VII.

LET YOUR LIGHT SO SHINE BEFORE MEN, THAT THEY MAY SEE YOUR GOOD WORKS, AND GLORIFY YOUR FATHER WHICH IS IN HEAVEN.Matt.5:16.

The people of God are the light of the world—luminous bodies, shining amid the moral darkness around them.

Two kinds of bodies, in the physical world, are mediums of light. Those which are in their very substance luminous, as the sun, the fixed stars, or a burning lamp. These shine by virtue of their own properties. Their light is inherent and underived. Another class of bodies shine only by reflected light. Opaque in their nature, they send back only those rays which are sent upon them. Such are the moon, the planets and their satellites—luminous only upon the surface, but dark within.

In a certain degree, Christians resemble this latter class of bodies; but not altogether. The light they possess is indeed a derived light, and not self-originated. They are bynature dark and rayless; but the light which has shone upon them penetrates beyond the surface, and makes the very inner soul luminous with its radiance. It generates light: it transforms them into living light-bearers. They not only reflect the beams which fall upon the surface, but send forth from within new rays of moral brightness. “God,” says the apostle, “who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

Christians, then, are not mere reflectors, luminous only on the surface; but they radiate light from their own inner being. This light is owing to the illuminating power of the Holy Spirit, awakening, converting, and sanctifying them. By that power they are made in the image of Christ, and saved. Such is the light they possess—a light enkindled within them, and reflected from them.

Our Saviour teaches, in the text, that this light which they havemust shine through their practical lives and conduct. “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your goodworks, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” It is the very nature of light to shine. Christians shine through their holy lives. Their good works are the rays which they emit. The world sees them, and judges of them. In all they say and do for God, in the spirit which they manifest, and the example they exhibit, they scatter light around them. Other men see it.

The tendency of this is to prompt others to glorify God the Father—“that they, seeing your good works, may glorify your Father which is in heaven.” This too must be the motive to prompt Christians to diligence in good works. It is not to exalt themselves, but to honor God. Not to establish a ground of merit in the sight of God, not to build up a righteousness of their own, do they strive for a holy life, but to glorify God. Not to shine and bedazzle others by the splendor of their virtue; but to shed around them that light which they have received, to reflect the beams which have illuminated them, and thereby lead others to praise and glorify God for his wondrous work of grace in them.

Hence we derive the proposition that God’s people, redeemed by the blood of Christ, and regenerated by the Holy Spirit,are shining ones, exhibiting the glory of God, beyond any other of his creatures or works.

In illustrating this proposition I remark, that God is revealed to us only through his works. “No man hath seen God at any time.” Purely spiritual in his nature, and infinite in his perfections, we cannot know him, except through his works. How he is known to angels and the pure spirits of heaven, we cannot tell; but to us, the Lord is known by the operation of his hands. His character and glory are reflected to us by his doings. Yet the different works of God manifest to us his glory in different degrees, according to their nature.

1. His material creation exhibits to us his omnipotence, his wisdom, skill, and greatness. When we cast our eyes upward and view the boundless fields of immensity studded with suns and satellites, sweeping the trackless territories of space with no discord or confusion, and then turn our eye earthward and surveythe infinite variety of material objects around us, with properties varying endlessly, and yet all combined in one beautiful and harmonious whole, our minds cannot resist the impression of the might, the grandeur, the magnificence of Deity. Here we behold his glory as the great Architect, the omnipotent Creator.

2. But when we advance from mere lifeless matter to his doings with living, sentient creatures, who are capable of enjoyment and of suffering, these exhibit his glory in a higher perfection than any material handiwork; for here appears the goodness and benevolence of God, seen in the constitution of these creatures for happiness, and the abundant means which he has provided for their well-being. In moulding and shaping the material universe into an infinite variety of forms, God publishes his glory as a skilful and mighty builder; but when he comes to people these material worlds with sentient creatures, and displays an adaptation of all to promote their enjoyment, then does the Deity rise far above the place of a mere architectural designer, and proclaim his kindness and his love. The irrationalcreation, from the summer insect which sports out its brief existence in the sunbeams, to the flocks and herds which range the valleys clothed with verdure, all unite their testimony that God is good, and his tender mercies are over all his works.

Ascend now a step higher. Follow up the scale of being from mere sentient, irrational creatures, to moral, responsible intelligences. Here is reflected a new class of the Creator’s attributes. Here there shines a glory which the whole material universe never could reveal. In creating and dealing with moral agents, endowed with reason and moral sense, the Almighty manifests the truth, the justice, and the holiness of his character. These glorious perfections of God rise infinitely above his mere natural attributes; and they require creatures endowed with a moral nature, and under a moral government, in order to their manifestation. God might build worlds upon worlds, and deck them with far more gorgeous splendors than are flung over this one we live on; but were they unpeopled by any rational intelligences, they could publish nothing ofGod’s glory, except that he was a builder of mighty power and skill. This is what Nature, in her works, declares of God. But when God calls into being his moral creation, he advances far beyond the position of a mere architect, an almighty builder, to that of a moral governor; and in the unfoldings of his character we discover what we never could see elsewhere, the beauty of holiness, the majesty of justice, the excellency of truth.

These lofty perfections of the divine nature are reflected in His dealings with moral beings, and nowhere else. In rewarding holiness, and punishing transgression, Jehovah exhibits the transcendent purity of his own being. Holy angels in their raptures, and fallen angels in their woes, reflect the moral glory of the Godhead. In dealing with them, God publishes to the universe his supreme regard for his holy law, and that “righteousness and judgment are the habitation of his throne.”

Is there any higher glory than this possible? Are there any perfections of God back of these which wait to be revealed; any grander purposes and movements of the divine mindwhich can enhance the lustre of his character, and add to the splendor of that “light, inaccessible, and full of glory,” which surrounds his dwelling-place? Yes, there are.

It is in his relations and dealings withredeemed men, in saving sinners, and restoring them from a fallen, ruined state, to holiness and bliss. Here is a new glory thrown around his character, a new theatre of action. Here the divine mind grapples with the great problem of moral evil, and proposes to save the sinner without compromising His truth and holiness. Here the perfections of love and mercy, compassion and forbearance, favor to the wretched, grace to the undeserving, all break forth.

These perfections of God’s nature could never have been known to his intelligent universe without a plan of salvation for sinners. The angels in the realms of holiness never could have called them into exercise. Much as God might delight to reward and bless them, he could not show aught of compassion or grace to them, for there could be no possible room for God to exercise any suchdispositions towards such beings. Mercy can be exercised only towards the wretched, grace only to the unworthy, long-suffering and forbearance only towards the guilty; but in the case of holy beings, God can find nothing to forgive, nothing to bear with, nothing to develop the riches of his grace.

We see then, how redeemed sinners exhibit the glory of God in a strange and peculiar light. When God moves to save them, he displays a new class of perfections, which never could be known except as they are here manifested. Every Christian is a living epistle, publishing something of God which the intelligent universe can read nowhere else. Every Christian declares that God is a God of infinite grace and mercy, long-suffering and forgiving; a God full of compassion and love. He is a living witness to these perfections, for he is a guilty creature rescued from sin and hell. In him God displays precisely those traits of his character which awaken the profoundest admiration of his creatures, which attract them towards him, which enkindle love. Indeed we may say that, were it not for theplan of salvation for sinners, there would exist in the divine nature a class of perfections of which his creatures must be for ever ignorant.

But this plan lifts the veil, and bids us behold the infinite heart of God. The Christian is the being in whom God displays these excellences; he is the trophy of grace; he reflects the glory of the Godhead beyond any thing seen in all other creatures. None but he can testify of Jehovah’s boundless grace and compassion, of the triumph of infinite wisdom and love in baffling the arts of Satan, and rescuing a lost sinner from hell and fitting him for heaven. This work is the climax of Jehovah’s undertakings, and the Bible plainly teaches that to angelic minds there are no operations of the Godhead, throughout his vast dominions, which can compare with this in interest and in glory.

Again, as has been already remarked, Christians are not mere reflectors of God’s glory; but there is a light beaming from within them whichmakes them luminous, for they are made to resemble Christ in their character; they are created anew in the imageof Christ; they are begotten of him, and are said to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ.” All true Christians do thus resemble, at least in some degree, the Saviour.

But Christ is the grandest manifestation of the Godhead ever made to creatures. He was “the brightness of the Father’s glory, and the express image of his person.” No other display of the Godhead can be compared with that of the Word made flesh. And surely it must follow that creatures who resemble him must reflect, in the highest degree, the glory of God. Angels may be perfect in holiness, but their character does not present the same moral aspect as that of Christians who have been saved and sanctified. Both will be holy; but in the character of a perfectly sanctified Christian there will appear many things which an angel never can exhibit. It will resemble that of Christ more than that of Gabriel, and in so doing will manifest the glory of God as it shone in the face of Jesus Christ.

To what an honorable and exalted position does the Bible advance the Christian! Set in the firmament of intelligent beings, he shineswith a peculiar light, like a star whose beams emit a peculiar halo, and whose twinkling disc wears a brighter effulgence than its fellows. “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork.” Angels reflect that glory in a higher degree; but sinners raised from guilt and ruin, and made sons of God, furnish the grandest exhibition of the divine perfections ever made. Such is the relation Christians sustain to God and to other intelligences—they are reflectors of God’s glory.

But when I read my text I learn that they are not mere passive reflectors. They are to give light not merely as polished mirrors hung in the sunbeams; they are to shine from within, as well as on the surface. There must be a settled aim and purpose to scatter light about them. “Let your light so shine,” says Christ. The word “so” here implies that you have a deep responsibility as to the kind of light you give, and the effect produced by it. It is a light which must be made to shine through your good works, your holy lives. And those works must be prosecuted in such a way thatmen shall be led by them to “glorify your Father which is in heaven.” Here is the great law of Christian activity: that all you do shall be done in a way which shall tell for the glory of God. Christian friend, here is the governing principle of your life. It requires you to act with reference to the good of others. It bids you keep ever in view the influence of your conduct upon those around you. ’Tis a high, a noble principle—the glory of God. ’Tis an unselfish principle, which will enable you to display to the world all the graces of a holy life without pride or ostentation, and so to walk that men will give God the glory of any good they find in you.

Ah, we fear it is a principle too often wanting, even with those who profess to be God’s people. Many have no objection to let their light shine while they can be appreciated; many are willing that others shall see their good works, and glorify themselves for them; many will devote their time and labor to the cause of Christ so long as they can have the preëminence, and impress others with the idea of their own importance. Their lightwill shine, but shine only to let the world see their own perfections, and pay homage to their sanctity.

But far different from this is the spirit of a Christian’s service. It is not self, but God who must have all the glory. Let itsoshine, says Christ, that it shall lead all who see it to render God the glory. Let ungodly men learn from your holy lives the reality and excellency of that salvation which you have tasted. Let the light of your example shine so that they too shall be led to seek the same divine illumination. Let all your works point them to that Redeemer who has called you out of darkness, and prompt them to seek him as their own. Thus will they glorify your Father which is in heaven.

Such is the spirit of the Saviour’s words before us, and the practical inquiry for us all is, How do our lives correspond with this spirit?

First of all, have we really any light to shed around us? A mere profession is worthless as an empty lamp. Have our hearts been illuminated by divine grace? Has the darknessof guilt and ignorance and error been scattered there; and have we tasted the sweets of pardon, peace, and sanctification?

Depend upon it, we can give no light to others without first having our own hearts illuminated by the Holy Spirit. A mere profession of religion, unaccompanied by the active virtues of piety, will give no light. Let us then look closely within, and ask, Have we any light of grace ourselves? And in connection with this, and following it, will come the inquiry, What good are we doing to the world by it? Oh, my brethren, the Saviour bids us look around us upon our fellow-men and ask, What has all our religion amounted to? What have we accomplished for God’s glory? How much light have we scattered? Whom have we enlightened and saved through our Christian influence? What souls have we led to repentance and belief in Jesus Christ? Has our light shone to any purpose? Have we been the instruments of instructing and saving others? Inquiries like these must come up, for God’s people are the light of the world, and their mission is to reflect hisglory as no seraph even can do it. It therefore follows that the question of your influence upon the world around has vitally to do with the question whether you are a child of God at all; for if there is no light radiating from your life, there is none in you. If your light does not shine, it is because you have none; wherever it exists in the soul it must shine out.

Every Christian has a positive influence for good. All do not shine with equal power and brilliancy, but they shine. Some scatter their rays far and wide, and become the moral lights of their generation, and some only glimmer like a feeble taper; but even the taper gives light to some, and so every Christian must shed rays of light upon some soul.

Christian friends, where are those rays falling from your lives and conversation? Whose way do they enlighten? Do your children see them? And have you, by the lustre of your Christian example, led a single soul to Christ? Oh look well to the influence you are exerting. Beware lest your profession be in vain; for “if the light that is in you be darkness, how great is that darkness!”

The Raven and the Dove.

AND IT CAME TO PASS AT THE END OF FORTY DAYS, THAT NOAH OPENED THE WINDOW OF THE ARK WHICH HE HAD MADE: AND HE SENT FORTH A RAVEN, WHICH WENT FORTH TO AND FRO, UNTIL THE WATERS WERE DRIED UP FROM OFF THE EARTH. ALSO HE SENT FORTH A DOVE FROM HIM, TO SEE IF THE WATERS WERE ABATED FROM OFF THE FACE OF THE GROUND. BUT THE DOVE FOUND NO REST FOR THE SOLE OF HER FOOT, AND SHE RETURNED UNTO HIM INTO THE ARK; FOR THE WATERS WERE ON THE FACE OF THE WHOLE EARTH.Genesis8:6-9.

The narrative which contains these words introduces us to one of the darkest and most desolate periods in the history of our world. Rapid and appalling had been the progress of human degeneracy. Religion and virtue had well-nigh become extinct, and all flesh had corrupted its way on the earth. The good men of the antediluvian age were dead, while but one of the hoary patriarchs was left to bear witness for Jehovah before a God-despising generation, and to perpetuate the succession of the faithful in the world. It was time for God to work, for men had made void hislaw. The vast population of this globe was swept away by a deluge of waters—that most awful visitation of divine vengeance, the evidences of which are to this day found, and the traditions of which are preserved among the primitive nations of every continent.

Righteous Noah and his household were alone preserved by special divine interposition. Forewarned of God, he prepared an ark for the saving of himself and his family, which in due time was freighted with the remnant of the human race and pairs of the various tribes of the irrational creation, and floated upon the wide waste of waters, beneath which lay buried all the monuments of an apostate and heaven-daring generation.

Forty long days were numbered after the flood began to abate, and still the huge ark floated on the boundless deep, and the patriarch’s heart grew anxious about the future. With a trembling hand he opened the window of the ark, and sent forth the raven to seek for some tidings of a buried world; but the bird came not back. Though the waters were dark and the desolation unbroken, still shereturned not to the friendly shelter which had so long protected her, but chose to allay the cravings of hunger, and live amid the wrecks and ruins which drifted to and fro upon the broad abyss. Days again pass slowly away. Another messenger is dispatched to seek for tidings. The dove leaves the window of the ark, and spreads her pinions and soars away over the wild expanse; but the unpropitious skies are overhead, the green fields and shady woodlands are gone; no nourishment is found amid the shattered fragments, and no objects of delight are seen across the dreary wastes. The raven may perch upon the drifting offal, and screech out its hoarse notes amid the awful solitudes; but the timorous dove, finding no rest for the sole of her foot, hastens her flight back to the patriarch, and nestles securely in the friendly ark.

There are materials for profitable reflection in this simple story. Let us condescend to learn lessons of true wisdom from the raven and the dove.

1. In the solitary ark floating securely on the flood you may discover no unfit emblemof thatonly spiritual refugewhich God has provided for our ruined race in the person and work of his Son Jesus Christ. The fearful apostasy of our first parent drove our race out upon an ocean of gloom and of peril. The special presence and favor of the Almighty was withdrawn, though his providential care over us as his creatures remained. But purposes of mercy were yet cherished in the divine mind, and the plan of salvation was revealed through Jesus Christ.

Here alone, in Christ, God manifests to us his gracious presence. Nowhere else in all the departments of his works does he admit us to his fellowship, or speak to us of his mercy. Take away from the world the special manifestation of God in Christ, and there is no way left for man to hold any communion with his Maker, no pledge of mercy or grace to him, no hope of security and happiness in the favor of his Sovereign. Man is left to drift on the dark billows of sin without a ray of deliverance, and without a single speck floating upon the wide expanse to tell him that he is not utterly abandoned to destruction.

But never has our world presented such an aspect of hopeless desolation. Even in the awful catastrophe of the deluge, when continents and isles with their teeming population were buried deep in the abyss of waters, and the sunbeams glistened only upon the boundless sea—then, when this rolling orb, which on the day of its creation looked fair and beauteous among the morning stars, had been transformed into a wandering beacon of almighty wrath—there was left one memento of lingering mercy, one solitary testimonial that Jehovah’s presence and favor were not clean gone for ever; for the ark floated upon the face of the waters. Terrible as was the spectacle which the deluged globe presented of God’s vengeance, still the storm-proof ark which sheltered the patriarch proclaimed the precious truth that there was one spot left where God appeared in mercy, one place of refuge and security for those who would embrace it, one point where hope gleamed over the future, and where God delighted to be gracious.

The ark was the symbol of that moreglorious Ark of safety provided for lost men in the salvation of Jesus Christ. Out of Christ the world is dark and stormy, and God is a consuming fire. On the tempestuous ocean of guilt we are tossed to and fro, and no bright isles of innocence lift their heads along the horizon and invite us to their secure retreats. The salvation scheme of Jesus Christ is the only refuge. Here alone God is seen hovering over the waters, and speaking of reconciliation and fellowship. Nowhere else has he offered to us a shelter; but to this God-provided Ark we are bidden to flee for refuge, which is amply furnished against every emergency, and which will safely bear us up through the floods of temptation and the billows of death, and finally bring us to the haven of rest beyond the grave.

To its sacred enclosure we are invited, as the last spot where the soul can find its reconciled God. Outside the elements are raging, the night of guilt is brooding, the thunders of Sinai are muttering, and the dun-colored sky is lurid with the flashes of impending wrath; within is the presence of God, the assuranceof peace, and the hope of heaven. Over the wastes of a fallen and sin-ruined world appears the salvation of Jesus Christ like the ark of the patriarch riding out the storms of the deluge. Here God is dwelling with men. Here is rest to the storm-driven soul. Here its guilt and alienation are put away from it, and it no longer lives without God and without hope. We have then discovered, in the ark which God directed Noah to build for the saving of himself and his family, a type of Christ and his salvation.

Let me now ask you to advance a step, and contemplate in the raven and the dove a representation oftwo opposite descriptions of human character. The one, that which finds no enjoyment in the presence and favor of Christ, and sees and feels no necessity for the provisions of salvation which are made in him; the other, that which is ever turning from the supports of this world and its delusive promises to seek its refuge and its resting-place in the presence of Christ and the favor of God, which flies to the hope set before it in the gospel, and nestles securely in the bosom ofthe Saviour. These two characters are the ungodly and the Christian—the children of this world and the children of God—differing in their tastes and habits and conduct from each other as the raven differs from the dove.

The ark where God and the patriarch dwelt together was no welcome retreat for the raven. Though it had saved the wild bird from inevitable destruction, and for many a weary day had carried it safely above the angry flood, still in the society which it afforded or the associations which it furnished there was naught that was congenial to its untamed nature; but preferring to roam unprotected, even amid solitude and gloom, it instinctively seized upon the first opportunity to escape what was indeed its friendly asylum, but which appeared to it only a prison-house. On the threshold of the open window the raven flapped its wings and soared away. Farewell to the ark, screamed the wild bird in the air, while the good old patriarch stood for a moment to watch its flight.

Though the scene without was one of unbounded desolation, where the storm cloudsrevelled and the fierce winds blew and dashed the dark-crested waves madly against the sky; though the fields where it once fed, and the tall trees where it was wont to build its nest were buried many a fathom deep beneath the floods, and all that was once fair and beautiful on earth was gone, still the bird of storm turned not homeward to the quiet ark; still in vain the patriarch opened again and again the window, and leaned upon the casement long and anxiously, to look out for the absent messenger. The bird would not come back. The sun goes down in clouds, and night settles slowly on the deep, but no return. The cravings of hunger are felt, but the carnivorous rover despises the well-stored granaries of the ark, and makes its evening meal out of the carcasses that drift upon the waters. Perched upon some floating ruin, it croaks out its hoarse requiem over the sepulchres of the unnumbered dead, and sleeps without a dream of the far-off ark.

Look yonder at thatRAVEN, and behold an emblem of lost and straying man without God in the world. No truth is more universallycertain, than that man’s real happiness and welfare is to be sought only in the smile and favor of his God. The more the human soul is brought into unison with its Maker—the nearer it advances to Deity—the more immediately it feels the presence of God and draws its supplies from him, the more sure is its present peace and its future bliss. It was once happy in this condition. Adam and God were friends. The primary effect of sin has ever been to separate man from God. The example of our first parents in hiding themselves among the trees of the garden, from the voice of the Lord, is an example which has been imitated by all the generations of their descendants. But the intervening distance between us and God has been surmounted by the Mediator. The fearful chasm has been spanned, and God now draws nigh unto us in the gospel of his Son, and invites us to draw nigh to him. Here, in the plan of salvation, he bids us accept of his grace. Here is the ark of safety, where no thunderbolts of his wrath will strike us, but where we may rest securely from the storms of the present life,and the retributions of the coming one. Here we are told to flee for refuge and hope. And once sheltered in this ark of salvation, we may have God our friend, and Jesus our Saviour. An open door is set before us, and the invitation given, “Come thou and all thy house into the ark.”

But carnal man prefers to roam. Tossed upon the troubled waters of life, where all is danger and uncertainty, he still persists in neglecting the great salvation, and like the raven, flies to and fro in search of happiness and safety. Life, to men without God, is but a chartless ocean, over which they course their way amid floating wrecks and ruins, vainly bent on satisfying the soul. High on the waters rides the ark of mercy, and the voice of God is heard inviting them to enter. But though the skies of life are so changing, and its waters so dark and troubled, that they ofttimes feel the need of better resources, still they look not to the gospel, but toil and fly from one to another quarter, crying, Who will show us any good? They want nothing to do with God. They care not for his favor. Theyprefer to live as far away as possible, and seek all their support amid the resources of the world.

Look at the sceptic, who, giving himself over to the dominion of infidelity, would blot out eternity from the future, and would repudiate the very being and the presence of the Almighty. As he travels through life away from God, and with no hope for the future; as immortality is to him a blank, and the world naught but chaos over which destiny and chance preside, and death is an eternal night, to what shall we liken him, but to the raven, far off from home, flapping its wings in the empty air where every thing that once breathed was dead, and where all was silence, desolation, and gloom.

Watch the men that toil for the riches of this world, who day by day ply their exhausting labors, and nightly dream of treasure heaps and gold, while God is put far from their every thought, and the gospel is neglected, and eternity thrust away from them, and the soul is left to glean its only comforts amid the perishable and fading possessions of earth, likethe wandering bird scouring the unbroken main, and seeking its abiding place among the floating wrecks of ruined palaces of bygone splendor.

Or what shall we say of those who banish from their minds the thoughts of God, and live only in the round of sensual indulgences, prostituting their every faculty to the service of the basest appetites, and giving an unbridled rein to sensual propensities? Where shall we find their prototype, but in the bird of prey that loved to breathe the putrid air, and gorge its appetite upon the carcasses which the waves washed up.

In short, differ as men may in their individual tastes and habits, there is this one prominent characteristic belonging to them all—an utter estrangement from God and Christ: an estrangement so inveterate, that all the trials and afflictions and disappointments of life are insufficient to bring them to seek security in him. Like the wandering raven, they fly from one to another refuge; “but none saith, Where is God my Maker, that giveth songs in the night?”

We turn now to consider the opposite description of character which is symbolized by the dove, which found no rest for the sole of her foot, and hastened back to the ark.

It is the Christian who has been brought near to God, and lives in the enjoyment of his presence. Once, like the raven, he loved to wander, and with the ungodly around him, he careered his way without God, and chased to and fro the vanities of this world. But by the regenerating grace of God, he is changed into a man of another spirit. The alienation and distance between him and God have been overcome, and he now finds his happiness in the felt presence and communion of that God from whom he has so long turned away.

’Tis the peculiar characteristic of the Christian, that he seeks, in the favor and presence of God, those delights which the ungodly strive for in vain among the objects of the world. He differs from them in his tastes and pursuits. He seeks in one direction, they in another. The current of his desires is so changed, that he feels estranged where they are most at home. What they most value hecares but little for. The company they delight in, he has no real sympathy with. He sits not in the seat of the scorners, but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day and night.

He may engage in the pursuits of secular life; he may be seen in the places of business and toil and enterprise, and bear a share in the rough struggle of the outdoor world; yet his chief pleasure is not found amid the cares of business and the schemes of profit, but in the fellowship of God and in the duties of devotion. Here his soul abides in peace. The service of Christ is congenial to his spiritual nature. His better thoughts ever dwell upon the unseen and eternal. Business and care may crowd upon him through the day; but he turns his footsteps homeward when the sun goes down, and like the dove returning to the ark, he seeks communion with God in the meditations of the closet. It is to him a welcome exchange to leave the bustling companionship of the world for the society of the Saviour. While the ungodly revel amid their tumultuous gayeties, he finds in the retirementof his devotions those joys that a stranger intermeddleth not with, and feels that as the hart panteth after the water brook, so panteth his soul after God. While temptations thicken around him, and strange voices are calling to him and bidding him wander further and further away, he still finds his only security in the presence of the Saviour, and flies to him like the dove to the arms of the patriarch.

God is his refuge too in the season of affliction and trial. Sometimes the world grows doubly dark, and crosses and disappointments overwhelm his soul; but the dove knows where to turn when the storm rages, and he flies for support and consolation to the presence of the Redeemer. In the time of trouble God will hide him in his pavilion, in the secret of his tabernacle will he hide him, till these calamities be overpast. It is the prevailing desire of the Christian to seek after God. Afflictions, crosses, and disappointments all drive him there. Like the dove wandering with weary wing over the dark abyss, he finds no rest for the sole of his foottill he betakes himself to the hiding-place of Jesus, and reflects how, ere long, the rough billows of life will be passed, and he shall be safely moored in the calm haven of eternity.

Pause here a moment, and reflect upon the radical difference between a true Christian and a worldling. The one is brought nigh unto God; the other is without God in the world. In the prevailing bent and purpose of their lives they are opposites. Their dispositions lead them in contrary directions. The providential dealings of God with them produce widely different results. The same storms of affliction which drive the Christian, like the dove, homeward to his refuge, ofttimes tempt the ungodly to fly, like the raven, further and further from the Ark of safety. “The wicked will not seek after God.”

These are the two great classes of human character which the Bible everywhere distinguishes. To one or the other class we all belong. We may multiply our distinctions between men as we please, and assign to one and another his relative position in the scale of human excellence; but at the last therewill remain but one broad line of separation between those who walk with God, and those who know him not. Tried by this test, where shall we be found? When the last storm of death shall gather, and the world be swept away from us, shall we be borne in the Ark of safety to the Ararat mountains of the heavenly land, and rest beneath the effulgent bow of the Redeemer’s glory; or shall we be driven out upon the shoreless waters of an eternity where the storms never cease their fury, and where the blackness of darkness for ever broods?

This momentous question of our future state is being settled by our present character. Are you living now in the fellowship and favor of God? We are told of the patriarch who rode out the deluge, that through the long previous years he “walked with God.” Is such the temper of your soul? Are you at home with Christ? Is God the portion of your spirit, and do you love the consciousness of his presence, and do you fly to him for aid? Can you live here within his covenant, and conform to his requirements, andlay hold upon his promises? Can you count all things but loss for him, and give up the world with its pleasures and its charms for the society and the service of the Lord Jesus? Or do you prefer to live a stranger to Christ, and a worldling in your desires and habits, without a shelter, though eternity must be to you a state of exile from all the holy and happy family of God?

The Rainbow.

I DO SET MY BOW IN THE CLOUD, AND IT SHALL BE FOR A TOKEN OF A COVENANT BETWEEN ME AND THE EARTH. AND IT SHALL COME TO PASS, WHEN I BRING A CLOUD OVER THE EARTH, THAT THE BOW SHALL BE SEEN IN THE CLOUD.Gen.9:13, 14.

The old world is gone. Its teeming population has been swept away by the besom of Jehovah’s wrath. The earth has been purified by the terrible baptism of water, and refitted to be the dwelling-place of new generations. Noah and his family are its sole inheritors. The human race are starting anew as it were, in a new world.

The Almighty signalized this grand era in the world’s history by a special manifestation of himself to Noah, the chief representative of the future generations. He entered into covenant with him; he gave him a new grant of eminent domain, formally installed him as the rightful possessor of the earth, and bade him repeople it and rule it.

Most cheering must have been such tokens of favor and regard from the Almighty to that lone, solitary family as they looked over an empty, desolate world.

Although they were saved, yet an air of deep sadness and melancholy must have rested upon every thing around them. The recollection of those awful scenes through which they had passed must have haunted their thoughts, and troubled their slumbers with frightful dreams. What if the sun shone again in beauty? What though their children should multiply, and they should again build cities, and repeople its desolate territories? Would not the storm clouds gather again, and the race be swept to destruction by similar successive judgments? Ah, would they not look up with terror every time the heavens grew dark, and fear lest the world should be drowned whenever the rain descended?

To allay all such apprehensions, while he commissioned them to repossess the earth, Jehovah assured the patriarch that the deluge would never be repeated. He kindly condescended to enter into covenant with Noah,that he and his posterity need have no fears of a second deluge; and promised that he would never do what he had done, and drown the world. The text declares to us what was the outward sign or token of this covenant: “I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud.”

The idea that the rainbow was something more than a mere natural phenomenon, that it was a pledge or token of something which God had promised to men, is preserved among the traditions of many heathen nations. Homer distinctly speaks of it in a remarkable passage in the Iliad, where he describes the glittering armor of Agamemnon as reflecting various lights, like colored rainbows—

“Jove’s wondrous bow,Placed, as a sign to man, amid the skies.”

Before considering the spiritual significance of this symbol, the inquiry naturally arises, Was the rainbow a new phenomenon in the natural world, seen for the first time afterthe deluge; or had it been a familiar sight to the antediluvians ever since the creation, and only selected by God and pointed out to Noah as a memorial of His promise made to him?

The man of science may presume to decide this question very easily by showing that the rainbow is no supernatural phenomenon, but is explained on the simplest principles of natural philosophy; that it is produced by the refraction of the sun’s rays through drops of water falling from the clouds, and is always seen when the sun and the clouds come into a certain relative position to the beholder; and therefore, that through the centuries previous to the deluge, mankind must many a time have witnessed the same beautiful arch spanning the heavens, and wondered at its variegated splendors.

But there are other considerations which have inclined learned and profound scholars to the opinion that the rainbow, for the first time mentioned in the text, was indeed new to Noah and his family, and that the generations of men before the flood never gazed upon such a sight.

We confess a strong bias to this latter view. It lends peculiar interest and significancy to this token. It is the sign of the promise that God will not again drown the world. Clouds may gather, storms rage, torrents roar, but their fury shall be stayed; and on the spent and receding clouds shall be hung the sun-lit bow, and from every tint and hue of its gorgeous drapery shall come whisperings of assurance to mortals who gaze upon it, that mercy triumphs over judgment.

“I will set my bow in the cloud,” says Jehovah. There, in the midst of the very elements which have caused alarm; there, where the lightnings flashed and the thunders pealed, and wrath and darkness gloamed overhead, there will I write my covenant in lines of beauty, and you and your posterity shall read it and rejoice.

But we need not stop with interpreting this symbol as a pledge against a mere physical overthrow of the world by water.

We seek for a deeper spiritual significance in it. Although in its primary application it was a sign of God’s covenant with Noah, it leadsour minds forward to a more perfect covenant, a covenant of grace, in which are contained the promises of God which shield his people from all spiritual evils which threaten them.

The import of the rainbow in its spiritual signification is worthy of special notice. We do not explain it so generally as some who regard it as a symbol of God’s willingness to receive men into favor again, or that it only indicates the Almighty’s faithfulness in fulfilling his promises. We interpret it more specially as a symbol of divine protection to God’s people from imminent and threatening dangers—that protection pledged in the covenant of grace in Christ Jesus to those who have fled for refuge to him. Such seems to be the idea conveyed by it in the vision of Ezekiel, where he speaks of what he saw over the throne above the heavens “as the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain.” A similar sight was enjoyed by John in Patmos, where in vision he beheld the throne in heaven: “And there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald.”

These references to the rainbow justify us in interpreting it as a symbol of grace returning after judgments; a pledge of God’s promise to stay the course of vengeance, to limit threatening evils that they shall not destroy, to arrest impending dangers, and succor his people when they are most exposed to destruction.

The bow in the cloud then is not a mere sign of God’s fidelity to his promises in general, but a particular token of his grace nigh at hand in emergencies, a sign for the hour of trouble and distress and alarm, a token of grace—not when the sky is clear, but when the heavens frown, when fear comes to the soul and it looks anxiously round for help. As a physical phenomenon it had this significancy. God set it in the cloud. It was brought forth only in the darkened heavens. It was nursed and cradled in the storm.

When therefore, at summer’s sunset, I gaze upon the beautiful iris arching the eastern horizon and resting on its dark background of clouds, my thoughts go out beyond the covenant of Noah to a richer covenant ofgrace, and I read in its gorgeous colorings a pledge of those provisions against spiritual dangers made in the mediatorial work of Jesus Christ. While the physical eye is delighted with the beauteous spectacle in the lower heavens, faith soars upward and sees around the throne of the Almighty’s glory a brighter bow set there through the mediation of the incarnate Son. It is the pledge and token of grace to sinners. It is the sign of the covenant of redemption.

When, upon the apostasy of man, the heavens gathered blackness and the clouds of divine wrath swept overhead, portending a deluge of divine justice; when the guilt of our transgressions left us with no covering from the eternal storm, the eternal God placed himself between us and hell, and by his own sacrifice upon the cross drew upon himself those magazines of vengeance. The divine law was satisfied in his atonement; the clouds broke and scattered around the Almighty’s throne. Light streamed athwart the gloom, and the Sun of righteousness, with healing in his beams, threw out its rays upon the retiringstorm, and arched the clouds of justice with the brilliant bow of peace and reconciliation. Every rainbow painted in the natural heavens points us to what Christ has done in the spiritual world. The physical eyeball sees the one, faith gazes upon the other. Both are associated with the idea of danger, both bespeak security and deliverance.

You perceive then the spiritual lesson conveyed to us by the rainbow in the clouds. It tells of God’s covenant of grace with his people, and the promises under that covenant of safety in the midst of fears.

How adapted is this lesson to the condition of believers in their present state. Oh, what could faith do without the bow in this stormy, troubled world? How many are the clouds which darken the believer’s way! But God has set his bow in every one of them—his pledge of deliverance and support.

Sometimes the dark cloud of his own transgressions settles terribly upon the Christian’s soul. The convictions of his heinous guilt almost drive him to despair. He asks himself, How can mercy reach so vile a sinner?how can such iniquity as mine be pardoned? Vainly does he look within himself for any thing to hope for. Ashamed and speechless, he has no satisfaction for the law’s demands. That law condemns him, conscience condemns him; but faith discovers deliverance in the atonement of the Lord Jesus. The covenant breaks upon his soul—his Saviour has died for him. His guilt is fully atoned for; and there is the bow of the covenant promises lighting up the cloud. “I will set my bow in the cloud,” says God, and when Sinai thunders in the soul I will arch its summit with the iris from the cross.

Again, how do the clouds of temptation sometimes thicken over the Christian’s way—temptations from within and without. And what discouragements press upon him from the rising corruptions of his heart and the onsets of the world. How often does he groan under his own weakness, and ask, Can such a one ever get through to heaven? But lo, in the covenant there are promises exactly meet for his condition, that he shall be held up to the end; and faith discovers bows in allthese clouds, which whisper to him of final triumph.

In those clouds of temporal disappointment which frequently overshadow him, marked by the failure of business enterprises, want of success in one and another undertaking, and which doom him to the lot of toil and poverty—in those clouds which stamp the seal of failure upon his mere earthly life, God sets his bow to comfort all his people. It is the promised inheritance of heaven; the recompense of the reward—the treasures which wax not old. Here is the Christian’s comfort under the reverses of earthly fortune, and the clouds soften and break while faith gazes upon the bow above them.

When life’s blackest clouds gather, in the forms of bereavement and death, there are promises enough in the covenant to gild them all. “It shall come to pass when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud.” This is God’s covenant promise to his people. And would you know how faithfully he keeps it, contemplate the experience of God’s true people intrials, when the world was dim with shadows. Call to mind your own experience, faithful one. Did you not find treasured in the promises of grace such comforts as you never knew before—a power in prayer, a drawing near to Christ, a witness of the Spirit—all producing a peace and resignation which kept you from despair?

In all this discipline of trials, God reveals his resources to his people; and in the abundant consolations provided for them, and which Christian faith appropriates, in the strength given in trials, in the clear shining of the promises athwart the clouds of adversity, they discover the beautiful significancy and the actual fulfilment of Jehovah’s pledge and token to the patriarch, that he would set his bow in the cloud, and when he should bring a cloud over the earth, the bow should be seen in the cloud.

Have you, my friend, a vital interest in that covenant of grace, which arches life’s stormiest days with the bow of peace, and contains the pledge of salvation in the future life? These blessings arecovenantblessings.They come not to us naturally, as a matter of course. They are secured only by a special stipulation—an arrangement which God has made through Jesus Christ, as a Saviour and a Mediator. They belong to us only by faith in Him who purchased them. Have you accepted the conditions of grace: repented, sought forgiveness, given your heart to God, solemnly embraced the covenant? Only by so doing can you enjoy the benefits. Only by resting under the everlasting covenant can you look up and see the bow.

Ah, you may stubbornly persist in impenitence, but you will find dark days ere long. Ere life be through, the skies will grow dark and troubled. Clouds of divine wrath will hang overhead. Clouds black as those which gloomed on Sinai’s summit, will marshal their fearful elements, and fill you with alarm. Persist in impenitence, and you will hear naught from them but thunder-voices of a violated law, and see naught but vivid flashes of retributive justice. No promises of deliverance fringe their edges with a thread of silver light; no sunshine of hope breaksbetween them to scatter them; no bright bow of safety spans the firmament, and publishes Jehovah’s pledge of reconciliation. Outside the covenant they are clouds of wrath, portending an eternal deluge of fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries of God. Fly then for refuge; fly to the shelter of the covenant. Come to Christ Jesus for salvation. Come before the storm breaks in fury. Come where you can stand and see the bow when life’s tempests sweep; when the heavens are dark; when the night of death settles.

The Smoking Furnace and Burning Lamp.

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