moment. Sicknesses come thicker and thicker; friends are fewer and fewer. The recollection of youth, health, and power of activity neither improved nor enjoyed, is a poor strain of comfort.The best is, the long halt will arrive at length, and close all.”42
THE MIMIC IMMORTALITY.
THE MIMICIMMORTALITY.Now, it will be noticed in these extracts that it isthe gravewhich closes the vista of that greatly gifted man; at least he never refers to the bright ulterior of which the tomb might be the portal.—“I have no other wish than that the grated door of a burial-place may open for me at no distant period.”—“The best is, the long halt will arrive at length, and close all”—it is there that the mind seems to rest. It never rises into the region of immortality. It does not refer to that favour of God which is life. As far as these mournful records tell, that soul had nothing to repose on but what was soon to enwrap the body—the earth, and earthly things. Dazzled even to blindness by the mimic immortality which man bestows on man, the life and immortality of the Gospel were ignored. Steeped in the possessions which only increase the thirst which some suppose they quench, that man discovered and confessed that he was “an impoverished and embarrassed man,” when he might have exulted in the unspeakable gift, the unsearchable riches of Christ.
THE BROKEN HEART.
Now, it is thus that men sow the wind and reap the whirlwind, by expecting that joy from things which are seen and temporal, which can be found only in the things which are unseen and eternal; and it is thus that the men who
“Hunt their misery with a zeal to die”
proclaim to all who have ears to hear, that if we would have joy to the full, and blessings such as can satisfy the soul, they must be sought in Him who isour peace, “of whom and to whom are all things.” “Surely he is, or ought to be, a happy man,” said a visiter at Sir Walter Scott’s abode.THEBROKENHEART.“When I think of what it is now ... I think my heart will break”—is his own dirge-like response.
But it is not merely in the high concerns of eternity that a man of God finds sources of joy. Even amid the cares and distractions of earth, he has often a peace which is independent of all earthly sources. He sees God in all events, and soon discovers that they all work together for his good: however diverse in their origin or aspect, they sweetly blend into one harmonious whole, of which blessedness is the product to a child of God. Think of the complex machinery which pours such wealth into the lap of our nation, by multiplying manifold its productive power. How intricate in its parts! how apparently incomprehensible to an inexperienced mind; yet how simple, how exquisitely beautiful in itsresults! Or think of the sunlight in which all nature rejoices. It can be decomposed into seven primary elements, yet how simple and how lovely is the product of their combination! And so it is in the various events of providence: they all blend into one harmonious result; they are all presided over by our Father who is in heaven; and they all pour into the soul of a believer more real joy than the world can know, even “when its corn and its wine are increased.”
But the crown and consummation of the whole is,that godliness is not merely the Director, the Ornament, or the Joy of this life; it is the prelude to the Life that is to come.
What are to be our employments in heaven? How shall we be sustained? How perceive, or feel, or rejoice? Shall we recognise in glory those whom we loved on earth?—or is the Alpha and the Omega of faith, the Alpha and the Omega of fruition? These, and a thousand other questions, are raised by the curious mind; but the most that we can say in reply is, “It doth not yet appear what we shall be.” There will be praise in glory. There will be following the Lamb. There will be satisfaction with God’s likeness. There will be the fulness of joy and pleasures for evermore. But after all, the mind, while in the body, is exhausted by the effort to comprehend what we shall be: it falls back fatigued upon the words of him who once lay on the Redeemer’s bosom, “It doth not yet appear what we shall be.”
THE MILLENNIUM.T-16
THE MILLENNIUM.T-16And yet there is a sense or a measure in which we can understand heaven.—In our day we hear much of the Millennium. Churches are divided on the subject. Brother differs from brother; and it is difficult indeed, definitely to fix “what saith the Lord” regarding it. But connected with the millennium there is one subject, concerning which we may speak with perfect decision on the undoubted authority of God. As the whole is composed of its parts, the blessedness of the millennial state can be composed only of the blessedness of individual souls. Now, wouldI introduce that blessed era as far as I am concerned? Then let me make sure that Christ is already personally reigning in me. Would I see the kingdom of God set up in our groaning world; and would I like to fix a day for its commencement? Then let methis daymake it sure that the king of glory is on the throne of my heart, that “Christ is in me the hope of glory.”—Whatever the millennium is to be, or whensoever it is to begin, it can, at the most, consist only of Christ’s personal reign. Now, he should be reigning at this hour in me. Be that, through grace, accomplished, and we are in preparation for the millennial glory; though the bright visions of some were turned into realities to-morrow, we should be found meet to enter on the joy of our Lord. “The millennium will never come,” said Harlan Page, “till Christians are more awake to duty.”
HEAVEN.
HEAVEN.And so of the eternal state. Does Christ reign in any soul now? Then, beyond the grave, that reign perfected will be heaven. Is Christ stamping on us now the image of the Eternal, and restoring what the fall ruined or effaced? Then that restoration completed will be heaven. Is Christ on earth showing us the Father? Then beyond the grave, we shall be eternally restored to the Father’s favour; and that is heaven, for his favour is life, and his loving-kindness better than life. Our joy on earth—our religion—when it is a fruit of the Spirit, is at once a preparative and a prelude to the joys of heaven. They are the same in kind, and differ only in degree. He thatis holy in a measure now, will be holy in perfection at last. He that loves the Saviour in a measure now, will love him in perfection beyond the grave; here we see the bud, on high we shall partake of the ripe and mellow fruit—all according to the words, “He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still.”
Let us try to find some one who is ignorant of the great processes of nature; one of the untutored savages who still hover near the margin which separates the rational from merely animal nature. Let him be ignorant, for example, of the processes of vegetation. With the one hand show him an acorn—a thing so small that it can scarcely serve even for an infant’s toy; with the other, show him some majestic oak, beneath whose ample shade the beasts of the field and the birds of the air find a common shelter. Then tell that degraded one, that that majestic tree was once enveloped in such a little seed—how incredulous, or how amazed, would that “Stoic of the woods” appear!
THE BUD—THE BLOSSOM—THE FRUIT.
THE BUD—THE BLOSSOM—THE FRUIT.And the same thing happens in regard to the coming eternity. Godliness is the germ, of which eternal glory is the majestic result. Grace is the bud, of which heaven is the ample fruitage. Like the darkling savage, we may be unable to comprehend the process by which the one passes into the other. But our ability is not the measure of God’s.The onedoespass into the other; grace does pass into glory; and he is wise, heonlyis wise, who makes it his business on earth to tend that germ, or screen it from all that would crush or destroy it. He is wise who places it often in the clear shining of the Sun of Righteousness, or under the influence of Him who assures us that he will refresh it like the dew. The delicate exotic will not otherwise grow; and for want of such tending, ten thousand times ten thousand let it wither, and pine, and perish.
THE RESURRECTION.
GLORY—HONOUR—IMMORTALITY.
THERESURRECTION.It is a saddening thing to stand by the edge of the open grave, and see dust returned to the dust. One, perhaps, with whom we have often taken sweet counsel, upon whose arm we have leant, whose soul has touched our soul, with whom we had all things in common, even to the secrets of the heart, is entombed. The cold earth must hide him, and even affection must hasten to bury him out of sight. But that very body thus consigned to corruption is yet to come forth a glorious body, when death shall be swallowed up of life.GLORY—HONOUR—IMMORTALITY.That which is sown in dishonour is to grow in glory, if united to Him who is the resurrection and the life, who has abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light in the gospel. Its home for ever is to be—
“The city of the golden pavement—Seat of endless festival.”
“The city of the golden pavement—
Seat of endless festival.”
—And thus do we glance at the Spirit’s fruit in the soul—or God’s religion, not man’s—as the crown and consummation of life. We have looked at it asitshouldreign in the Heart:Doesit reign there? We have studied it as presiding in our Homes, and leading all who are there in the “way of the Lord:” To what extent has that been accomplished? We have gone, with the lamp of life in our hand, into the Workshop of the artisan, and tried to tell how it ennobles toil by sanctifying him who toils. We have taken that lamp, and tried to shed its light upon the Marts of business; and is it the case that our merchandise and our hire are holiness to the Lord? We have referred to what should be the ascendency of God’s truth in our Social Intercourse; and if it preside there, we are not far from the kingdom of heaven; nay, we are within its sacred borders, and the crown of all will be glory, honour, and immortality, through Jesus Christ our Lord.